Something must be wrong when Red Dead Redemption gets a 9.7 out of 10, and Alpha Protocol scores around the 6 mark.

Sorry, but RDR was just a shitter version of GTA4, which in itself was a massive let down. Buggy experiences with missions and general world physics, shit control methods that make the user nervous that the player character isn’t going to randomly run off the side of a ledge to their death via one stab of the stick, linear missions in a sandbox world that bare absolutely fuck all relation to the consequences of what you’ve done before or in between…

Sure it killed some time but it wasn’t ground breaking, often it was predictable and boring and it most certainly was not incredible by any stretch of the imagination. Now I’ve done the main story line, I find a complete and utter lack of interest to go back and finish the “challenges” or completing the “outfits”, or anything else that contributed absolutely nothing at all to the main story line. So I haven’t.

Now, I went out on a limb with Alpha Protocol because I resented the way all the shops thrust it to the “top of the charts” into the #1 selling position, merely because they ran out of copies of RDR. I thought the price drop was just because of the fact RDR came out at the same time and potentially overshadowed the game out of existence and into the budget bins.

So when I saw it on offer for 20 quid, or whatever it was, I thought hrm worth a stab. It mentions action and it mentions its an RPG, both of which when done properly can be quite splendid. Although a splendid game these days is fucking rocking horse shit at the best of times. I started playing, I can’t claim to have been hooked or captivated, but you know what, I was having fun. I took the time to learn about the characters through the dossiers you can activate by collecting intel, I paid attention to the conversations, I took in all the aspects of customising the character and the weapons and I appreciated the ability to veer conversations off in different directions which actually had an impact on what happens next.

The combat itself is difficult at times, but you don’t always have to engage, stealth can play a large part. The mini games you partake on missions to disable alarms, open door locks, crack safes, hack computers etc are all actually well thought out and varied. At first some of them are ridiculously hard (hacking a computer) but points can be added early on to the character skill set to ease this and make things easier… as in training the character. I appreciated the way that the player character couldn’t fire weapons in a masterful fashion from the outset and you can actually miss shots and be forced to upgrade talents to provide noticeable benefits.

Alpha Protocol dares to have a fucking health bar, A FUCKING MEN TO THAT I SAY. I can not stand these pathetic excuses for games that save at every possible corner turn, that bring you back to full health after being shot 5 times in the face simply by taking cover and sitting still. How is that possibly a challenge? Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a sadist. For example Demon’s souls took the concept of punishment FAR in excess and as a result the difficulty gradient is so large it makes the game quite an unjoyable. Almost inaccessible to the average user and harking back to the oldschool days of say, Ghouls and Ghosts where 2 hits kills you and there are no save points through an entire level. AP punishes you for fucking up but doesn’t dump you back to the absolute start of the level so a bit of work is needed to catch back up, but not loads.

I read a few reviews after I played it to see what other people thought, opinion seems to be split, most noticably from the game reviewers and the public though. I am a bit miffed. I do not see how something like RDR which was a more boring version of GTA4, that offered nothing new at all and put linear, buggy missions into a sandbox world in a wild west setting was ever deserving of “incredible” status. I found the whole thing a test of my patience and actually quite boring. Its difficult to die, unless some random bug kills you outright such as your horse falling off a 1 foot tall rock and instakilling you, and the aiming system in default mode will auto lock on to anyone moving in front of you.

Most people remark on the graphics for AP and to be honest, so fucking what? The game is fun, it has multiple ways of being played, it offers the chance for people to actually think about what they’re doing and make an informed choice on how the story will play out. What does it matter if the graphics aren’t massively up to par?

One thing I will say is the combat could use improvement and is sometimes a bit annoying, as is the AI of someone you’re trying to protect who has no issues with standing on live grenades, or running directly infront of your own assault rifle fire… but hey, these small matters can be forgiven because the rest of the game plays so well and entertains in an intelligent way for once.

