While looking for "The Power of Lard" online, I ran across one of those classic songs. You know those old songs you know you've heard but never really listened to? It was one of those. Then I got on one of my kicks where I had to download a bunch of songs. These were all classic songs, those ones that you know the melody to but not the actual song. I got a bunch of them. It's really surprising that I've been missing out on all these great songs for so long.

It was like discovering Rush all over again. Except that it was a bunch of cool songs by different artists rather than a bunch of cool songs by the same artist. By the way, if you haven't heard Rush, just go out and buy Different Stages. It's three live albums in one, and believe me, you want to hear Rush performing live. They're incredible.

Of course, for me, songs like S.O.D's "Kill Yourself" are classics. I also got the entire The Beatles' white album, which I like better than Sgt Pepper. I got stuff by Prince, The Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, etc. When I start making real money I can start buying the CDs for this stuff (MP3s often sound like crap now that any monkey can make and distribute them), but until then I'll have to make do with downloading them.

Most Rush MP3s I've gotten sound terrible. I had to rip my own off the CDs I bought. Not having a stereo anymore (it broke), MP3 is the best way for me to listen to music. Artists should sell their albums in MP3 format on their websites for about $2. They'd probably make more money off of it, since most of the money for CD sales goes to the stores, labels, and RIAA. Some artists don't even see any of the money from sales. The best way to support them is by going to the concerts (as you may know, I went to see Rush in concert, and it was great).

I guess even if they sold the albums straight off their website, the labels would still get the bulk of the money. Artists are slaves.

Being the idiot I am, I turned off my computer without bothering to check for anything that might need saving beforehand... like today's post. I was midway through bitching about something. Well, I guess I can start bitching anew.

I tried out the new Battlefield 1942 multi-player demo (however new it is, I'm not sure), and it is very cool so far. There is one major complaint I have against it, and against several other games I've noticed like this. It doesn't have "Turn Left" or "Turn Right". They're just not there. You have to use the mouse to turn. I don't know about the rest of the world, but I consider it a problem if I have to pick up my mouse to work a program.

It's not just Battlefield 1942, either. I've noticed other games doing it. Ultima 9 was my first experience with it, but then also Giants: Citizen Kabuto, Grand Theft Auto 3, and Oni (which had the option, you just had to manually edit the config). With Battlefield and GTA3, you can turn left and turn right with the keyboard when operating a vehicle, but you do spend a considerable amount of time outside the vehicle in both games (moreso in Battlefield).

Now, what's so hard about putting the ability to turn from the keyboard into a game? Why do I have to use a mouse to turn? Are mouse companies behind this? As far back as I can remember, first-person perspective games have used the keyboard for turning either way. Considering that, for me, it goes back to Ultima 5, I don't see how it can be so problematic. It's just turning.

Origin had to eventually put keyboard turning into Ultima 9, but it was too slow to be of any use, and I promptly stopped playing the game. Since then, I've had this policy of not buying any game I didn't play first, and not buying any game that doesn't let me setup the controls however the fuck I want. As such, as great of a game Battlefield 1942 is, I won't be buying it unless they add the ability to turn using the keyboard.

No links today. I'm angry.

One of the great things about piracy is you don't have to deal with Microsoft licensing. It's really getting out-of-hand. What's this they want me to do? Upgrade to a new operating system every year? That's what it sounds like. I think they're actually aiming for every nine months, coincidentally the length of the average successful pregnancy. They're working it into the licensing, where the license on your operating system actually expires after some time, and then you can't renew or get another license for it, so you have to upgrade. It's not there yet, but it will be soon.

Here's where piracy comes in. If you pirate Microsoft software, you don't have to worry about the license expiring, because you don't have one in the first place. You haven't bought anything from Microsoft, so they can't audit you. Thanks to anti-spyware programs, Microsoft can't just have your Internet Explorer give them all your information when it checks for new versions. As long as you're hacking it anyway, you may as well get one of those replacement shells, so you don't have to deal with Explorer crashing, and put in all those missing VXD files. Essentially, you can hack it up to make it work better.

