Top 10 theme songs for an angry broken heart.

 Diary  4 Responses »
Mar 042009
 
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It’s high time I blog something personal again for a change. I didn’t mention this before because of the kongoni release and I wanted the blog to be focused on that for a while, but if you don’t know yet – I’m in the middle of a divorce.
I am at this stage going through a series of very fluctuant emotions jumping from relief, through anger to sadness and everything in between on a regular basis.

What helped me through this was two things. Firstly the unwavering support of my friends – without your hugs I would be dead now guys, all of you – you know who you are. Secondly the true symbol of being single again: being able to crank up whatever music you want as loud as you want and not care about bothering anybody and letting it help you channel your emotions somewhere useful.
So today’s blog: the top ten songs that helped me survive (mostly be reminding me why I should be angry).

  1. You give love a bad name: The bon jovi original works, the Atreyu death metal cover works better.
  2. Tainted love: Manson version, the rest are just not angry enough.
  3. Bound: A disturbed song, about why you shouldn’t let your partner try to change who you are… because you may as well die.
  4. Criminal: Another disturbed song: about being hurt, and getting really angry about it.

    …Actually add about 4 more disturbed songs to this list, I won’t mention them all.

  5. Closer: Nine Inch Nails, no don’t ask me why a song about the healing power of sex makes me feel better at this time.
  6. The razors edge: ACDC, the perfect generic angry song, no matter what you’re angry at.
  7. Bury me where I fall: 36 Crazy Fists. I don’t actually know exactly what this song is about, just a kind of roller-coaster ride through emotional metaphors, but it works.
  8. Wait and bleed: Slipknot… if you don’t know why this is here, you don’t know the song.
  9. Bat out of hell: Meat Loaf, one of the most intense balads ever written about the journey of the soul, and you gotta identify with a song that ends with the protagonist pondering through the moments of his own gruesome death.
  10. Heart shaped box: Nirvanna. Because: hey wait, I got a real complaint.
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I can haz stuffz

 Diary  2 Responses »
Feb 092009
 
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Okay so here in one go is the four or so posts I haven’t been gotten round to for ages, if you’re expecting a kongoni post it’s because you already know the news about it and if you don’t it’s because you shouldn’t yet.

This post will be basically three small product reviews of purchases recently acquired:
1) The WII
Now this is about a year late as everybody’s already seen the wii but frankly it is awesome and I only bought one recently. If I can make a point about it that’s a downside it’s that game developers really aren’t taking proper advantage of it’s abilities yet. Half the games are cartoonish to the point of being painful (it is only a matter of time before Nintendo’s never ending quest for younger audiences have them making controllers that can be inserted into the womb).
Compare for example Spiderman Web of Shadows and Star Wars The Force Unleashed. SWTFU (Or would it be better accronymnd STFU ?) is a truly perfect game. Lightsaber wiimote – an idea that just absolutely works. Spiderman is a wonderfully acted, scripted and true-the-character game set in the wonders of new york… and somehow still sucks on the wii – not because the game is bad but because it makes no real use of the WII’mote. I’m playing Spiderman for crying out loud – I should not be hitting a button to webshoot (and making the webswing a DOWNWARD flick was just crazy), I should be aiming a hand and flicking either the nunchuk or the wiimote to shoot a web, yanking it back to swing etc.

Star Wars got it perfectly right – force pushing ? Just jam the nunchuck toward the screen, exactly the same motion you would have made if you were a real Jedi… spiderman has to remember key strokes, wii flicks are often used for atack combos in ways that bear no resemblence to the actions… it would in fact probably be better played on an X-box or even a PC since the programmers simply couldn’t get out of the old “Push button Y to do X” mentality – and if you aren’t going to that, stay away from the WII.

The yamaha BWS 100
Now here’s something I never expected to buy, but for reasons you either know or don’t want to know I no longer really have a car. So I needed point A-to-point-B human transfer device. Since current teleportation devices are even further from my budget than cars, I opted for a small bike or scooter.
I was still aiming in the line of a bike but I got a very good offer on this particular scooter which has the 125CC upgrade installed and is after all a yamaha. Now the bikes I could get for the same price range are simply crap. The cheaper scooters are also crap – I think I bought exactly what I needed. It’s just zippy enough to be fun, wide-wheeled enough to be fairly safe and of course – I just filled a near empty tank for under R30.

