Shouting Grounds

yay!

Jesus Christ already. “Wiggle wiggle wiggle, yeah”

yay! It’s been a long time since I posted, so I figured this would be a good post to get back on the wagon with.

It was pretty badass to run through the Soldier Field concourse and through the actual gate that the Bears use on gameday, onto the grass and out to the 50.The adrenaline rush was unparalleled.

And with that, I’m buttoning up my distance running for the summer. I still plan to run for fitness and such, but no more training for long distance this year. Gonna focus on other things.

again…yay!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

Foreclosure isn’t that funny. Imagine, if you will, that you rent and you pay everything on time, but your landlord’s a deadbeat. Well, that just means that you lose. Fucking weak.

Here’s the kicker:

When he confronted the landlord, he says, he was given a terse response: “That’s none of your business.”

“I said, ‘I beg your pardon. It is my business. I mean, is somebody going to knock at the door and throw me out — throw my family out, or what?’ ” he said.

This is crazy shit here. I don’t know why they don’t just roll this shit out to the public, or at least soldiers coming back from Iraq/Afghanistan. Why even bother testing on monkey’s at all. I guess there’s a threat that the arm could flail about wildly and gouge out a eye or two, but I think people would be ready and willing to take that risk. Now, if that monkey could remove a bra with one cold, mechanical meat hook, then we’d be in business. That, or auto-erotically asphyxiate itself, INXS style. I’m sure that was next on the test agenda.

I’ve installed the update and had no issues booting up so far. I did notice that a few Calendar synchronization windows came up, but I believe this is because they revamped the iCal synch procedure. All the iCal appointments are correct after the sync. VMWare Fusion 2.0 Beta is running fine right now. It’s even allowing me to do odd stuff that I haven’t tested yet, like interact with the Sony Reader.

The update is a 400MB+ download that affects iCal, Time Machine, AirPort, Spaces and General OS X features. A full list of changes is available from Apple.

I’ll keep you posted. Obviously this blog post is masturbatory since I’m the only Mac user. Sue me.

If anyone has thought about calling Microsoft for help, you might as well staple your dick (or cunt) to your forehead, then do a back bend. I was just told by a supervisor at Microsoft XBox support that I had two options when dealing with my latest xbox 360 problem, I could either pay them over $100 to fix it or hang-up the phone.

According to her, there are no other authority figures that you can speak to once you’ve spoken to her. She only has a first name (Crystal) but no last name and no employee number. They all have email addresses, but they will not give them out. Every time you call about an issue you are treated like you had never called before. If their representatives don’t keep accurate records on your account then that’s your problem, not theirs. If you have one problem they will replace your system for up to three years, another (possibly more serious) problem and you have to pay for the repairs. You basically have two options. You can either pay or hang-up. They will refuse to help you nor care about the time and money they’ve taken from you because they are unable to take responsibility for their actions. There’s no accountability because the person you deal with is interchangeable and no empathy because all responses are scripted. Microsoft is truly the worst company I have ever personally dealt with and I will NEVER pay them another dime and I vow to dedicate all remaining effort to discourage ANYONE else from purchasing their products or services.

I just bought an N64 from a garage sale for $5. It came with Golden Eye and two controllers. It was very poorly kept and seemed to have grass and dirt inside the console. The cartridge slot was not in good shape either. Guess what….the fucking system works perfectly. My Dreamcast, which I bought back in 1999, works perfectly. My Saturn, which I bought second hand around the same time, works perfectly. My Nintendo from 1986, WORKS FUCKING PERFECTLY!!!

I’ve had 4 Xbox 360’s since 2006, and guess what….they are ALL FUCKED!!!!! Now the latest problem is that the system is chewing up my game discs!! hahahaha, fucking awesome. Not only does the system lock up in the middle while playing but it’s chewing up my $60 games, making them useless coasters, isn’t that fucking sweet!!! Thanks Microsoft!! That’s great to know that this problem-that’s costing me more money as time rolls by-is NOT covered by my warranty. Thanks Crystal, for being a useless, stonewalling CUNT! My hats off to you! There are so many more important problems in the world but I can’t avoid being insanely pissed off by such a large company SHITTING on people who shell out good money to support their products.

