Not your average blog post, but I've added a few things to the blog I'd like to point out:
1. I've tied my Googlepages site to my blog. Stuff I can't or won't put up here, I can put there and drop a link. The post below is a great example of how I can use this setup. I may also put pictures there instead of PhotoBucket; Google is faster and I can put whatever I want around/with the picture.
2. I've added links to my Googlepages site and Blogmail* at the bottom of the blog page. Scroll all the way down and look at the links section.
*3. Blogmail, which I send out weekly (or try to) to friends and family, is now archived on the web for anyone to read and is linked in the links section. If you want to subscribe (or unsubscribe) you can email me via links provided and I will oblige one way or the other. It doesn't say anything the blog doesn't, it's just a summary and a reminder to those who don't regularly read the blog, that it is still there.
Monday, June 25, 2007
Music Mystery #1: November Rain
If you're my age or older, chances are at some point, you have heard the Guns n' Roses song "November Rain". It was a very popular song when it came out in 1990-1991 with heavy radio play. Perhaps you've even seen the music video, which came out in 1991, I believe. The song was popular for at least a couple years, but pretty much faded from most radio stations in the mid-to-late nineties. Nowadays it's mostly forgotten and overlooked, but I firmly believe after 20-30 years of it being out, it'll be remembered as a classic. Matter of fact, Guns n' Roses are one of the bands from that time that will be remembered, right along with Metallica. Back when they still had their hair, were true to their roots, and were basically in their prime - but Metallica is a story for another day. Anyway, back to November Rain, the video for which was a mystery for over 10 years to most people - and sadly the mystery was forgotten, as it was never solved within the song's reign on the charts. But I reveal it to you here. I've posted it before, and that post (I had it saved for quick posting) was copied by others, so maybe you have heard this, or even read it. Well, here it is again. Not copied from the original, but completely rewritten.
Not sure you've seen the video? Maybe this will jog your memory. Axl Rose awakens from what appears to be a nightmare. We see a huge opera house (I guess that's what you'd call it) with a crowd watching Guns n' Roses perform on-stage. Axl is on piano, and they have a symphony with them. We see a wedding, between Axl and model Stephanie Seymour, to whom he was really married for some time. The video goes through the wedding, and after Axl kisses Stephanie, guitarist Slashs steps outside and performs a wicked solo in the desert, the camera all over the place. Guitarists love this part. It goes back to the opera house from time to time, and then back to the happy couple, now at the reception. Everyone's having a good time, and I swear Pierce Brosnan (ex-James Bond actor) was a waiter, though I don't think IMDb agrees with me. At some point it starts raining, and everyone runs like people started shooting (but no violence is seen). A dude dives over a table through the wedding cake. Red wine runs down a white table cloth. The VERY next scene, back to the opera house, song slows down - this is before the heavy part at the end - and Slash gets up on the piano and lets 'er rip. We see Axl in a pew, same church (I think), in tears, and pallbearers are carrying a coffin down the aisle. We see Stephanie in the casket, unmarked and undamaged but very dead. Axl's in tears, the priest says some words, they have the funeral. It ends with Axl alone at the grave. Flash back to Stephanie as a happy bride throwing the bouquet, fade to the coffin - the roses, once red, bleed out to white. The picture fades and "Based on the short story "Without You" by Del James pops up.
If you're asking what the problem is, it's this: We aren't told why Stephanie dies or how she died. There are clues, but they're vague. When the car pulls away from the church, the couple making their getaway, and Stephanie briefly looks at the camera and her face just says "this is the beginning of the end" or perhaps "now I'm stuck with him"; "now my fate is sealed". Shortly after, a figure is seen walking into a store, camera pulls back and it says GUNS above. But I can't tell if it's Axl or Stephanie - their hair is about the same length and style, and they're of a similar build, and it's from the back, so you couldn't see breasts (or absence thereof), and the clothes are baggy, so you can't see figure.
Your first thought now might be "well, read the story". That's very insightful and not a bad idea, but there's a problem with that. Del James published a collection of short stories, called "The Language of Fear", out of a small publishing company in Scotland - which went bankrupt just after the book was published. In fact they got less than 1,000 copies out. This was when the Internet was young, at least to most people. One of eBay's early most-traded items must be this book. It sold for hundreds of dollars, even thousands at first. Because they wanted to read that one story. And those that did, never spoke a word of it. Because they knew if they answered the question everyone wanted to know, they wouldn't be able to sell it again and make some of their money back - maybe even a profit. Every few years I searched - first the search engines, and later those plus the filesharing networks.
Finally in 2003 the silence was broken, and one brave soul decided to post the text of the short story "Without You". (The rest of the book remains unavailable, last time I checked.) I got it, and have posted it on various forums. Some admins frown upon my doing so, but the legal rights to "Without You" are tangled up. The only people who have any complaint with the story being posted are the collectors, and they have no more right to dictate what happens with the story than I do. So I've read it, and I'll provide a link to it below.
Now, the following, I must warn you, is not safe for work and is not appropriate for children under 16. Profanity and descriptions of sex and violence. If this does not offend you, go ahead and read Del James' Without You, followed by parts of the foreword to "The Language of Fear", written by none other than Axl Rose. Whoever posted this, typed it - they didn't have a way of importing it automatically. There will be mistakes. I corrected those that Word had a problem with, but mostly I'm leaving it intact. If you are a Guns n' Roses fan, I encourage you to read it. Were it in the book, it would be at most 10 pages long. It's not written traditionally or conservatively at all. This isn't the kind of thing you read in school; it's not "Walden". It's not even like any bestseller - well, except maybe for Fight Club (the book, it's written just like the movie). Del James writes like you'd expect a rockstar to write. Give it a chance - it will hook you. (And if foul language offends you, read my own summary as follows.)
Read the story here.
IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO JUST READ IT FOR YOURSELF SKIP THIS PARAGRAPH!
Basically the story is about a band called Suicide Solution, meant to be Guns n' Roses, and their vocalist, Mayne Mann, who is of course supposed to be Axl. Mayne has a girlfriend or wife, Elizabeth - you guessed it, she's Stephanie. So SS are on tour, and it's the last stop. A tour's last stop most often means one or both of two trends - first, that they end (and start) in their hometown; second, that it's the best show of the tour. Mayne wants to celebrate after the show with Elizabeth, but she's called out of town on business (I think she's a model, too). Mayne's mad, so he picks up a groupie after the show, and they're making magic in his hotel room. Matter of fact I think there are two girls, they're having a threesome. The drummer comes by, and Mayne offers him a girl; he turns him down. Then it turns out Elizabeth's trip was at the last moment. She finds out what room he's in, and goes there to surprise him. Mayne hears a knock, thinks his drummer is back, so he answers the door nude with a girl on each arm, nude as well. He's lookin right at his wife, and she takes off. He gets dressed and gives chase. She loses him, gets home, and when he finds her, she's playing "Without You" (which is the fictional "November Rain") at full volume on loop, and she's shot herself in the head
THESE 2 PARAGRAPHS CONTAIN SPOILERS TOO! READ ONLY AFTER READING THE STORY OR THE ABOVE SUMMARY!
From that, I assume that the band seen in the November Rain video was actually Suicide Solution, not Guns n' Roses. And that we're not seeing Axl and Stephanie marry, but Mayne and Elizabeth. And that Elizabeth dies and Mayne is mourning her. The nightmares are because he's haunted by his stupid mistake that cost him the woman he loved. I can't explain Elizabeth's look. Maybe she realized Mayne wasn't going to settle down, I dunno. But I believe it was Elizabeth who went to the gun store. As for the rain panic, I can't explain that. Maybe that was just their reaction to being rained on in their Sunday best.