If you come from the background of playing games where you want to earn an achievement, if you like the action crossed with RPG elements and you aren’t that worried about the flashiest graphics around, give the damn thing a go. If you come from the Modern Warfare generation and just like games that hold your hand, provoke very little in the way of rational or intelligent thought, and simply do not allow you to fail if you own an IQ of more than 60, then I wouldn’t bother.

I suspect the game reviewers from most places fall into this sub par 60 IQ territory, as all of them have seemed to condemn a really involving and generally “good” game to the levels of dirt…  and marked up a bland, linear, repetitive, uninvolved time sink to levels of “incredible”. It sucks, get a fucking brain.

These people can go fuck themselves so far up the ass until the elbow disappears and it starts to envelope shoulders.

By law in this retarded little country I have to pay for a “license” to use a TV just because it is capable of receiving a broadcast RF signal. This is to fund, ta da, the BBC. I do not watch the BBC, I do not use their services and as a result, I do not want to fucking pay them any cunting money.

But apparently just because my TV can accept an RF signal I owe them for it. I don’t just owe them for it on a flat rate either. By paying a direct debit for a 6 month period they automatically want me to pay for an entire fucking year over those 6 months, and then continue paying the full amount over the next year too.

To me that suggests they get 6 months of extra money out of me, for fuck all, whilst raking in the interest generated from every other poor cunt that makes use of the service.

“Can’t I just pay on a monthly basis, for what I owe on a monthly basis?” I asked.

*Confused silence*
“Er no sir, you have to pay the set amounts in advance”

“But I don’t want to pay you double for a service I won’t even use, why is it up to me to claim it back? Can’t I just pay what I actually owe per month?”

“We like our customers to be ahead in their payments”

“I’m sure you do, it means you get double the money owed for no particular reason and then it’s up to me to claim it back. I don’t want to do it that way, I just want to pay, what I owe, on an monthly basis”

*More confused sounds*
“Sir this is our policy, we can’t just make a policy up to suit you”

Yeah that’s right, something logical, fair and that disallows you guys to make money out of my already taxed wages sounds a completely fucking TERRIBLE idea doesn’t it. The interest they must make out of the entire number of people in this country overpaying by £70 odd quid a year must be astronomical. Imagine 10 million households in the country have a license, that’s 700 million pounds a year they’re sat on for fuck all, making interest on it.

I appreciate interest rates aren’t through the roof right now but even at 1% they’re looking at 7 million pounds a year interest just in overpayments, and they still make the most pathetic TV content in the world.

The worst part about this, is not the fact its a business trying to rip people off, which it clearly fucking is; its the fact that people are LEGALLY BOUND to pay them. They don’t try and work out if you have a TV  in the fist place, you just get sent threatening letters of fines automatically.

Apparently its their “policy” to setup rip off direct debits in this way to finance pigshit television that about 10% of the country can relate to - and no one has a fucking choice about how to pay for it, or even it seems, how much, because it’s breaking the law to tell them to fuck off.

It’s an absolute disgrace, I can see why the government would never scrap this system as its a license to print cocking money. What else do you know where you have to not only pay for a service you’ve not yet used up front, but the emphasis actually gets placed onto you to claim back what you don’t use because it’s their “policy”.

I paid for the TV, I pay for the electricity to make it work, I pay for the house to use it in, I pay for the Sky subscription so I can watch the channels on that network. Why the fuck should I owe someone else money when I’ve already paid every other mother fucker holding their hand out.

What if I ring up in the next 3 months or so and tell them I’m unhappy with the level of service, quality of programming and I want my fucking money back. Oh that’s right, its a legal requirement to buy a “license” for a television set so there is nothing I can do at all.

Absolute, prime examples of complete and utter cunts.

Fuck off and die horribly anyone who works for the TV licensing company, anyone at the BBC, anyone related even in the loosest sense. Just leave me alone and get a worth while fucking job and a better existence.

The kind people who incorrectly put the wrong address against my name on the electoral register and thus prevented me from voting in the general election, then blamed me for “moving house without telling them” from an address that didn’t exist in the first place have struck again.