It is with this I leave you with my final solution. I will be filming the destruction of my Xbox 360 Pro system. I will crush the fucking thing on film then proceed to piss all over it. If you’re all lucky I will also take a huge muddy shit on it’s fractured husk. Fuck! That’s what I should have done the moment I bought it, because that would have saved me thousands of dollars in games, accessories, and online purchases. Would have been the smartest thing I could have done after having bought the thing at Circuit City.

I leave you with a trip down “Fucked by Microsoft Lane” buffeted by photo highlights of the life and death of my xbox 360’s. Fuck em all!

UPDATE

If you visit the website referenced in the support document image above you get this fucking bullshit…

UPDATE 2

Everything left that works is going out the door.

eBay Auction

WARNING - Though it sounds at the beginning of the video that the amplitude of the recording will surely blow your fucking ears in, it’s, in reality, just a poor compression on the video. It will play at a reasonable level when it does get started. NO NOT FEAR!

I am totally fucking excited to see this come out. First the DS-10 virtual synth from Korg, then this home brew sample scratcher. Awesome! Definitely check out that video.

The interface reminds me of a mini-version of the JazzMutant Lemur or Dexter. So as long as you can overcome the smaller screen realestate, you can have a similar touch-based music interface box, though it’s not multi-touch, and probably not very customizable. So scratch that (pun intended), I guess the only real comparison between this and the JazzMutant offerings is they both deal with music controls and both sport similar-looking interfaces. Still very exciting.

Original project web page

UPDATE

After doing a bit more research on this project, it seems that there’s more here than meets the eye! Along with the scratching and loop triggering, there’s MIDI output via the Nintendo DS’s wifi radio, as well as the ability to utilize the DS’s built-in microphone to live-record audio clips for use in the software! Shit, if I had this little thing on the train, I’d probably miss my stops, for fuck’s sake!

Fucking Awsome

Sorry for the repeat post, I just realized that this post was sitting there unpublished to the world. We all would surely miss it, should it not be searchable and available to all visitors.

I hope someone finally roasts this fat-ass, criminal, shit-burger on the grill. He’s basically had his attorney send in polite little refusals to appear, even stating that he would reply to the inquiry via written letters, but while he would like the benefit of being able to take the time to trick-fuck congress with his pen, it looks like he’s finally going to appear before the House Judiciary Committee and be forced to explain his many crimes.

Turning the Department of Justice into a political engine to move all of the administrations criminal acts underground while suppressing rational and dissenting views through firings or transfers, as well as eviscerating former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman through trumped up charges and what can only be viewed as a complete corruption of the entire judicial, legislatorial, and executive body of that state, are just a few of the actions that Rove must account for. Conyers himself is excited (and rightfully so) to prosecute this jagoff to the fullest extent of his authorityl stating recently that they needed to “kick Rove’s ass”.

Tough times in South Africa these days. As food prices go up, there’s going to be a lot more misery in the world.

The Brazen Bull may have a contender for “worst way to be killed”:

The country has also seen a disturbing throwback to the 1980s apartheid-era lynching tactic of “necklacing,” which was widely used in the townships at the time.

Used on suspected informants, the “necklace” is a car tire, filled with petrol, put around the person’s neck and set alight.

If the description doesn’t do it for ya, images.google.com “necklacing” and prepare to be horrified. It’s amazing and sad what horrors people will bring on each other.

In leu of the utterly fascinating David Lynch videos related to our man’s panty diet, I thought this one also deserved a mention. Pretty fucking brutal. lol

Jesus. Who gives a shit at this point? Even if you like the franchise you HAVE to be getting tired of a new game/controller coming out every couple of months. This isn’t like a Madden or a 2K sports series here. To me, it’s the equivalent of 3-4 versions of DDR coming out within 2 years and each one would offer up another version of the dance pad, then you end up with goddamn different dance pads all over the joint. Cool it with the fucking hardware.

I also understand that Guitar Hero IV will have a drum controller, again blurring the line between Guitar Hero and Rock Band. I think anyone who bought into the Rock Band package will be pissed to see another, more superior, fake-ass drum set available after shelling out 160 bucks for the original bundle.

In the end all this will do is add another useless husk to a boneyard of music-themed videogame accessories. Sort of like having a collection of U-Forces. Harmonix has a killer sales model with an initial controller then a library of micro-transactions for additional songs. I’m not sure that releasing controller after controller will continue to be effective.