Why I Hate Dell

OK, so my Dell printer has been of great annoyance for quite a while. Ever since the last one got fried by the crazy electricity of Northernhay, things have not been simple. I phoned Dell got, got a new one delivered, and all that. But the last few months have been driven by a need for printer ink. After a fair bit of searching, I discovered that Dell will only let you buy printer ink directly from them. Which sucks. So, I bought a black ink cartridge, and when it arrived things were looking good.

But no.

The Dell printer wont work without a colour cartridge detected. Even tho' I have no desire to print in colour. And I can't use the old colour cartridge because, for complex reasons, I dont have it anymore.

*sigh*

So, unless someone knows of a workaround, I am gonna have to spend money on a colour ink cartidge. Which sucks.

Searching for Call of Duty

So, I dunno if you have heard, but there is this new videogame out. There has been a bit of fanfare for the new Call of Duty game, Modern Warfare 2. Seems that when you make a sequel to one of the best selling games of all time you want people to know it is coming.

"11.10.09" they chanted, confusing everyone in Britain with their Americanised date stamp, and so I looked forwards to November 10th. So when I found I had 6000 words of essay to give in on the same day I was slightly disheartened. But no problem, I thought, I shall just get my work out of the way, ahead of time.

Turns out that was not the case. Instead of running down to my local videogame retailer for the midnight launch, which I have long awaited, and running home to be one of the first people to play this game, I was stuck, my face lit by the glow of my laptop in a cold house, trying to find intelligible things to say about the 1911 National Health Insurance Act. So I missed out on being one of the first person to play.

But, don't you know, being the first to play had already been broken. Online retailers shipped the game last wednesday, so as not to lose face if customers received the game late I expect, but this meant people were already playing this game last weekend. At the same time, supermarket retailers responded by slashing their prices and selling the game at a loss. From the RRP of £55, you can find the game for as low as £25, if you are willing to sink as low as to shop at ASDA.

But I had pre-ordered this in GAME months ago, in anticipation of a midnight launch. And being the loyal customer I am, I was going to stick to my pre-order and get my double reward points, buying the game for the not unreasonable £45. So I walked into Exeter high street only to find that the GAME store had closed down! And reopened at a new location! A location they seemed to want to keep secret, giving only the toughest of riddle-esque clues as to its location. I kid you not people.

So I had to go and find the new GAME store. This led to a rather uneventful 15 minutes as I stumbled about the Princesshay shopping district, suffering from the cold and hunger, while I tried to find the new location of the Exeter branch of GAME.

But, success! I found it! I was done. There, in the front shelf for all to see, where millions of copies of Call of Duty. So I ran to the desk, and presented my pre-order receipt to the cashier. Who turned aorund, and took a mint condition copy of Call of Duty down from the shelf behind her. She scanned it, I had money in hand... and then she looked at me, and asked if I was over 18.

I was slightly startled. I have not been asked my age when buying a videogame for.... well, since I had braces and was still choosing which GCSEs to study. So I produced my university ID. And was told that just would not do. I remained calm, and logical, like Spock. I asked if she could check the birthdate on my GAME loyalty card. That would not do. Hmm... if I was Spock that Vulcan Nerve Pinch would be useful about now. I offered to show her the birthdate on my debit card. That would not do. It had to be a driving licence. Which I had left, in my drawer, at home. And so I was forced to leave GAME without Call of Duty.

Now, I can understand why they would do this. They don't want to get into trouble for selling little Timmy a videogame with some shooty bits. But I am not little Timmy. I am 6 foot 2. I hadn't shaved this morning, so have stubble under my chin. And so I left, feeling... what is that word that means the opposite of happy?

So I left, a solitary tear trickling down my eye. I gave into hunger. I had not eaten lunch yet, so I stumbled towards the nearby sandwich shop. Then I stumbled homewards, to the internet, to rage against this injustice. Thinking of how, if the world was a better place, I would be skipping home to get shot at in a computer simulation. This is all just not fair...

Corner Yogurt

Seriously, what is the point?

The first thing I do with a corner yogurt is pour the "corner" part into the yogurt part, thus voiding the corner aspect.

Still yummy.

Headaches

Why the hell is the human body so frickin' prone to getting headaches!?

On a side note, NEVER let curiosity type a benign pain into wikipedia. I am now convinced that I am going to die.