The Sanza Fuze
My previous ownership of music players have been basically limited to cheap little glorified memory sticks which usually only play WMA and MP3 and use AAA batteries. The decision to get a better one was controlled by my desire to get a portable with OGG support. My entire library is in OGG format and having to transcode every song when loading to a player is a pain in the ass that makes it all really slow.
I asked for recomendations on twitter about good players and got good replies on the Fuze and a few others but the fuze stood out for me. Once I started reading reviews I really liked what I read.

The fuze is essentially trying to compete with the ipod nano. It’s in the same size range with a similar interface and look. Unlike it’s bulky apple competitor though it has a wonderfully open design. The filesystem is a simple USB-stick from the computer’s approach with nevertheless good library-app support for things like amarok.
Ogg support is not in the shipped versions but getting it is as easy as a firmware upgrade. Now I know you’re baulking – doesn’t that usually mean some weird windows only program ? Well it does usually but not in this case, there is such a program out there if you insist on using it – but it’s really optional.
Upgrading the firmware was as simple as “download, unzip, copy to device, disconnect” – it upgraded, I switched it back on – and ogg played perfectly.
Thanks KMF for the recommendation- it’s exactly right :)

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Song day: 36 Crazy Fists: Turns to ashes

 Diary  No Responses »
Feb 032009
 
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I haven’t updated recently, those of you who see my facebook profile know why. Today I just wanted to post something… so I opted for a song day which I haven’t done in a very long time, and chose a song that fits my current mood.

I’m not sick, I’m just a boy
Sifting through the newfound lie
And I’ll be crawling through these ashes and dissecting all these flies
Since the sun has died and it is still somewhat July
Is this all the world has to offer?
And I don’t know how much you thought I’d be
It turns to ashes on me
One more piece inside these lines
Deeper harms my disguise
And everyone is different so everyone is sly
And everything’s still horrible since everyone still dies
Is this all the world has to offer?
And I don’t know how much you thought I’d be
It turns to ashes on me
Is this all the world has to offer?
It turns to ashes on me
No one is safe

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Happy holidays, see you next year.

 Diary  2 Responses »
Dec 232008
 
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Welcome everybody to my last blog of 2008. I am getting on a plane tonight to go see my parents. I am taking a laptop but I will only switch it on for one of two tasks: if I get an emergency call from work, or when I want to chat to Silvia.
I won’t be reading any e-mails not from her. I won’t be on IRC. I won’t be tweeting. I won’t be blogging.
It has been said that a change is as good as a rest, but the counterpoint is often forgotten – there is no rest without a change. It’s been a long and very hectically busy year and I need a time-out. Two weeks of family and relaxation. Movies, music, wine beer and other variations on the theme of holiday cheer.
What I do not need is to be hacking build-scripts or having flame-wars^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^heated debates. What I need is to catch up on my reading (I am really in the mood to re-read snowcrash while I’m up there), sleep late in the mornings and play with my little nephew and niece.

Everything else can wait for two weeks. To quote the great Mr. Pratchett: He had given his life to the watch, it was about time it gave him a week or two, three at the outside.
Well, I have given my life to free software and trying to change the world. It’s about time I took a couple of weeks for myself – I haven’t in way too long.

See you all when I return on the 5th of January.l

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The many faces of disturbed

 Diary  2 Responses »
Dec 112008
 
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Now anybody who follows this blog, or my last.fm playlists knows by now that disturbed is my favorite band. Ten years on and still making really great music. What I love so much about this band is that their songs deal with real feelings and real issues. But they are not emo or blues either. This is not music where people cry about what’s wrong with the word, it’s music where people get angry about it.
In this case, anger is a much more useful emotion – angry people get things done, fix things, sad and depressed people just mope about annoying everyone else.
One particular point to me is though that during their long career (for rock musicians anyway) this band with it’s multireligious mixup (four members, each from a different religion) have dealt with virtually every issue they sang about from more than one point of view, they truly do try to see every side of an issue – a noble quality which we should all aspire to in our lives and a particularly rare one for musicians, especially today in an age where most songs are about nothing more important than what designer created the singer’s revealing outfit.