And as for Elizabeth looking untouched in the coffin, this is another thing I found out (thanks to Amber from WI for pointing this out!): When the coffin is shown for the second time, if your copy of the video is high-quality, freeze frame it and you will see a mirror splitting the coffin, her left side hidden. And yes, you guessed it, a funeral home would do this to allow an open-casket funeral for someone whose face or body was damaged on one side. That about cinches the deal - she must have died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, from the barrel being inserted into the mouth and the bullet traveling up and to the left, so she held the gun with her right hand. They cleaned up the right side, but the left side they couldn't fix. Hence the mirror.
OK, NO MORE "WITHOUT YOU" SPOILERS!
As I understand from watching "Making F'n Videos: November Rain", a documentary produced by Gn'R's label, Geffen, about the video. This revealed much more. Del James was a close personal friend of Axl Rose and the band itself. "Without You" was tied to more than just "November Rain". Two other Gn'R videos tied in as well: "Don't Cry" and "Estranged". I believe the order is Don't Cry - Estranged - November Rain, although the events in the videos are probably not in the right order. I have to wonder if Gn'R and Del James weren't going to make a movie containing the story, the events from those videos, and of course the song. It should also be noted that the last line in "Estranged" before the last chorus is, in fact, "Without You".
PS: In regards to the title, there will be another Music Mystery. It's about a more current band, but unless you're Jen and thus you know what it's going to be, you're going to have to wait and be surprised.
Links:
Use Your Illusion I by Guns n' Roses on Amazon.com
This album contains the original, studio version of November Rain.
Guns n' Roses: Welcome to the Videos DVD on Amazon.com
This DVD has most, but not all of their videos. November Rain is included. (Sadly, "You Could Be Mine" is not up here, but Don't Cry and Estranged are as well.) The quality is very high, so if you want to see the mirror in the casket, this is the way to go.
Guns n' Roses: Making F@*!Ing Videos, Vol. 2 VHS on Amazon.com
Sadly this is not available on DVD, but I found my copy on one filesharing network or another. If you have VHS, get this used because Amazon doesn't actually sell it themselves. I doubt it will be rereleased on DVD. I would like to discourage piracy, but if you want to see it, you do what you have to, right? If you want to stay on the straight and narrow with the law, you can always delete it when you're done watching it - no harm no foul, right? This awesome documentary covers all aspects of what I've been talking about and then some, plus it includes the video at the end.
The Language of Fear paperback by Del James on Amazon.com
Here is a link to the book. Currently the low price is $89.44 but that is subject to change. I want to read the rest of it, but I won't pay more than ten bucks.
The full text of Without You, and Axl's intro
I linked to this above but provide the link again for convenience.
Not sure you've seen the video? Maybe this will jog your memory. Axl Rose awakens from what appears to be a nightmare. We see a huge opera house (I guess that's what you'd call it) with a crowd watching Guns n' Roses perform on-stage. Axl is on piano, and they have a symphony with them. We see a wedding, between Axl and model Stephanie Seymour, to whom he was really married for some time. The video goes through the wedding, and after Axl kisses Stephanie, guitarist Slashs steps outside and performs a wicked solo in the desert, the camera all over the place. Guitarists love this part. It goes back to the opera house from time to time, and then back to the happy couple, now at the reception. Everyone's having a good time, and I swear Pierce Brosnan (ex-James Bond actor) was a waiter, though I don't think IMDb agrees with me. At some point it starts raining, and everyone runs like people started shooting (but no violence is seen). A dude dives over a table through the wedding cake. Red wine runs down a white table cloth. The VERY next scene, back to the opera house, song slows down - this is before the heavy part at the end - and Slash gets up on the piano and lets 'er rip. We see Axl in a pew, same church (I think), in tears, and pallbearers are carrying a coffin down the aisle. We see Stephanie in the casket, unmarked and undamaged but very dead. Axl's in tears, the priest says some words, they have the funeral. It ends with Axl alone at the grave. Flash back to Stephanie as a happy bride throwing the bouquet, fade to the coffin - the roses, once red, bleed out to white. The picture fades and "Based on the short story "Without You" by Del James pops up.
If you're asking what the problem is, it's this: We aren't told why Stephanie dies or how she died. There are clues, but they're vague. When the car pulls away from the church, the couple making their getaway, and Stephanie briefly looks at the camera and her face just says "this is the beginning of the end" or perhaps "now I'm stuck with him"; "now my fate is sealed". Shortly after, a figure is seen walking into a store, camera pulls back and it says GUNS above. But I can't tell if it's Axl or Stephanie - their hair is about the same length and style, and they're of a similar build, and it's from the back, so you couldn't see breasts (or absence thereof), and the clothes are baggy, so you can't see figure.
Your first thought now might be "well, read the story". That's very insightful and not a bad idea, but there's a problem with that. Del James published a collection of short stories, called "The Language of Fear", out of a small publishing company in Scotland - which went bankrupt just after the book was published. In fact they got less than 1,000 copies out. This was when the Internet was young, at least to most people. One of eBay's early most-traded items must be this book. It sold for hundreds of dollars, even thousands at first. Because they wanted to read that one story. And those that did, never spoke a word of it. Because they knew if they answered the question everyone wanted to know, they wouldn't be able to sell it again and make some of their money back - maybe even a profit. Every few years I searched - first the search engines, and later those plus the filesharing networks.
Finally in 2003 the silence was broken, and one brave soul decided to post the text of the short story "Without You". (The rest of the book remains unavailable, last time I checked.) I got it, and have posted it on various forums. Some admins frown upon my doing so, but the legal rights to "Without You" are tangled up. The only people who have any complaint with the story being posted are the collectors, and they have no more right to dictate what happens with the story than I do. So I've read it, and I'll provide a link to it below.
Now, the following, I must warn you, is not safe for work and is not appropriate for children under 16. Profanity and descriptions of sex and violence. If this does not offend you, go ahead and read Del James' Without You, followed by parts of the foreword to "The Language of Fear", written by none other than Axl Rose. Whoever posted this, typed it - they didn't have a way of importing it automatically. There will be mistakes. I corrected those that Word had a problem with, but mostly I'm leaving it intact. If you are a Guns n' Roses fan, I encourage you to read it. Were it in the book, it would be at most 10 pages long. It's not written traditionally or conservatively at all. This isn't the kind of thing you read in school; it's not "Walden". It's not even like any bestseller - well, except maybe for Fight Club (the book, it's written just like the movie). Del James writes like you'd expect a rockstar to write. Give it a chance - it will hook you. (And if foul language offends you, read my own summary as follows.)
Read the story here.
IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO JUST READ IT FOR YOURSELF SKIP THIS PARAGRAPH!
Basically the story is about a band called Suicide Solution, meant to be Guns n' Roses, and their vocalist, Mayne Mann, who is of course supposed to be Axl. Mayne has a girlfriend or wife, Elizabeth - you guessed it, she's Stephanie. So SS are on tour, and it's the last stop. A tour's last stop most often means one or both of two trends - first, that they end (and start) in their hometown; second, that it's the best show of the tour. Mayne wants to celebrate after the show with Elizabeth, but she's called out of town on business (I think she's a model, too). Mayne's mad, so he picks up a groupie after the show, and they're making magic in his hotel room. Matter of fact I think there are two girls, they're having a threesome. The drummer comes by, and Mayne offers him a girl; he turns him down. Then it turns out Elizabeth's trip was at the last moment. She finds out what room he's in, and goes there to surprise him. Mayne hears a knock, thinks his drummer is back, so he answers the door nude with a girl on each arm, nude as well. He's lookin right at his wife, and she takes off. He gets dressed and gives chase. She loses him, gets home, and when he finds her, she's playing "Without You" (which is the fictional "November Rain") at full volume on loop, and she's shot herself in the head
THESE 2 PARAGRAPHS CONTAIN SPOILERS TOO! READ ONLY AFTER READING THE STORY OR THE ABOVE SUMMARY!
