Steam

2004.11.15

Yesterday morning I signed up with Steam, Valve's online game distribution software. The process was completely painless, and after leaving my computer running all day yesterday, Half-Life 2 is now sitting on my machine, patiently awaiting Valve's glorious activation code.

I can understand why big game publishers are nervous about a system like Steam, and why Vivendi Universal decided to take Valve to court over the issue. I'm not really sure where that stands, and I don't care. All I know is I'd much rather give my money directly to the people who make the games, rather than fork most of it over to some big company that does nothing but bombard me with advertising and pay for making CDs and pretty boxes. With broadband internet connections being what they are, there's no good reason to buy software at a store anymore. It can all simply be downloaded.

I just have to be careful not to expect to pay less money. Even with all of those manufacturing costs eliminated, companies will still charge full price for the software whether you download it or not. What's important here is where the money is going, not how much you've spent.

Awesome!

2004.11.11

This site is pure concentrated awesomeness!

www.fuckthesouth.com

Also, it's Remembrance Day today, so please do something to honour it and everything it stands for. I have to work, so I'll be saving it for later.

Incredibles

2004.11.09

Well, Pixar's still batting 1.000. Their latest film, The Incredibles, is obviously amazing. Personally, I think it's one of their best, along with the Toy Story films. Certainly better than Finding Nemo or Monsters Inc, and that's saying something.

Only one more film to go until Pixar is out of bed with Disney, and as far as I'm concerned, has their gloves off for the first time. I'm not sure what we'll see from them, but there have been plenty of rumours. A Miyazaki directed Pixar film perhaps? We can only hope.

DVD Television

2004.11.05

Watching television shows on DVD is such a good experience, I don't plan on ever subscribing to cable. I mean really, you can pick when you watch and for how long, there are no commercials, and the sound and picture quality is infinitely better. What's not to like? The only things I would miss from actual, real television would be occasionally watching the news, and of course hockey games.

Having to be home and in front of the TV at a certain time to watch something? Ugh! It's such a disgusting idea!

Space Odyssey

2004.11.04

The BBC is awesome. I mean seriously, they continuously put out absolutely excellent documentary and docudrama series, and because they actually spend money on them, people find them entertaining and informative. Here in North America, combining entertainment and education is almost a cultural taboo, and certainly not something that a big name television network is going to throw money at. It's probably why all of the interesting documentary programs come from other countries, while all we can produce are shows like "American Justice" and "Cold Case Files".

Check out the trailer on this page for Space Odyssey, an extremely awesome looking show about a fictional manned mission around the solar system. Just like the "Walking with" series of shows, this one features top notch, well, everything. Fully orchestrated and original music. Professional, non-gimmicky narrators. Top of the line visual effects work. They even filmed some zero gravity scenes during a parabolic airplane flight in Russia. How cool is that?

American entertainment sucks.

Bush...again

2004.11.03

Oh well, too bad. I'm not so concerned about Bush winning again as I am with what seems to be a shift towards the conservative in America overall. Maybe conservative is the wrong word, but it seems like the church and the state are becoming even more intertwined than ten or fifteen years ago. Maybe it's just a hiccup, and maybe not. If not, the next four years are going to be the least of our problems.

Predictions for Bush's next term:

We'll see a 90 cent Canadian dollar as the US economy continues its downward spiral, especially once the reality of their trillion dollar deficit kicks in.

I'd say it's going to be at least another two years before the US can even think about getting out of Iraq. How this affects Americans at home will be one of the big tests for Bush.

Iran will continue to edge closer and closer to nuclear technology. They'll either try to build a power plant or a bomb, but in either case, Israel will use military force to strike this facility before it is completed. They did it to Iraq, and they'll do it again. Israel will not tolerate any Islamic state that possesses nuclear capability in any way. We're all fucked if this happens.

At least we aren't living in boring times.

Election

2004.11.02

So today is the big day in the US. I don't expect we'll find out who the next president will be today, or tonight, unless of course Bush wins in a landslide. We'll see.

I finally got my internet connection working again after a couple of weeks. Turns out my ADSL modem decided to kick the bucket after five years, which I suppose is a pretty good lifespan for what I assume is a very cheap piece of equipment. Telus was hard to deal with however. Their customer service people are great on the phone, but as soon as they have to come to your home to do some work, it's like pulling teeth. "Please be home between 3500 BC and 2357 AD and a Telus technician will visit your home". Well it turns out that they didn't come the first day, or the second. Finally, after several schedule changes, the guy shows up and swaps the modem. At least it works now.

Huge month for gaming. Metroid Prime 2, Half-Life 2, and a bunch of other stuff I'm not going to have time for. I'm planning on signing up with Steam to get Half-Life, so it will get delivered to me online. Looks like a pretty good deal, and I like the idea of not going to a store to buy things. We'll see how it goes.