My Two Most Hated People in TV

I love television. I think that is a fair assessment. In this industry, there are a huge number of incredibly talented people making some wonderful shows, people who I wish all the best for and cannot wait to see what they do next. Sadly, not everyone in the industry is like this. Some of them are complete assholes, ruining once great, or potentially great shows. Two, especially, stick out in my mind. I hate them.

Tim Kring.

This man is an utter imbecile. The first season of Heroes was genius. It took superhero conventions,and established them in a world of normality. It was show of people struggling to find out who they truly are, as we all are, but with superpowers thrown in as a bonus. It mixed the trials of life with the extraordinary to be both relatable and exciting. It was an incredible show.

But Kring had a principle, of “writing based on the idea of what happens next, and not knowing where you’re going, intrigued by the idea of writing kind of blindly towards an ending." In some cases this is not the wrong approach. The majority of shows start production before scripts are completed. However, generally the writers and producers have some idea of what is going to happen. This way they create story arcs and can use subtle prolepsis to create a universe for their show. Kring does not do this. He stumbles around.

Kring has no respect for the audience. When he is not actively insulting them, he is making absurd statments about how the new medium of TV on demand has killed serialised dramas, a suggesting which just makes no sense. He spends long periods introducing plot lines or characters before dropping them unceremoiously, with no sense of conclusion. Heroes now has no flow, each episode mangles what went before, strangling the canon, and making, quite simply, absolutly no sense as a narrative arc. We have gone from the achingly slow season two and arrived at a rocket paced mess that makes no sense. There is no continuity. Characters are, for the third time, repeatring their stories from season one, or are being forced into uncharacteristic directions for no good reason. He has now decided that a high tempo will replace good writing.

Kring has killed Heroes. He took one of the greatest shows I have ever seen, and solidly and consistently destroyed it, hacking away at everything that was once great. For this I despise the man. I hate him.

Salvation?

Kring originally designed the cast of Heroes to be constantly changing. He intended for a completely new cast to come around frequently, introducing new stories and new threads. Instead, the Network Executives at NBC forced Kring to keep the same cast, writing stories for characters that were never intended to have multiple story arcs, and so repetition ensued. The Writers strike did not help, lobotomising everything he was building towards with season two. But, nonetheless, he has taken one of the greatest television series I have ever seen, on a constant downward spiral. I hate you Tim Kring. You have ruined Heroes.

Russell T. Davies.

This man cannot write a decent script to save his life. Every episode of Doctor Who that he has been in charge of has been gripped by his horiffic inability to write tension, plot or dialog. After seeing the public pandering to this berk, this man has an OBE, I am sickened. Every stupid cliche imaginable, with no purpose or direction. Horribly repetitive and annoying characters, in a show devoid of internal logic.

But the reason I hate him is not because Doctor Who is so often utter drivel. That could be expected. I hate him because, every now and again, Doctor Who is amazing. Talented writers such as Paul Cornell or Steven Moffat come in and produce incredible episodes, that are genuinly interesting and tense, and then we go back to more of the horrendous crap shoved at us by Russell T.

This turgid mess, advertised for months, was best exemplified in last years christmas special. That was, without a doubt, one of the worst things I have ever seen on Doctor Who. Closely followed by every Russel T. Davies penned season opener or finale. And now this man is gone, replaced, and we will just have to see, in a few years time, if someone else can do better with this show. I just wish people would stop building it up into something it isn't. It is a horrible show, with occasional grand episodes.

Salvation?

Russell is, at heart, a publicist. He was able to resurrect a TV show that had an unpopular public image, and create a huge buzz. He returned a TV icon to screen successfully, using some incredibly clever marketing. He used teased shots of re-imagined villains to create interest, and re-invented the nature of Saturday afternoon television. Mimicry is the highest form of flattery, and with shows like Merlin, Robin Hood and Primeval making the rounds, it is clear that Davies had been hugely successful at what he set out to do. And I have been spoiled. A few good episodes, and suddenly, I am expecting gold from a mildly distracting show written as kitsch nonsense for children at Saturday teatime. Maybe he should be forgiven. But he isn't.

Fun in Area 51

Today, I started playing Area 51. This particular videogame was made free to download, so I figured, 'what the heck'. After spending the quick tutorial making sure I could crouch with C, as should be law, and didn't need to use ctrl, (double-ctrl opens google toolbar for some crappy reason, and if ctrl is melee, and you are being attacked by zombie-mutant-monsters,and you panic and bash ctrl, then the game crashes to desktop so you can use google - that is not good.), I found it to be a good game. It runs well, has a decent story, very cinematic. The teammate AI is a bit simplistic, and they insist on running in your line of fire, but that idiocy reminds me of TF2. I was having fun.