So this post will be an attempt to show some of that openmindedness, by quoting a number of lines from various disturbed songs, pairs of quotes will follow one another showing their apparent contradiction as different songs approach the same issue from different angles.

About male/female equality:
Come a little closer my pretentious whore / I’m reeling with a feeling that I can’t ignore - From Meaning of life
…reaching out so that I can empower you / for all eternity / it seems to ease my mind / to know that you’ve brought meaning to my life - From Devour

About suicide
End your life with me / there’s another way / Release your life / take your place inside the fire with her - From Inside the fire
In a world that I don’t wanna know / with a message that I never wanna send / to be freed from all of this / I need you to quicken my end – From Criminal

About war and violence
Your people, enemy / My people’s hated enemy / My actions, enemy / Make me your greatest enemy - From Conflict
This is the world we live in / And these are the hands we’re given / Use them and let’s start trying /To make it a place worth living in - From Land of confusion

About conformity
To change myself, I’d rather die / Though they will not understand – From I’m Alive
I command you to rise / Wash away / The decay of your life – From Rise

About religion
Waiting / for your modern mesaiah / to take away all the hatred / and darkness that lie in your eyes – From Liberate
Recognize / Faces of the crucified / I can hear their screams tonight / Ever haunting me - From Believe

About sex
I want your power glowing, juicy flowing, red hot, meaning of life / It’s not enough to have a little taste / I want the whole damn thing now - From meaning of life
Pleasure fused with pain this triumph of the soul / will make you shiver tonight - From Ten Thousand Fists

About love
I’m not ready to die, girl / Because of what you don’t tell me / I’m not willing to compromise the man I want to be – From Bound
Show me the reason to make you mine / I will devour you / Take all the pain away – From Devour.

I could probably come up with a dozen more but I think I made my point and it takes a long time to research these and find just the write lines from the right song to make the point best with, so I should probably stop now and do some work for a change.

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I love me some NWN

 Diary  2 Responses »
Oct 082008
 
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I got my hands on a copy of NeverWinterNights for Linux the other day, and I’ve been playing it whenever I have spare time at night – what a great RPG. Now before the flame comments start, I’m on record as saying I don’t think it’s ethically crucial that games be free software because they aren’t software to begin with – they are art. At least, they art part is far more important than the programming part.
Which is not to say it’s not very good (and certainly a lot better) when they are free software, but like with music it’s good when it happens, but not evil when it doesn’t.

So back on topic, I really enjoy NWN. It’s rules are familiar to anybody who knows even the basics of DnD or has played Nethack for that matter, and it’s filled with tremendous flexibility of gameplay (as befits an RPG). I haven’t tried the online version at all I must admit, but the single player version is really nice. A compelling storyline with the kind of environment that allows you to live that storyline out.

NWN is of course, 32-bit only but I had no real trouble running it on Bluewhite64, all I had to do was grab the 32-bit SDL packages from slackware.com install them in a temp root and copy the usr/lib files into /usr/lib32 and it worked fine ever since.

I did find one nasty – it doesn’t play (no pun intended) nicely with twinview, putting itself in the middle of the two screens spanning halfway onto each. With Xinerama, it works perfectly. Of course Xinerama on NVidia means no compiz effects but I have also found that with twinview enabled my system is really slow and unstable, using Xinerama instead is much faster and works way better under KDE4.

I made one change though, I don’t run it under KDE at all, seeing as I have two screens, KDE needs to keep managing the one NWN is not on, and it’s not like I can multitask that way since the mouse is trapped inside NWN, so that was just a waste of resources, instead I created a .desktop file to launch NWN by itself and copied it into /usr/share/xsessions, now when I want to play it I just select “Neverwinter Nights” from my session menu on the login screen and log in, when I exit the game I’m back at the login screen. I tend to do this with most heavy-on-resource games anyway and I highly recommend it. Being able to completely switch off your desktop while playing games is just part of the real power that GNU/Linux with it’s immense customization offers over other OS’s.

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I am buying the new NiN album, and so should you.

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Mar 052008
 
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Marking my first actual album purchase in over 5 years, I am going to buy the 5USD official download version of the new Nine Inch Nails album. I am not a huge fan of NiN though I like some songs – but frankly  - I aint buying it because of the music. I am buying it because I love music in general – and every single payment Trent Reznor gets right now is a nail in the coffin of the record labels.