From that, I assume that the band seen in the November Rain video was actually Suicide Solution, not Guns n' Roses. And that we're not seeing Axl and Stephanie marry, but Mayne and Elizabeth. And that Elizabeth dies and Mayne is mourning her. The nightmares are because he's haunted by his stupid mistake that cost him the woman he loved. I can't explain Elizabeth's look. Maybe she realized Mayne wasn't going to settle down, I dunno. But I believe it was Elizabeth who went to the gun store. As for the rain panic, I can't explain that. Maybe that was just their reaction to being rained on in their Sunday best.
And as for Elizabeth looking untouched in the coffin, this is another thing I found out (thanks to Amber from WI for pointing this out!): When the coffin is shown for the second time, if your copy of the video is high-quality, freeze frame it and you will see a mirror splitting the coffin, her left side hidden. And yes, you guessed it, a funeral home would do this to allow an open-casket funeral for someone whose face or body was damaged on one side. That about cinches the deal - she must have died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, from the barrel being inserted into the mouth and the bullet traveling up and to the left, so she held the gun with her right hand. They cleaned up the right side, but the left side they couldn't fix. Hence the mirror.
OK, NO MORE "WITHOUT YOU" SPOILERS!
As I understand from watching "Making F'n Videos: November Rain", a documentary produced by Gn'R's label, Geffen, about the video. This revealed much more. Del James was a close personal friend of Axl Rose and the band itself. "Without You" was tied to more than just "November Rain". Two other Gn'R videos tied in as well: "Don't Cry" and "Estranged". I believe the order is Don't Cry - Estranged - November Rain, although the events in the videos are probably not in the right order. I have to wonder if Gn'R and Del James weren't going to make a movie containing the story, the events from those videos, and of course the song. It should also be noted that the last line in "Estranged" before the last chorus is, in fact, "Without You".
PS: In regards to the title, there will be another Music Mystery. It's about a more current band, but unless you're Jen and thus you know what it's going to be, you're going to have to wait and be surprised.
Links:
Use Your Illusion I by Guns n' Roses on Amazon.com
This album contains the original, studio version of November Rain.
Guns n' Roses: Welcome to the Videos DVD on Amazon.com
This DVD has most, but not all of their videos. November Rain is included. (Sadly, "You Could Be Mine" is not up here, but Don't Cry and Estranged are as well.) The quality is very high, so if you want to see the mirror in the casket, this is the way to go.
Guns n' Roses: Making F@*!Ing Videos, Vol. 2 VHS on Amazon.com
Sadly this is not available on DVD, but I found my copy on one filesharing network or another. If you have VHS, get this used because Amazon doesn't actually sell it themselves. I doubt it will be rereleased on DVD. I would like to discourage piracy, but if you want to see it, you do what you have to, right? If you want to stay on the straight and narrow with the law, you can always delete it when you're done watching it - no harm no foul, right? This awesome documentary covers all aspects of what I've been talking about and then some, plus it includes the video at the end.
The Language of Fear paperback by Del James on Amazon.com
Here is a link to the book. Currently the low price is $89.44 but that is subject to change. I want to read the rest of it, but I won't pay more than ten bucks.
The full text of Without You, and Axl's intro
I linked to this above but provide the link again for convenience.
Sunday, June 24, 2007
Emulation: One of the coolest things your PC can do
Of all the awesome things you can do with a personal computer these days (let's review: make and enjoy music, make and enjoy video, meet people around the world via the Net, various games, etc.) by far the coolest must be Emulation; or, for you non-technical readers, making your computer pretend that it's another machine. To emulate a machine, your own machine must be many times faster than the machine you're emulating, so you can count Playstation and Xbox (all generations) out. Even the first Playstation can't be emulated on most machines. Same thing with Macs - a small percentage can but most cannot.
This day and age, however, you can emulate a Nintendo Entertainment System (NES - the first Nintendo in America), a Super NES, a Sega Genesis (presumably a Sega Master System as well), and various arcades and other computers from 15 years ago. But this limitation, if you'd call it one, isn't so bad. The current Xbox and Playstation consoles are reverse compatible and will play their old games, or most of them, as I understand it. If you're emulating, you're not doing it to save money or defraud the publishers (whichever side you choose to take), you're doing it to play something that isn't available and in a new way.
Emulation has created a huge stir in the industry. Nintendo is 110% against it as well as any form of enhancing or changing their games (e.g. cheating devices). None of them are really "for" it - either the creators of these classics are out of the industry and don't care, or they're making new games and would rather you fork over your hard earned dollars for those instead. For the most part, game publishers are content to let their older titles be forgotten. Some have made small concessions, either because of emulation as in, in response to it, but a few have done it on their own. For example Nintendo putting all the NES Mario games in one cartridge on the Super NES ("Super Mario All-Stars"). It's too bad they didn't do the same thing with Zelda or some of their other franchises. But now they're putting a lot of their classic games up for paid download on the Wii - provided you can get a Wii (they're not available here) or you have high-speed Internet (not available here).
Wondering how all this works? As I understand it, in Japan where copyright laws are largely ignored, you can get a device classified as a cart copier, which you plug the cartridge into, and it plugs into the console - like a Game Genie - but a wire connects the device to your computer. You can "back up" a game to the computer, and you can play games off the computer via the copier itself, while connected. Then some hacker in America or Australia found out how to take that backup and run it. The first emulators were buggy, designed to run one or two games, and others may or may not work. Now, emulators can fully recreate classic consoles. Two of the emulators I am most familiar with have rather rude names. NESticle plays the NES games, GeneCYST plays the Sega Genesis games - and ZSNES plays the SNES games. There are a few different choices for each platform, and some emulators might do things a little differently, but a good one should be able to play the game.
Of course, emulated classic console games are a little different from the games as you remember them. First, the game is stored in a file. It's much faster to swap games. Your game's file will not get dusty or corroded, and you don't have to worry about blowing on the contacts in the cartridge and in the console. Second, computer monitors and digital TVs have higher resolutions than analog TVs, so picture will be greatly improved. Then there are some perks. A lot of games don't let you save or make you find a "save point" to save. With an emulator you can save ANYWHERE with the touch of a button, and load just as fast. You can load Mario, jump in the air and save, and keep hitting the load key, and have him fall, fall, and fall again. Some games time you, and they keep the timer running even if you pause the game (e.g. you hit Start). You can pause the emulator, however, and this will stop the internal clock. You can literally have your best time in games like Super Metroid (SNES) by pausing the emulator for your breaks. Also, you can cheat! Say you're playing Zelda 3 (SNES) and you want unlimited bombs. You currently have 8, say. So you tell it to search for 8 - you'll get lots of results. Waste a bomb, then tell it to search all the '8' results now for 7. It'll take a few tries, but you'll find your code. Set it to something reasonable (like 5) and it will be frozen at that value.
It sounds almost too good to be true. Well, it's true, but the legal issue is a big grey area. The commonly accepted rule is that you can have a ROM - that's the game backup file - if you own the original cartridge. But it's hard to find ROMs on regular websites, because the game's publishers will go after them for copyright infringement. So determined emulator users turn to filesharing. You download an archive with, say, every NES game ever made (around 100MB). Are you really going to take what you have the cartridges for - maybe what you had back in the day - and delete the rest? Heck no, you're not! (If you say you would, fine, but most people just keep the whole set.) I personally don't feel that there is anything wrong with emulation, in the moral sense. You can't buy most of these games - with rare exception you can't buy any of them for the PC. (Konami released a pack with the three Castlevania games and two Contra games that were on the NES, on the PC - basically a legal emulator/rom pack.) It's just one of those cases where the law doesn't reflect right/wrong, but rather the interests of a company or companies with money to grease the proverbial wheels - the game industry figures if you're playing the classics, you're not paying for the current games. (One would think they would see this as a hint, and look to the classics for inspiration, but only Nintendo seems to do this - hence why I love my Gameboy/DS so much.)