With a new operating system every year, Microsoft OS compatibility is becoming problematic. That's where Linux comes in. The Linux community is trying to get all organized now, so there won't be all these conflicts among distributions. Compiling the source yourself requires open-source software (which is probably good anyway), and a bit of annoyance in the actual compilation department. Well, one of these days someone is going to make even that easy. If someone wrote a program that would do all that shit for you, they'd either make some good money, or make everyone else look stupid because it's just a script that the distributions should have included any damn way.

Picking a Linux distribution is hard, because everyone insists that a different version than the one you're using is the best. I say, install one, and if that one works for you, keep it, otherwise try a different one. One of them is bound to be somewhat what you're looking for. You can download them all for free, too, so you don't have to worry about money, just really annoying file servers. More and more people are switching over to Linux, making their systems dual-boot. Dual-booting is good, and I recommend everyone use it. I have a quad-boot system (FreeDOS, Win98SE, Win2k, Mandrake Linux 8.2). It's tricky setting it up, you have to install them in that order. But it's worth it.

I have this policy about not pirating software I would buy. However, sometimes I want to learn to use programs I can't afford, and my money only goes toward good software, thus promoting good software. I paid for my Redhat 6.2. I'm still researching into what Linux distribution I want to use at home, though.

The best thing about going with Linux is you don't have to deal with Microsoft licensing. Mac's another alternative, but I'm a computer geek.

I don't know. I just figured some people might be amused by this.

Every time I hear that song (unrelated to last sentence), I think of End of Evangelion. I don't know why.

I watched the movie Memento last night. Damn good movie. It kinda freaked me out a bit, though, watching this guy who keeps losing his memory deal with his problem, and noticing that I do a lot of that stuff myself. I don't write notes on myself or take pictures of people to remember them, but I do leave notes for myself everywhere, because I know I'll forget. When he asks for directions, he says "I need to write this down." The guy responds "No, it's easy, you just..." To which he replies "Trust me, I need to write this down." So would I.

My short-term memory loss isn't anywhere near as much of a problem. The memories are there, I just have trouble recalling them. I have taken a few tips from the guy, though. He was well-organized, and some of the stuff he did to make up for his memory loss would really help me out. I generally remember when it's too late. Even before I heard about the movie, I was telling my many bosses at work that if they don't talk to me at my desk, I'm not going to be able to tell them what I've done so far, or what I need to do, as I keep a log of those things in a text file on my desktop. I should have a daily journal that I carry around for when I'm not at work.

A very small digital camera that doesn't have problems with motion blur or lighting (as my current digital camera does) would be very nice, as well. I have a digital voice recorder, but I would never record a conversation with someone for the sole reason that I'd never go back and listen to it. It's rare that an entire conversation can't be summed up in 3-4 sentences. Summaries are good for people like me. I hate it when people go into excessive detail. This one guy at my work will recall entire conversations, and repeat them to you, even though they don't have anything to do with his ultimate point. I hate that.

A photographic memory would be nice. Some poeple think that means you can remember images. It's a little stronger than that. Some people also think that thought cannot exist without words, yet are hard-pressed to come up with a definition of simple words like "chair". Not to digress too much, but in an episode of Babylon 5, a guy asks which came first, the word or the thought, claiming that thought cannot exist without the word. I guess he wasn't a conceptual thinker. I am. Even then, he's still wrong.

I think it all comes back to my insomnia. That's another story.

I'm not a person who normally enjoys poetry, especially poetry about love, but when someone writes something intelligent, format no longer matters. Erik Burns wrote a poem called Love, or the Idea of Being in Love. I first heard the line in a Pink Floyd song, titled One Slip, which had excellent lyrics if you devote a few brain cells to understanding them. It even has a moral.