That’s right. RIAA, MPAA and ASAMI – I am buying an album I don’t think I’ll ever even listened to – JUST TO FUCK YOU – because you have been fucking US for way too long – and worse, you’ve been fucking the artists we love.

Thank you Trent Reznor (and those who helped pave the way like Hole and Radiohead) for finally proving their bullshit wrong by actually doing it the right way and making a fortune. And the big difference: when I pay this 5 dollars (a HELL of a lot less than a CD costs in a music shop) – the stuff I get is CC licensed, so I can copy it, remix it, share it – it can inspire new art – and the 5 dollars I spent – every single cent of it goes to Trent Reznor – I am actually supporting the artist, not a bunch of fatcats in a system where an album needs to be multiplatinum for several years before they actually make ANYTHING at all.

Even if you are not an NiN fan – support this now – and the music YOU love will get to see why THEY too should do it this way.
As a side-effect, considder this: the grand prize on all the idols shows is a record contract. Imagine when the artists realize how worthless it is. It won’t kill idols (sadly) because merely being there will offer the one thing they all want -a chance to get heard so people will actually by their online published music.

Here’s to a future where art lovers can support artists – and the artists can actually survive. 

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Degeneration of society

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Sep 062007
 
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In “[tag]Prelude to Foundation[/tag]” [tag]Asimov[/tag] states that the beginning of the end of the [tag]Empire[/tag] was simply that the quality and care people took in their crafts were deteriorating. Now I am not planning to discuss Asimov, just an example of this deterioration of society that I recently encountered.

Compact Disc’s first became available in South Africa in 1993, when I was 13. I think the second CD my mom every bought was The Best Of [tag]Laura Brannigan[/tag] Volume 2 (We bought Volume 1 later as well).  This was in 1993, and the CD was made in 1992 (in the US – it would still be several years before we got the first factory to locally print CD’s  and CD-writers weren’t invented for several years after).
The reason I know this, is that I am visiting my family today, and I have my laptop with me.
So I decided to rip some of the CD’s which we used to play loudly on a Saturday night when I was just about to hit puberty. You can make fun of my parents music taste all you want, and even of me being nostalgic for this part of it.

Of course, it is now 2007. This CD is 15 years old. It is so scratched it looks like an ice-rink at the end of the night. It still plays beautifully and it ripped without the slightest glitch.
Now this is not an exception case. I also ripped “Soft rock moments” a collection album so old it’s not even in the CDDB – it came out while “[tag]All for love[/tag]” was still a hit in the wake of “The three muskateers” (one of my favorite movies in my youth by the way). What was this ’94/’95 ? And I also ripped “Look Sharp” the last of the original [tag]roxette[/tag] albums.

Everyone of these albums is at least 12 years old. They were played raw. They are badly ravaged. And everyone plays without skipping or stalling and rips smoothly.
I cannot say that of any C.D. I bought after 1999. If there’s the slightest scratch, they jump. The slightest dust-speck and they go into a mad spin. All the more reason I never play CD’s anymore in general. Once digitized, the risk of CD-Rot is just so much lower.

But why is it that these antique CD’s all survived so nicely. All play so beautifully ? While thousands of CD’s in much better condition and much newer don’t ?
Deterioration of manufacturing quality is the only possible explanation.

Then again. Since 1999 not a single mainstream album has really been so good that anybody would really want to hear it anymore. Maybe the reason they don’t build them to last anymore… is because the content doesn’t deserve to live.

Once upon a time, even pop had some good music… when was the last time you heard a pop song that was truly memorable ?

But, we cannot take this explanation at face value. Rule one of critical thinking is that whenever you see a correlation you have to consider 4 possibilities:
1) A causes or promotes B
2) A and B are completely indepent and the relationship is coincidental
3) B causes or promotes A
4) A and B are both correlated to some unknown C

So possibility 1 would be what I described. Possibility 2 is most likely right, but it’s no fun so just forget I said that. Possibility 3 is not unlikely – maybe the content is getting worse because the CD’s won’t survive to keep it anyway ? It’s not unlikely, but possibility 1 certainly seems likelier.
As for possibility 4 ? Well we can only go there if we can propose some kind of C. One is available.
[tag]Society[/tag] itself is deteriorating. And both the content and manufacturing quality of the CD’s are following suite.

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