Still weirder, online communities have differing rules governing talk of emulation. Some allow it, some turn a blind eye, and some disallow it entirely. And then you have fence-sitters, like GameFAQs... Couple weeks ago I was talking about a Playstation game, when someone asked me if I'd like to play it on my computer. I knew Playstation emulation wasn't a possibility that I knew of, but I wanted to see where he was going. So I said sure, email me or whatever - next thing I know, my post (not his) gets deleted, where I accepted. So I guess it was a little fishing experiment - "let's see who we can sucker into asking about emulation here" (as opposed to just disallowing talk of it at all). So for a site like that, one really has to be careful and not take the bait. Lesson learned, I suppose.
For legal reasons of my own, I can't tell you where to get ROMs on here. I could probably tell you where to get the emulators, but a quick Google search for the names as I've given them will do that for you. Comment if you have something to add, but if you'd like to ask a question, you ought to do it via email, where I can be more free to answer the question as best I can.
That all said, if it's something you'd like to do, I wish you all the luck in the world. It will take some messing around in the emulator's settings to get it right, but once you do it will be well worth it.
PS - Most emulators default to the keyboard. You can get a gaming controller for your PC. They used to plug into the sound card on this port that was about an inch wide - now they just plug in via USB, same as anything. Most controllers I've seen use the basic Playstation2 layout, which is probably the best controller layout of the consoles. PC controllers have vibration and come wireless, just like the consoles. And as long as Windows recognizes it, the emulator should be able to use it. You can get a cheap controller for around $20 or less. You can even get two and play 2-player games just as you would on the console you're emulating. (Of course, pre-vibration games will not vibrate your controller if it does that. But wireless controllers should be a go.) Oh, and I believe shooting games (e.g. Duck Hunt for the NES) are emulated through the mouse, though I've never tried these.
This day and age, however, you can emulate a Nintendo Entertainment System (NES - the first Nintendo in America), a Super NES, a Sega Genesis (presumably a Sega Master System as well), and various arcades and other computers from 15 years ago. But this limitation, if you'd call it one, isn't so bad. The current Xbox and Playstation consoles are reverse compatible and will play their old games, or most of them, as I understand it. If you're emulating, you're not doing it to save money or defraud the publishers (whichever side you choose to take), you're doing it to play something that isn't available and in a new way.
Emulation has created a huge stir in the industry. Nintendo is 110% against it as well as any form of enhancing or changing their games (e.g. cheating devices). None of them are really "for" it - either the creators of these classics are out of the industry and don't care, or they're making new games and would rather you fork over your hard earned dollars for those instead. For the most part, game publishers are content to let their older titles be forgotten. Some have made small concessions, either because of emulation as in, in response to it, but a few have done it on their own. For example Nintendo putting all the NES Mario games in one cartridge on the Super NES ("Super Mario All-Stars"). It's too bad they didn't do the same thing with Zelda or some of their other franchises. But now they're putting a lot of their classic games up for paid download on the Wii - provided you can get a Wii (they're not available here) or you have high-speed Internet (not available here).
Wondering how all this works? As I understand it, in Japan where copyright laws are largely ignored, you can get a device classified as a cart copier, which you plug the cartridge into, and it plugs into the console - like a Game Genie - but a wire connects the device to your computer. You can "back up" a game to the computer, and you can play games off the computer via the copier itself, while connected. Then some hacker in America or Australia found out how to take that backup and run it. The first emulators were buggy, designed to run one or two games, and others may or may not work. Now, emulators can fully recreate classic consoles. Two of the emulators I am most familiar with have rather rude names. NESticle plays the NES games, GeneCYST plays the Sega Genesis games - and ZSNES plays the SNES games. There are a few different choices for each platform, and some emulators might do things a little differently, but a good one should be able to play the game.
Of course, emulated classic console games are a little different from the games as you remember them. First, the game is stored in a file. It's much faster to swap games. Your game's file will not get dusty or corroded, and you don't have to worry about blowing on the contacts in the cartridge and in the console. Second, computer monitors and digital TVs have higher resolutions than analog TVs, so picture will be greatly improved. Then there are some perks. A lot of games don't let you save or make you find a "save point" to save. With an emulator you can save ANYWHERE with the touch of a button, and load just as fast. You can load Mario, jump in the air and save, and keep hitting the load key, and have him fall, fall, and fall again. Some games time you, and they keep the timer running even if you pause the game (e.g. you hit Start). You can pause the emulator, however, and this will stop the internal clock. You can literally have your best time in games like Super Metroid (SNES) by pausing the emulator for your breaks. Also, you can cheat! Say you're playing Zelda 3 (SNES) and you want unlimited bombs. You currently have 8, say. So you tell it to search for 8 - you'll get lots of results. Waste a bomb, then tell it to search all the '8' results now for 7. It'll take a few tries, but you'll find your code. Set it to something reasonable (like 5) and it will be frozen at that value.
It sounds almost too good to be true. Well, it's true, but the legal issue is a big grey area. The commonly accepted rule is that you can have a ROM - that's the game backup file - if you own the original cartridge. But it's hard to find ROMs on regular websites, because the game's publishers will go after them for copyright infringement. So determined emulator users turn to filesharing. You download an archive with, say, every NES game ever made (around 100MB). Are you really going to take what you have the cartridges for - maybe what you had back in the day - and delete the rest? Heck no, you're not! (If you say you would, fine, but most people just keep the whole set.) I personally don't feel that there is anything wrong with emulation, in the moral sense. You can't buy most of these games - with rare exception you can't buy any of them for the PC. (Konami released a pack with the three Castlevania games and two Contra games that were on the NES, on the PC - basically a legal emulator/rom pack.) It's just one of those cases where the law doesn't reflect right/wrong, but rather the interests of a company or companies with money to grease the proverbial wheels - the game industry figures if you're playing the classics, you're not paying for the current games. (One would think they would see this as a hint, and look to the classics for inspiration, but only Nintendo seems to do this - hence why I love my Gameboy/DS so much.)
Still weirder, online communities have differing rules governing talk of emulation. Some allow it, some turn a blind eye, and some disallow it entirely. And then you have fence-sitters, like GameFAQs... Couple weeks ago I was talking about a Playstation game, when someone asked me if I'd like to play it on my computer. I knew Playstation emulation wasn't a possibility that I knew of, but I wanted to see where he was going. So I said sure, email me or whatever - next thing I know, my post (not his) gets deleted, where I accepted. So I guess it was a little fishing experiment - "let's see who we can sucker into asking about emulation here" (as opposed to just disallowing talk of it at all). So for a site like that, one really has to be careful and not take the bait. Lesson learned, I suppose.
For legal reasons of my own, I can't tell you where to get ROMs on here. I could probably tell you where to get the emulators, but a quick Google search for the names as I've given them will do that for you. Comment if you have something to add, but if you'd like to ask a question, you ought to do it via email, where I can be more free to answer the question as best I can.
That all said, if it's something you'd like to do, I wish you all the luck in the world. It will take some messing around in the emulator's settings to get it right, but once you do it will be well worth it.
PS - Most emulators default to the keyboard. You can get a gaming controller for your PC. They used to plug into the sound card on this port that was about an inch wide - now they just plug in via USB, same as anything. Most controllers I've seen use the basic Playstation2 layout, which is probably the best controller layout of the consoles. PC controllers have vibration and come wireless, just like the consoles. And as long as Windows recognizes it, the emulator should be able to use it. You can get a cheap controller for around $20 or less. You can even get two and play 2-player games just as you would on the console you're emulating. (Of course, pre-vibration games will not vibrate your controller if it does that. But wireless controllers should be a go.) Oh, and I believe shooting games (e.g. Duck Hunt for the NES) are emulated through the mouse, though I've never tried these.
Thursday, June 21, 2007
"When Daddy let me drive"
I can't fully identify with the lyrics to this song by Alan Jackson; my father didn't let me drive when I was a kid like they do in the country, but he did teach me how to drive once I had my permit. So it does sort of apply.