Then this bit pissed me off. You are told to go "SCAN THE COMPUTER" for intel on delta squad, who are missing as delta squads all around the world are want to do. So I go to the computer and use my scanner. YOUR CHARACTER IS THE SCANNER GUY. This is very important, you have a special scanner on your arm, much like Cortez in Timesplitters, but more important. Your role in the team is the scanner-guy. You have a whole tutorial on the scanner. This is not the first time I have been told to scan something. So I go and scan the computer. I doesn't work, it just scans the air, (mostly nitrogen) so I try again. And again. And again. From different angles - I crouch below, jump on top, try from near, try from far, NOTHING WORKS! So I get pissed, and go to gamefaqs. This always makes me feel cheap, using the internet for answers when I am lost. They tell me to run back to the start of the level and explore a room that was on fire, search the body of a dead scientist for a keycard, return to where I was, achieve a crappy jumping puzzle for another keycard, open a double key carded room, get ambused by more zombie-mutant-monsters, fend then off with limited ammo, and get the shotgun. Whoop. I have a shotgun. But that does not help me SCAN THE COMPUTER!

ARGGH!

Turns out, that in this game, USE is not E, it is Tab. Tab to use iten? Huh? And you are not supposed to "scan" the computer, even though this instruction is repeated every 30 seconds in those excact words, you are supposed to USE the computer to get the intel.

I just wasted 30mins on the second level where I was supposed to go over to a PC and press USE.

Number 7

The number 7 is broken on my mobile. Well, not so much broken, as in the process of break-ing. It is slowly becoming less and less responsive. This makes texting, or dialling, very difficult, as the number 7 also functions as the letters P, Q, R and the all important S.

That means, that if I were texting this entry, I would have been forced to stop, scream, and angrily prod my phone...

44 times.

That is a lot - enough to be a serious hinderence.

La Revolution.

Why must I always post 6 times a month? It never was a concious decision, it just sort of happened. I just cannot break the cycle. This is why I am hurridly typing this now.

It is a curse.

But I guess it could be worse. Being cursed to be the only sane person who does not think that Doctor Who is the hilghlisht of post-renaissance culture, but is infact a very unreliable sideshow in mainstream television, that would suck.

Luckily there are others of my kind. We are force to hide by a totalitarian regime, dictated by the close ties between government and the media, in the form of this TV Licence, that completely undermines free speech!

When you realise how much you have to pay to watch the BBC it really pisses you off that they cannot afford international football.

Viva la Revolution!

Scarf Sizes

It was not until I attempyed to buy a scarf that I realised how horibbly wrong the wrong scarf size choice can be. It took me about half-an-hour.

Good thing I was only buying a plain black one. Colours are a whole different problem.

Belt Sizes

Why is it that, no matter how hard I look, I have never found a belt with the perfect holes that suit me. Either I have to cope with an uncomfortably tight fourth hole lifestyle, or my jeans are just a bit too lose on the third.

Walking.

What are you meant to do when you are behind a group of people who are walking only slightly slower than you, but you still want to overtake? I refused to ignore the situation, and decided to overtake them by walking in the road. A car quickly put a stop to this plan. If this had been the cause for my death, that one car that quickly came and chased me back onto the pavement, I would have been pissed. Luckily I was saved from one of the most pointless deaths ever, by giving up, and slotting back in behind the only slightly slower group.

True story.

Driving Theory Test

To cut a long story short, I passed with flying colours.

Now for the long story. I have, in the last month or so, started to have a go at learning to drive. The stuff that I thought would be hard, not hitting other cars for example, is easy. The stuff that is hard is the stuff that looked easy. Stopping in the right place at traffic lights for example, without braking in too judderish a fashion, and being able to move off at the right time, without stalling. That looked easy when my Dad did it.

Anyhoo, the sensible thing to do seemed to be to get the driving theory out of the way, and then focus on the lessons once I was done with that. So I spent the flight home looking over the highway code, and the few days since I got back looking at the past questions, in order to be ready for this exam.

But I was depressed. The hazard perception section of the test is one of the worst point-and-click reaction tests ever designed. It does not function properly, and I knew it would make me fail. That was not a good confidence boost.