Back to the topic of the poem, I think it has a good point. The guy actually makes the determination between infatuation and romantic love, and manages to remain friends with this girl. This is a feat most people cannot (why is this a word?) seem to accomplish. In my time in high school, I wrote off every emotion I felt in regards to the opposite sex as either infatuation or lust. Well, there was one girl I felt for more than just that, I know, but she was engaged, so it wasn't something I pursued.

Short of the factor of sex, I can't really figure out the difference between platonic and romantic love. Funny thing, I looked it up over at Webster, and according to them, romantic means "having no basis in fact" and "impractical in conception or plan". Sounds pretty accurate to me. But truly, how else do you draw the line between the two? Once you've factored out sex and the possibility of sex, what else do you have? Think about it. People only fall in love with those of their sexual preference. If two guys fall in love, they're considered homosexual, and chances are, they are, indeed, homosexual. Take away the sex, and they could have exactly the same relationship, but wouldn't you consider it platonic love?

Never having been in love, I don't really feel I can comment on it past that. Anyone who is in love, though, think about this. If your partner somehow just changed gender one day, a la Tenshi na Konamaiki style, would you still feel the same about them? Can romantic love transcend sexual preference, or am I right in my idea that romance is based on sex and the possibility of sex.

Maybe I just need to get laid is all.

Sometimes I think I make better posts on NVAA's forum than I make on here. This is what I posted there previous to my last post here.

Wow did I not take a lot of pictures. I stopped carrying my camera around after a while. It wasn't for lack of people to take pictures of, it was for lack of time to get people to stop. I probably should've just patroled the areas where people stop every now and then and interrupted peoples' conversations to get pictures, but I always feel like I'm being rude when I do that.

I saw a bunch of people at the con. Some people I hadn't seen in a very long time. Some people I hadn't seen in like, two weeks. I didn't meet very many new people. I met a cat-girl named Marcel (may be spelled wrong, but that's what it sounded like). I also met a Selphie cosplayer, who had the cutest argument with her friend, who she also sang a song with for me and two other people. It's times like that I wish I had a video camera. I'm probably going to go ahead and buy one before Katsucon. I also really wanted one every time I visited the video games room (not to sound sexist/perverted, but some girls just look so damn good doing DDR). Then, I also met some friends of some friends who I kind of remember but not really. Adrian was a lot easier to recognize when she was dressed up as a Weiss Kreuz character.

I think the Uno's pizza made me sick. I was up till 3:00am trying not to vomit. Then the alarm went off at 6:00am. And 6:30am (it's a dual-alarm system). Then someone else's alarm went off a few minutes later, and wouldn't shut off, so I had to call the front desk to get them to turn it off. It must have been so loud for me to be able to hear it. Those bastards at the Sheraton should turn those off when people check-out. The tip I left this time was a written one that I gave to the manager (the ill-preparation of my room really got on my nerves, and I got really tired of calling the front desk telling them I still need a do-not-disturb sign, and when they changed the key-config on my door at 11:00pm for no reason, that wasn't fun either). I'm not staying at the Sheraton next year. Did anyone have problems with their AC at the Hyatt?

I didn't do a lot of anime-watching, which is kind of ironic. I saw Outlaw Star, the intro sequence of two really gay (gay as in Elton John's "Captain Fantastic" album cover) shows I forgot the names of, and the first two episodes of Neighborhood Story (had to leave because I was falling asleep). The coolest show I saw was Megatokyo Late Night, and the concert on Sunday by... someone, was pretty cool. I meant to watch the Escaflowne movie, but missed it. The clacking of the projector was annoying, but I think I could've beared it for that movie in 35mm. I saw five minutes of "Fallen Angel" before walking out. I also wanted to see fan parodies, but missed those, too. Otaku no Video was way too crowded.

Did you get your free english Newtype? I didn't see any wallscrolls I wanted, so all I bought was a bamboo practice sword, and a long-sleeve T-shirt (they were sold out of short sleeves, but I ended up liking the long-sleeve shirt better anyway).

How was your Otakon 2002 experience?