You know sometimes you hear a song and it just clicks, you think it's an instant classic? Well, I heard this song on the radio a few weeks back and thought it was a new song, but I understand it's been out a while. It's on Alan Jackson's second greatest hits, which came out in 2003, but I don't know if it was recorded for that compilation or taken from a previous album, and I'm not in a situation to look that up just now. Here's the lyrics:
It was painted red, the stripe was white
It was eighteen feet from the bow to the stern light
Secondhand from a dealer in Atlanta
I rode up with Daddy when he went there to get her
We put on a shine; put on a motor
Built out of love, made for the water
Ran her for years, 'til the transom got rotten
A piece of my childhood that will never be forgotten
It was just on old plywood boat
With a '75 Johnson with electric choke
A young boy, two hands on the wheel
I can't replace the way it made me feel
And I would turn her sharp
And I would make her whine
He'd say, "You can't beat the way an old wood boat rides,"
Just a little lake across the Alabama line
But I was king of the ocean
When Daddy let me drive
Just an old half-ton shortbed Ford
My uncle bought new in '64
Daddy got it right 'cause the engine was smoking
A couple of burnt valves and he had it going
He let me drive her when we'd haul off a load
Down a dirt strip where we'd dump trash off of Thigpen Road
I'd sit up in the seat and stretch my feet out to the pedals
Smiling like a hero that just received his medal
It was just an old hand-me-down Ford
With a three-speed on the column and a dent in the door
A young boy, two honds on the wheel
I can't replace the way it made me feel
And I would press that clutch
And I would keep it right
And he'd say, "A little slower, son, you're doing just fine,"
Just a dirt rood with trash on each side
But I was Mario Andretti
When Daddy let me drive
I'm grown up now, three daughters of my own
I let them drive my old Jeep across the pasture at our home
Maybe one day they'll reach back in their file
And pull out that old memory
And think of me and smile and say
"It was just an old worn out Jeep
Rusty old floorboard, hot on my feet
A young girl, two hands on the wheel
I can't replace the way it made me feel
And he'd say, 'Turn it left, and steer it right,
Straighten up girl, you're doing just fine,'
Just a little valley by the river where we'd ride
But I was high on a mountain
When Daddy let me drive"
When Daddy let me drive
Oh he let me drive
Daddy let me drive
It's just an old plywood boat
With a '75 Johnson with electric choke
The lyrics just do not do the song justice. And I thought Chatahoochee was hot. It still is; you'd have yourself a tough time convincing me that a better country song was ever recorded, because back when I didn't even like country, I loved that song from the first time I heard it, and I still love it just as much. But this song is four stars, five stars, 10/10, whatever. The music is good, the singing is great, the lyrics are fun, and the little reversal at the end (which I'm noticing is fairly common in country songs) appeals to me because I'd prefer to have girls, but in any case I know I'll be showing our kids everything, including driving. How to drive safely, that is. (The experienced driver can drive fast, one would think, but safety is always first.)
If you can get a copy of this song, I'd strongly recommend it. Good stuff. Other top-quality Alan Jackson songs inlcude, of course Chatahoochee, but additionally Little Bitty, Mercury Blues, Gone Country, Midnight in Montgomery, and It's 5 o'Clock Somewhere (with Jimmy Buffet). If you like 9/11 songs (which I don't particularly care for), Where Were You When the World Stopped Turning? is another. Ironically, I have the two greatest hits albums, but I never got into anything beyond the singles.
You know sometimes you hear a song and it just clicks, you think it's an instant classic? Well, I heard this song on the radio a few weeks back and thought it was a new song, but I understand it's been out a while. It's on Alan Jackson's second greatest hits, which came out in 2003, but I don't know if it was recorded for that compilation or taken from a previous album, and I'm not in a situation to look that up just now. Here's the lyrics:
It was painted red, the stripe was white
It was eighteen feet from the bow to the stern light
Secondhand from a dealer in Atlanta
I rode up with Daddy when he went there to get her
We put on a shine; put on a motor
Built out of love, made for the water
Ran her for years, 'til the transom got rotten
A piece of my childhood that will never be forgotten
It was just on old plywood boat
With a '75 Johnson with electric choke
A young boy, two hands on the wheel
I can't replace the way it made me feel
And I would turn her sharp
And I would make her whine
He'd say, "You can't beat the way an old wood boat rides,"
Just a little lake across the Alabama line
But I was king of the ocean
When Daddy let me drive
Just an old half-ton shortbed Ford
My uncle bought new in '64
Daddy got it right 'cause the engine was smoking
A couple of burnt valves and he had it going
He let me drive her when we'd haul off a load
Down a dirt strip where we'd dump trash off of Thigpen Road
I'd sit up in the seat and stretch my feet out to the pedals
Smiling like a hero that just received his medal
It was just an old hand-me-down Ford
With a three-speed on the column and a dent in the door
A young boy, two honds on the wheel
I can't replace the way it made me feel
And I would press that clutch
And I would keep it right
And he'd say, "A little slower, son, you're doing just fine,"
Just a dirt rood with trash on each side
But I was Mario Andretti
When Daddy let me drive
I'm grown up now, three daughters of my own
I let them drive my old Jeep across the pasture at our home
Maybe one day they'll reach back in their file
And pull out that old memory
And think of me and smile and say
"It was just an old worn out Jeep
Rusty old floorboard, hot on my feet
A young girl, two hands on the wheel
I can't replace the way it made me feel
And he'd say, 'Turn it left, and steer it right,
Straighten up girl, you're doing just fine,'
Just a little valley by the river where we'd ride
But I was high on a mountain
When Daddy let me drive"
When Daddy let me drive
Oh he let me drive
Daddy let me drive
It's just an old plywood boat
With a '75 Johnson with electric choke
The lyrics just do not do the song justice. And I thought Chatahoochee was hot. It still is; you'd have yourself a tough time convincing me that a better country song was ever recorded, because back when I didn't even like country, I loved that song from the first time I heard it, and I still love it just as much. But this song is four stars, five stars, 10/10, whatever. The music is good, the singing is great, the lyrics are fun, and the little reversal at the end (which I'm noticing is fairly common in country songs) appeals to me because I'd prefer to have girls, but in any case I know I'll be showing our kids everything, including driving. How to drive safely, that is. (The experienced driver can drive fast, one would think, but safety is always first.)
If you can get a copy of this song, I'd strongly recommend it. Good stuff. Other top-quality Alan Jackson songs inlcude, of course Chatahoochee, but additionally Little Bitty, Mercury Blues, Gone Country, Midnight in Montgomery, and It's 5 o'Clock Somewhere (with Jimmy Buffet). If you like 9/11 songs (which I don't particularly care for), Where Were You When the World Stopped Turning? is another. Ironically, I have the two greatest hits albums, but I never got into anything beyond the singles.
Sunday, June 17, 2007
Why I want to be a father
It's Fathers' Day today, and I should be, at this early hour, thinking of what I'm going to say when I call my father and thank him for all he's done for me, but this is 2007, and in 2002 he was taken from us by lymphoma, which I understand is a cancer of the blood. He did not tell me about his condition, although he had known for over ten years. He told his second wife, who in turn told her mother, who in turn told her grand-daughter because she had recently lost a friend to cancer. This girl told me in 2000, maybe 2001. I don't know if I asked my father about it afterwards, or if he came right out and told my brother and I. So it was rather sudden when I got the call that he wouldn't make it through the night. It seemed unreal to me, and I was somehow able to sleep. I found out he had in fact made it through the night, but not to noon, so I do hold on to that.
Back then I was a loser, at least in the romantic sense. I'd never even kissed a girl and thought I would die a virgin. Now, five years later, I am married and we are trying for a baby. Because I knew long before that I would one day be a father myself. It's been sort of my core meaning of life for almost 13 years now, almost half my life. When I was a kid, I couldn't fathom and never considered the possibility of having kids of my own. When I was 12 or 13, I was in a bad situation where I basically lost all respect (as if, you know, at that age, I had any to start with) for girls and women, because of one of each who had done me wrong (which is itself a story for another time... wait, no it's not, besides the people involved, I've only told my wife). I had taken to calling women "bitches" and "hoes" and kids, well, I pretty much ignored them and still didn't think of having any of my own.