So anyway, tearing my hair out, I sat on the tube and went all the way out to Uxbridge, where the testing centre is. I passed Wembley stadium on the way, which is one of my favourite buildings ever. While on the tube I looked over past questions, and this is the most important bit of the revision. Those past questions saved me!

So I got there, and it was cold. I found my way to the testing centre without getting lost, which I think is a grand achievement. I went in, waited in a line, and was sent to a computer, where they used a touch screen to get me to answer multiple choice questions. Now, you get given a lot of time, so I took it slow. This was a good decision.

The hazard perception part sucked. But I passed. The belief that saved me was, "if in doubt, click."

The I filled in a questionnaire pleasantly, for good luck, and was given my results. The first words were "congratulations", and that was all I needed. And so I got myself a burger and a magazine and was happy. Now all I can do is pray that my new found success carries on into my A-Level results.

Gulp.

Blog Format

It is quite annoying that the format of my own blog bunches my own posts into a small horizontal space, making them appear off-puttingly long.

Summer Rain

Does the weather actually pay the slightest attention to what time of year it is?

Yes, it does. That is a stupid question. But nonetheless, it is incredibly annoying to be on my summer holidays and for it to rain 'most everyday.

Hancock - Preview

I am off to see Hancock in a few days time, and I am quite excited. Ever since I first saw the trailer this has looked like it will be a fun film. Will Smith with superpowers, with cool effects. That should be fun.

Deliberately, I have tried to avoid film reviews. This is because I am very impressionable. If everyone tells me something is awesome, when I check it out, I stand a better chance of liking it. If I hear something is not so good, that puts me in a bad state of mind. So I have avoided Hacock reviews like the plauge.

Big problem. Every person who I mention Hancock to responds: "Oh. That got some bad reviews, didn't it?"

And thus my plan to form my own opinion is already failing.

Dr Who

Oh well. The time of year has come again. Dr - bleeding – Who.

This has got to be one of the most overrated television shows ever. Every year we get months of build up, people filled with adoration for Russell T Davis. The Christmas episode was useless, but the last season was not too bad. Sure, there have been mistakes, but there are a lot of shows that I put up with that have dud episodes.

I am not going to review this new episode, which was turgid and boring, and which is as formulaic the old ones, but not as terrible as I had feared. Instead I have a few points on Dr Who that I would like to point out in general.

1. The award for the most overused plot device ever - the Sonic Screwdriver. Every single tight situation where cunning might be useful, and they switch to the screwdriver. (Incidentally the best aspect of the Doctor's personality is his cunning.) Any part of the plot that doesn't add up? Use the Screwdriver to get out of it. It's painful. It’s lazy. And they seem to be pleased with themselves evertime they think of it.

2. I understand that this show needs to appeal to all age-ranges, but that does not mean make it suitable for the lowest possible age range, and mass market it to "families", meaning adults will feel it is acceptable to watch. Toy story - good for all ages. The Simpsons - good for all ages. Dr Who is most often (see 3) written by three years olds, by three year olds. Mass appeal does not make lazy writing necessary, it just, sadly, seems to make it acceptable.

3. This is the exception that I need to write about. The one good point. Anyone who wants to see what Dr Who could be like, go and watch the episode from last series, Blink. Steven Moffat, you are the greatest scriptwriter the BBC can call on, you saved Dr Who, and actually made it into a brilliant piece of Science Fiction. You actually proved what Dr Who can be. For that I am eternally grateful, and really pissed off at Russell T Davis for not doing a better job. This has been referred to as a Dr Who-lite episode, according to Wikipedia, because the Doctor is barely in it. This is why it rules! The Doctor is allowed to use his ingenuity off-screen to help our heroes, and it uses time as a mechanism for his brilliance. This is the only point I have in favour of the Doctor. I have seen one episode that proved how good it can be. And it really is good.

4. Average CGI does not impress me. Even awesome CGI alone does not necessarily impress me. CGI is a means to an end. Just throwing it at me and hoping that I, as a viewer, can make something of it is not a good production strategy. Get over yourselves, and use that larger-than-average effects budget in a way that does not dramatically disengage me form the action.