Then I met a cousin, who was 3 at the time. At first I wanted nothing to do with her, but she wanted to play and wouldn't give up. So I chased her around some, and by the end of the day she was my favorite cousin (and still is... well, tied with her sister) and I had told my mother that I had wanted one - a kid, I mean, of my own, when I was old enough. And then my life sort of changed. Something changed to where kids were somehow drawn to me. I mean extraordinarily. A kid that isn't shy will want to meet everyone who comes to their place, or talk to most people... but for example, a couple years later, I would go over to my best friend's house, and his mom babysits, and one day there's a girl around 6 who just all of a sudden wants me to pick her up. Once I do, she doesn't want to be put down and doesn't want me to go when I have to go. And every time I go over there and she's there, she loses all interest in what's on the TV or what other kids are doing, basically everything but me. One night my buddy and I were up late playing Dungeons & Dragons (yay! geek cred) and his mother leads her in, says she can't sleep, and asks if she can hang out with us. We say sure, and she ends up going to sleep on the couch beside me. Later it came to her being sort of my "secretary" - she'd roll dice for me and make appropriate changes on my character sheet. Over the years, it's been much of the same. Kids who come over with people coming to see us end up following me around. And even after moving out here, even after getting married, it still happens. I can make unruly kids behave and I can make babies stop crying. For some reason the influence is stronger with girls, so I've taken that as a hint, that that's what I'm supposed to have. I mean, I have intermediate sporatic experience with raising girls from age 2 to about 12, and I want to put it to use.
I also want to have one that doesn't have to go home at the end of the night. One that I can watch playing in the bathtub, one I can read a story to and tuck in, one I can make breakfast to, walk down to the bus stop, or go driving with. Anybody can make a baby, it seems (everybody but us...) but we want to make a person, a good person. Someone who can think for herself and know the right choice to make, and make it at least most of the time. And of course have some of our (Jen and I) common interests. I'm hoping at least one will be a Trekkie, and at least one will watch wrestling with me. We know a guy who watches with his daughter, and he teaches her moves. I always wanted to put a kid through Karate, but the dojos around here are run by the Church, so that's now out. We're not going to brainwash our kids with a religion, but rather when they start asking about a higher power, we'll let them explore those aspects of society on their own. We won't discourage them, but they'll know our beliefs. (Which means they'll know Jen grew up Catholic and I grew up skeptical of anything I couldn't verify was real.) Ideally we'll have a smart, pretty girl and a tomboy for girls (A Sansa and an Arya, for A Song of Ice and Fire fans) and for a boy, a smart geeky one like me. Jen's the one who really wants a boy - the ones she grew up with and the ones her sister have aren't enough - and I have no idea what ideas she has. All she'll say (pretty much) is that she wants to let our kids be who they will be. That's all well and good, and I agree, but I have ideas, and naturally they're going to be exposed to the things we like. My mother played a lot of classic rock when I was a kid, so while I think I prefer country now, classic rock will always be my first love. And yes, our kids will know classic rock. They'll know Jimi, Zeppelin, CCR, the Eagles, and many others. As well as our current favorites.
So why, in short, do I want a kid? Well, they're fun - that's easy - but there's a certain appeal to the challenge of raising a good kid, a good person. And I partially believe what my family's been telling me, that I have my father's genius intelligence - but the problem is, I lack the motivation, the ambition to go out and get an education and get a really good paying job. But that's fine, I make decent money doing what I'm doing, and I find the simplicity fulfilling. I don't want to change the world, I just want to be myself. So I'm hoping we have at least one super-smart girl who stays in school and makes the family proud time and time again, because that was expected of me, but I never wanted to be more than a good husband, and a good father. If our kids are slackers, too, so be it, but we'll give them everything we can and hope for the best.
PS: I even suggested adoption to Jen. My father suggested it to my mother, and I think he was a little more passionate about it. But he had a good point. That there are a lot of unwanted kids in this world who really need a good home. I can't argue with that. But Jen, like my mother 30 years ago, wants to carry it for nine months, give birth naturally, and have the kid be of our own blood. Someone once told me that the reason so many people wait for adoption is that they want white babies, that most of the babies and kids up for adoption are from minority races. So the question becomes, would we adopt a black or Hispanic or Asian child? I'd like to say that we would - we're both pretty unprejudiced - but some areas around here aren't friendly to mixed families. So that would become a challenge, mostly for the kid who doesn't understand. That's one good reason I have for wanting to have a child naturally - that way it's not an issue.
Back then I was a loser, at least in the romantic sense. I'd never even kissed a girl and thought I would die a virgin. Now, five years later, I am married and we are trying for a baby. Because I knew long before that I would one day be a father myself. It's been sort of my core meaning of life for almost 13 years now, almost half my life. When I was a kid, I couldn't fathom and never considered the possibility of having kids of my own. When I was 12 or 13, I was in a bad situation where I basically lost all respect (as if, you know, at that age, I had any to start with) for girls and women, because of one of each who had done me wrong (which is itself a story for another time... wait, no it's not, besides the people involved, I've only told my wife). I had taken to calling women "bitches" and "hoes" and kids, well, I pretty much ignored them and still didn't think of having any of my own.
Then I met a cousin, who was 3 at the time. At first I wanted nothing to do with her, but she wanted to play and wouldn't give up. So I chased her around some, and by the end of the day she was my favorite cousin (and still is... well, tied with her sister) and I had told my mother that I had wanted one - a kid, I mean, of my own, when I was old enough. And then my life sort of changed. Something changed to where kids were somehow drawn to me. I mean extraordinarily. A kid that isn't shy will want to meet everyone who comes to their place, or talk to most people... but for example, a couple years later, I would go over to my best friend's house, and his mom babysits, and one day there's a girl around 6 who just all of a sudden wants me to pick her up. Once I do, she doesn't want to be put down and doesn't want me to go when I have to go. And every time I go over there and she's there, she loses all interest in what's on the TV or what other kids are doing, basically everything but me. One night my buddy and I were up late playing Dungeons & Dragons (yay! geek cred) and his mother leads her in, says she can't sleep, and asks if she can hang out with us. We say sure, and she ends up going to sleep on the couch beside me. Later it came to her being sort of my "secretary" - she'd roll dice for me and make appropriate changes on my character sheet. Over the years, it's been much of the same. Kids who come over with people coming to see us end up following me around. And even after moving out here, even after getting married, it still happens. I can make unruly kids behave and I can make babies stop crying. For some reason the influence is stronger with girls, so I've taken that as a hint, that that's what I'm supposed to have. I mean, I have intermediate sporatic experience with raising girls from age 2 to about 12, and I want to put it to use.
I also want to have one that doesn't have to go home at the end of the night. One that I can watch playing in the bathtub, one I can read a story to and tuck in, one I can make breakfast to, walk down to the bus stop, or go driving with. Anybody can make a baby, it seems (everybody but us...) but we want to make a person, a good person. Someone who can think for herself and know the right choice to make, and make it at least most of the time. And of course have some of our (Jen and I) common interests. I'm hoping at least one will be a Trekkie, and at least one will watch wrestling with me. We know a guy who watches with his daughter, and he teaches her moves. I always wanted to put a kid through Karate, but the dojos around here are run by the Church, so that's now out. We're not going to brainwash our kids with a religion, but rather when they start asking about a higher power, we'll let them explore those aspects of society on their own. We won't discourage them, but they'll know our beliefs. (Which means they'll know Jen grew up Catholic and I grew up skeptical of anything I couldn't verify was real.) Ideally we'll have a smart, pretty girl and a tomboy for girls (A Sansa and an Arya, for A Song of Ice and Fire fans) and for a boy, a smart geeky one like me. Jen's the one who really wants a boy - the ones she grew up with and the ones her sister have aren't enough - and I have no idea what ideas she has. All she'll say (pretty much) is that she wants to let our kids be who they will be. That's all well and good, and I agree, but I have ideas, and naturally they're going to be exposed to the things we like. My mother played a lot of classic rock when I was a kid, so while I think I prefer country now, classic rock will always be my first love. And yes, our kids will know classic rock. They'll know Jimi, Zeppelin, CCR, the Eagles, and many others. As well as our current favorites.
So why, in short, do I want a kid? Well, they're fun - that's easy - but there's a certain appeal to the challenge of raising a good kid, a good person. And I partially believe what my family's been telling me, that I have my father's genius intelligence - but the problem is, I lack the motivation, the ambition to go out and get an education and get a really good paying job. But that's fine, I make decent money doing what I'm doing, and I find the simplicity fulfilling. I don't want to change the world, I just want to be myself. So I'm hoping we have at least one super-smart girl who stays in school and makes the family proud time and time again, because that was expected of me, but I never wanted to be more than a good husband, and a good father. If our kids are slackers, too, so be it, but we'll give them everything we can and hope for the best.
PS: I even suggested adoption to Jen. My father suggested it to my mother, and I think he was a little more passionate about it. But he had a good point. That there are a lot of unwanted kids in this world who really need a good home. I can't argue with that. But Jen, like my mother 30 years ago, wants to carry it for nine months, give birth naturally, and have the kid be of our own blood. Someone once told me that the reason so many people wait for adoption is that they want white babies, that most of the babies and kids up for adoption are from minority races. So the question becomes, would we adopt a black or Hispanic or Asian child? I'd like to say that we would - we're both pretty unprejudiced - but some areas around here aren't friendly to mixed families. So that would become a challenge, mostly for the kid who doesn't understand. That's one good reason I have for wanting to have a child naturally - that way it's not an issue.
Saturday, June 16, 2007
Company releases bad program, spams with good reviews
In an ironic twist, anti-spyware software Ad-Aware maker Lavasoft has exploited the worst aspects of the Internet to cover up for some pretty obvious mistakes in their own program.
First of all let me state for the record that Ad-Aware has been a great program in the past few years I've been using it. Never had a single problem, and it did what it said. I always used the free version, but two levels of paid versions are also available - Plus and Pro. Free worked for me so that's what I used. So when I heard they were updating it, I waited until it droppd its "Beta" status (which for you non-technical folks, means they're still working on it, but it mostly works and those adept with computers are welcome to try it), and downloaded it. The installer looked nice, so I was optimistic.
Strike one: When I go to start it, it asks for a license code. There's a drop-down box which lets you choose license type, and free isn't one of them. It took me a couple minutes of scratching my head to try clicking Cancel. Sure enough, the program continued to start. But it also put the Ad-Watch icon on my desktop, which is for Plus and Pro users only. Two problems but it's one strike.
The program looks nice. Real nice. So I go to do the first thing one should do after installing a security application - install the latest updates. Any company worth anything making one of these should release updates every couple days, and they don't update the download of the program, so the program is days or weeks out of date upon downloading.
Strike two: I go to update, and there's no progress bar or anything. It just appears to hang. When it's done updating, it tells me the update failed, or the download failed.
I figure this could all be explained, that maybe C|Net's Download.com might have an update that fixes at least Strike 2, but what do I find instead?
Strike three: It would appear that the company, instead of fixing the problem, is instead spamming the review/rating system on Download.com, giving it 5 star reviews and talking, not even in depth, just vaguely, about how great it is. Although the most recent reviews are more honest, it's pretty obvious something's wrong when the average user review is 4.5 stars, and people are giving it 1 and 2 stars. Going back, one can see some very vague reviews, some of which are terribly written. Just see for yourself!
It's a damned shame that such a good company has turned to desparately trying to convince everyone they didn't just mess up, rather than burying themselves in code trying to find the actual problem. One can only hope that they are doing both.
First of all let me state for the record that Ad-Aware has been a great program in the past few years I've been using it. Never had a single problem, and it did what it said. I always used the free version, but two levels of paid versions are also available - Plus and Pro. Free worked for me so that's what I used. So when I heard they were updating it, I waited until it droppd its "Beta" status (which for you non-technical folks, means they're still working on it, but it mostly works and those adept with computers are welcome to try it), and downloaded it. The installer looked nice, so I was optimistic.
Strike one: When I go to start it, it asks for a license code. There's a drop-down box which lets you choose license type, and free isn't one of them. It took me a couple minutes of scratching my head to try clicking Cancel. Sure enough, the program continued to start. But it also put the Ad-Watch icon on my desktop, which is for Plus and Pro users only. Two problems but it's one strike.
The program looks nice. Real nice. So I go to do the first thing one should do after installing a security application - install the latest updates. Any company worth anything making one of these should release updates every couple days, and they don't update the download of the program, so the program is days or weeks out of date upon downloading.
Strike two: I go to update, and there's no progress bar or anything. It just appears to hang. When it's done updating, it tells me the update failed, or the download failed.
I figure this could all be explained, that maybe C|Net's Download.com might have an update that fixes at least Strike 2, but what do I find instead?
Strike three: It would appear that the company, instead of fixing the problem, is instead spamming the review/rating system on Download.com, giving it 5 star reviews and talking, not even in depth, just vaguely, about how great it is. Although the most recent reviews are more honest, it's pretty obvious something's wrong when the average user review is 4.5 stars, and people are giving it 1 and 2 stars. Going back, one can see some very vague reviews, some of which are terribly written. Just see for yourself!
It's a damned shame that such a good company has turned to desparately trying to convince everyone they didn't just mess up, rather than burying themselves in code trying to find the actual problem. One can only hope that they are doing both.
Communication is everything
This goes back to an earlier post I had made about a funny church sign, but moreso putting one's wife first in any situation. To make a long story short, Jen tested my resolve this morning. To make a short story long, read on.
The first thing that went wrong was my phone's earpiece went out. Jen's psuedo-brother's (a story for another time) girl and baby-mama called me - or rather, her phone did, so it could have been him, as he hasn't got a phone - but when I picked up, I heard nothing. No voice, no dead air - nothin'. So I hung up and called back. Again, nothing - no dial tone, nothing. I then blamed her phone. Lack of signal or a carrier other than US Cellular, who are the only ones who serve the rural areas out here. Then I called Jen after she got off work and the same thing happened, but this time I hit the Speaker button, and sure enough, I heard what I was supposed to over the speaker. My handsfree kit also worked, which is what I ended up using.
OK, so anyway, I got ahold of Jen, and we decided that we'd have to take the phone to US Cellular later, after we sleep. (Which is now, but while I'm up, she's still out. C'est la vie, or however the French say "such is life".) She went to Wal-Mart, had to pick up some stuff. We got off the phone when she reached the checkout lane. But my phone's battery was going out, so I called her again a while later - long enough for her to have gotten home - but no answer. I was just going to tell her that I was putting it on the charger. When she didn't answer, I just took this "fine, then" attitude and put it on the charger, in the car, without informing her.
My phone takes about 2½ hours to charge, but after an hour or so, I wanted to talk to her, ask her a few questions, like what time we wanted to be up and all that. So I go get the phone early, and it's only halfway charged. The way a phone charges is funny, it'll charge most of the way in almost no time - like half the time, or a little more. It takes the other half of the time to slowly crawl to a full charge. That and the fact that experts recommend you let the battery die so it doesn't forget its "zero point" are just too weird. Anyway...
I try to call... 5 rings and voicemail. Being the smartass that I am, I hang up and try again. Same thing. In a not-so-common display of arrogance, I decide to call over and over until she picks up. I didn't think she might be taking a shower. Instead I thought she'd be watching a movie (Jay and Silent Bob Strikes Back was in the DVD player - I'd watched it before work, and she said she might watch it) or perhaps doing the dishes with the music up, and was hoping, at some point, she would be able to hear her Taproot ringtone ("You're cuh-cuh-cuh-calling, but I can't hear you, I'm not listening anymore; you're subject to falling, but I can't save you..."). After a few tries, I left a text message.