5. This is the most important point of all, but one that is almost always overlooked. He is a time-lord! He can travel in time! WHY DOESN'T HE THEN!?! Almost all episodes could be easily solved if he arrived on earth a few days before he did! Usually, this would have saved lives! He picks the date of his arrival! He picks the time! So why does he choose to arrive late? Sometimes the Tardis makes a mistake, and this drops him into a tricky situation, or sometimes he doesn’t know what he is dealing with until too late, and yes, they do need tricky situations so as to make a TV show. But most of the time he can simply go back in time and set up supplies or mechanisms to help him out. Why ignore time travel as a mechanism for the plot, and just fall back on the "stupid alien & screwdriver" mechanic? I am not suggesting replacing one Deus Ex Machina with another, but at least vary it a bit. Why ignore the best possibility of the Doctor?

In conclusion, Dr Who is almost always overhyped, is almost always badly acted, is almost always badly scripted and is almost always badly produced. Almost always it is a waste of time, money and effort. But every now and again, the potential for the Doctor shines though, and in those moments you know that what you do have is special. Here’s hoping we get one of those again.

Hidden Mobile Phones

I was in an awkward situation today. There I am standing on a crowded bus, and this large, middle-aged bloke suddenly yelled into my face if I wanted to "ave a beer this even'n".

I responded that I had a prior engagement, politely turning him down, only for him to give me a threatening look. He followed this up with an, even louder, "Are you bein' funny?!"

It was at this stage that I realised he was yelling into one of those headsets that people use, connected to their modile phones, and then sureptitiously tucked into their collars. It appears that he was not adressing me. I was, of course relived, and slightly embarassed. This embarassment was made worse by the fact that I was stuck less than a foot away from him for the next half hour.

Umbrellas - Round 2

Just found the perfect argument concerning umbrellas, so i'm gonna to link it here.

It is one of the older entries in John Walker's blog, which I discovered by accident.
http://botherer.cream.org/?p=209

"The moment the tiniest droplet of rain is titrated from a cloud, up swoosh these ridiculously huge, and hugely dangerous weapons, endangering anyone who has managed the self-awareness to recognise that they are waterproof. Dodging the genuinely harmful metal spikes that begin spinning down all sides of the streets is like something from a Tomb Raider game, except without the medpacks and calming slaughter of endangered species. If someone were weilding anything else of that size and lethality, they would be immediately arrested."

Umbrellas

Today it rained. Not that heavily, just a small shower. Nothing special.

But there is one thing I hate about the rain; it makes people put up their umbrellas, and they are prone to being inconsiderate with them. I am quite tall. Many umbrella-wielders are short. Their umbrellas hit me in the head. This hurts.

So please people. Take care with unbrellas.

Technology

We, as a species, have made some great inventions and discoveries over our brief time on this planet. The written word, antibiotics and standing on our hind legs all come to mind. But we have also made some real big mistakes. One of the biggest comes from our arrogance and self-importance. It is the invention that I hate. It actually makes me physically sick. It is the Automatic Door.

Automatic doors seemed like such a good idea, as anyone who has ever watched Star Trek will testify. They open - for you! They sense your presence, and they should be just so cool!

But this is wrong. This is wrong because the automatic door never works properly. They are always broken, opening when they shouldn't because of a strong breeze, or remaining closed while you stand infront of them. They just dont work.

This is even more annoying to me, because the door is the perfect invention. I dont want to simplify this; doors have evolved over time, with the intoduction of hinges, pivots and door-frames. During the renaissance, doors began to be used for effect, creating ambience in a room. Doors have, over the centuries, evolved. But the electronic door is a monstrosity.

Opening a door requiers minimal effort. Attempting to force my way through a broken automatic door requiers more effort. They dont work. They are allways broken.

Inventions do need to evolve. Take, for example, the simlest invention: The Wheel. The wheel has grown up. One wheel can give you a wheelbarrow, or a unicycle. Combining a wheel with another gives you stability, combining it with a combustion engine allows you to travel faster, combining it with brakes allows you to stop, combining it with suspension gives you a better ride. The wheel has evolved, so far as to to the point of introducing tyres and tyre pressure, one of the most complicated sciences imaginable. It led the way to a whole new batch of inventors and inventions.

The door didn't. It could be adapted, used in new ways and perfected. But it didn't need this radical overhall, it didn't need to become something new. It is what it is, and I prefer what it is.

Inventions change. Things evolve over time. But sometimes this is not a good thing. Sometimes it is. The automatic door is not yet perfect, and until it is, I will hate it. Does this make me a bad person?