This went on for a while. 2-7 calls, then a text message, repeat - with the occasional voicemail thrown in. At first I was getting mad. I'm not obsessive and I don't expect her to answer my call on the first try on the first ring and drop everything she's doing to come talk to me, but we're paying well over $100 a month for these phones, so I figure we ought to be able to communicate. If not, something's wrong. Well, after about an hour (when I had dropped down to calling every few minutes) I began to worry. Though I can't imagine why, had she been arrested or something? Had she been harmed on her way to the car or whatever leaving Wal-Mart? (I was accosted by a very insistent crackhead at that same Wal-Mart a couple months ago.) Or had she been in a traffic accident? (A couple weeks ago some idiot almost hit her after swerving at her.) So finally I sent her an ultimatum in a message. Contact me by 3AM (it was about 2:30AM) or I come home and find out what's wrong. I figure, if she's playing a joke on me or whatever, with her work ethic (it's actually stronger than mine) she won't let me leave work. But at the same time it's messed up, because if she's dead and dying on the side of the road, that time could mean the difference between life and death. But dammit, I'm at work and we live in the real world, and I had to give her a warning and a grace period.
Oh yeah, and this punk I work with (yes, you D) starts suggesting she's got another man, is cheating on me. Of course I only mention this for the sake of knowing he reads my blog, so I guess this is also a shout-out to that Umaga-lookin' dude. I know Jen would never cheat on me, but she's not answering the phone, so I can't entirely discount it, either. Y'know, like the Sammy Kershaw song, she don't know she's beautiful and doesn't see how I can sometimes, in stressful situations, suspect some lucky SOB might have picked her up (although I do trust her faithfulness to me).
So anyway, I go clear it with the boss man and get ol' stool sample (the Big D, and I don't mean Dallas...) to cover for me, tell them I'm leaving at 3. It's all good until she calls at the last bloody minute. No joke, nothing's wrong - she just left the phone in the car.
And the moral of the story, folks, is that even though nothing was wrong, I had to put my wife ahead of my job. I had to make sure she was alright. And I would have risked losing my job (even though it wouldn't have come to that) because she's more important than any job. (Although the guy who oils up the Divas on the WWE shows before they come out has got it made.) So everything's alright, except for the fact that I had to finish out the last three hours of the night. If she would have waited just 5 minutes to call me, I would have been punched out, in the car doing 90 down the streets of Greenville getting home. Well, maybe not - I would have done about 50-55 down Charles (45mph zone) until I hit Firetower (also 45) where I'd bump it up to about 60, and then on the back roads, it'd be no less than 60 all the way home, except in turns, the sharpest of which I can take at 50. And we'd have gone to sleep 3 hours earlier, and be both up and doing something right now. But that's OK, it all worked out.
The second moral of the story - communication is everything. If you don't have it - well, you're up the old creek.
The first thing that went wrong was my phone's earpiece went out. Jen's psuedo-brother's (a story for another time) girl and baby-mama called me - or rather, her phone did, so it could have been him, as he hasn't got a phone - but when I picked up, I heard nothing. No voice, no dead air - nothin'. So I hung up and called back. Again, nothing - no dial tone, nothing. I then blamed her phone. Lack of signal or a carrier other than US Cellular, who are the only ones who serve the rural areas out here. Then I called Jen after she got off work and the same thing happened, but this time I hit the Speaker button, and sure enough, I heard what I was supposed to over the speaker. My handsfree kit also worked, which is what I ended up using.
OK, so anyway, I got ahold of Jen, and we decided that we'd have to take the phone to US Cellular later, after we sleep. (Which is now, but while I'm up, she's still out. C'est la vie, or however the French say "such is life".) She went to Wal-Mart, had to pick up some stuff. We got off the phone when she reached the checkout lane. But my phone's battery was going out, so I called her again a while later - long enough for her to have gotten home - but no answer. I was just going to tell her that I was putting it on the charger. When she didn't answer, I just took this "fine, then" attitude and put it on the charger, in the car, without informing her.
My phone takes about 2½ hours to charge, but after an hour or so, I wanted to talk to her, ask her a few questions, like what time we wanted to be up and all that. So I go get the phone early, and it's only halfway charged. The way a phone charges is funny, it'll charge most of the way in almost no time - like half the time, or a little more. It takes the other half of the time to slowly crawl to a full charge. That and the fact that experts recommend you let the battery die so it doesn't forget its "zero point" are just too weird. Anyway...
I try to call... 5 rings and voicemail. Being the smartass that I am, I hang up and try again. Same thing. In a not-so-common display of arrogance, I decide to call over and over until she picks up. I didn't think she might be taking a shower. Instead I thought she'd be watching a movie (Jay and Silent Bob Strikes Back was in the DVD player - I'd watched it before work, and she said she might watch it) or perhaps doing the dishes with the music up, and was hoping, at some point, she would be able to hear her Taproot ringtone ("You're cuh-cuh-cuh-calling, but I can't hear you, I'm not listening anymore; you're subject to falling, but I can't save you..."). After a few tries, I left a text message.
This went on for a while. 2-7 calls, then a text message, repeat - with the occasional voicemail thrown in. At first I was getting mad. I'm not obsessive and I don't expect her to answer my call on the first try on the first ring and drop everything she's doing to come talk to me, but we're paying well over $100 a month for these phones, so I figure we ought to be able to communicate. If not, something's wrong. Well, after about an hour (when I had dropped down to calling every few minutes) I began to worry. Though I can't imagine why, had she been arrested or something? Had she been harmed on her way to the car or whatever leaving Wal-Mart? (I was accosted by a very insistent crackhead at that same Wal-Mart a couple months ago.) Or had she been in a traffic accident? (A couple weeks ago some idiot almost hit her after swerving at her.) So finally I sent her an ultimatum in a message. Contact me by 3AM (it was about 2:30AM) or I come home and find out what's wrong. I figure, if she's playing a joke on me or whatever, with her work ethic (it's actually stronger than mine) she won't let me leave work. But at the same time it's messed up, because if she's dead and dying on the side of the road, that time could mean the difference between life and death. But dammit, I'm at work and we live in the real world, and I had to give her a warning and a grace period.
Oh yeah, and this punk I work with (yes, you D) starts suggesting she's got another man, is cheating on me. Of course I only mention this for the sake of knowing he reads my blog, so I guess this is also a shout-out to that Umaga-lookin' dude. I know Jen would never cheat on me, but she's not answering the phone, so I can't entirely discount it, either. Y'know, like the Sammy Kershaw song, she don't know she's beautiful and doesn't see how I can sometimes, in stressful situations, suspect some lucky SOB might have picked her up (although I do trust her faithfulness to me).
So anyway, I go clear it with the boss man and get ol' stool sample (the Big D, and I don't mean Dallas...) to cover for me, tell them I'm leaving at 3. It's all good until she calls at the last bloody minute. No joke, nothing's wrong - she just left the phone in the car.
And the moral of the story, folks, is that even though nothing was wrong, I had to put my wife ahead of my job. I had to make sure she was alright. And I would have risked losing my job (even though it wouldn't have come to that) because she's more important than any job. (Although the guy who oils up the Divas on the WWE shows before they come out has got it made.) So everything's alright, except for the fact that I had to finish out the last three hours of the night. If she would have waited just 5 minutes to call me, I would have been punched out, in the car doing 90 down the streets of Greenville getting home. Well, maybe not - I would have done about 50-55 down Charles (45mph zone) until I hit Firetower (also 45) where I'd bump it up to about 60, and then on the back roads, it'd be no less than 60 all the way home, except in turns, the sharpest of which I can take at 50. And we'd have gone to sleep 3 hours earlier, and be both up and doing something right now. But that's OK, it all worked out.
The second moral of the story - communication is everything. If you don't have it - well, you're up the old creek.
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