I moved out of my flat, closed my account and was told that I would be owed money. Great.

Then 2 weeks later in my new property a bill drops through the door for 100 quid.

What?

I look at the bill and it claims the payments I made by direct debit, plus the discount for living on my own adds up to 50 odd quid more than the payments I owe. So why the bill?

Then I catch the line “Refund: £152.20″.

They’re asking me for a straight 100.00 quid back.
Sorry but that’s too much of a co-incidence for me, exactly 100 quid to the penny?

I rang them up and three times it was mentioned the problem was “because I cancelled the direct debit”. I tried to explain 3 times that I hadn’t cancelled the direct debit, they had when they closed the account.

Besides, if I’ve paid more than I owe, what has the DD got to do with anything?

What was obvious to me by this point was I’d be refunded too much money. That was the long and short of it, the difference I was owed back was 52.20. They’ve given me 152.20. And then without any explaination at all, or apology, or ANYTHING just sent me a bill for 100 quid after I’ve moved out of the area over a month ago.

The fact it was a straight 100 quid they were asking for pointed heavily to a fuckup their end, not me and guess what, I was right.

Finally the lady admitted they’d closed the direct debit themselves when I’d called up on the 9th about the account, and lo and behold yes they’d fucked up and given me too much money back.

So instead of actually just writing to me saying “We’re sorry, made a mistake, please can we have our 100 quid back” I just get sent a fucking bill for a “refund”. Well basically my answer to that is go fuck yourselves, until you apologise to me for the first fuckup then taking liberties the second time billing me for a mistake, I’m going to sit on your 100 quid for as long as possible.

Buried DEEP WITHIN MY ASSHOLE.

After 25 years custom I’m leaving these assholes.

Moving house shouldn’t be that much of a fucking hassle, I mean really, I walked into NatWest and said “I’ve moved house”. They got me to tell them the new address after verifying that I was me via the use of my chip and pin card, they changed my address.

It took me 3 fucking minutes.
In and out.
You listening to this NationWide you bunch of spastic twats?

Nationwide refuse to sign me back up to their pathetic online banking system because the address I requested the details to be sent to were not the ones on file.  I can understand that, but their recommended way of changing your address is by going online.

Considering the details they send you are fucking arbitrary for the most part remembering non personal 6 digit pin codes and a random 10 digit customer number makes it fucking impossible to actually use the service in an online or mobile fashion. I mean who carries around that sort of information with them, from a practical and security point of view. If you can’t keep it in your head it’s not secure in the first fucking place.

Anyway, I digress, so I wanted to change my details. I rang them up, answered all the security questions, then was told I couldn’t change the address over the phone. Their “policy”. I can ALMOST understand this as people can get hold of personal information, however I quoted digits from a pin code and letters from a password. What more do they fucking want a copy of my DNA?

So I had to go to a branch. Joy. I went into town on the bus and went into the branch. Instead of just proving who I was and quoting the new address I had to fill in an entire fucking A4 sheet with so many fields of information it was annoying. I filled it out, got back in line and waited another 15 minutes for a free cashier.

I approached, explained I was given the form and I’d filled it out and I wanted to change my addresses. Can I see some ID please? Yes of course you can, proving that I am in fact me seems pretty important at this point I’ll give them that.

No, something with your new address on it.

Excuse me?

I need something with your new address on it.

The fact that I had my fucking bank card with the account details on it wasn’t enough.
The fact I had my driving license with a picture of my fucking face on it, with the old address I was moving from, was not enough.

Do you have a passport?

Er… yes, but not on me?

Oh.

What use was that going to be anyway? You renew your passport and driving license every 10 fucking years, what chance am I going to have that two weeks after moving house they would mystically have my new address on them? Fuck all, that’s what.

So do you have anything like a utility bill?

No, strangely enough it doesnt mention that anywhere on the fucking form, or the people on the phone I spoke to.

Oh well we need that.

Why?

It’s our policy, for your security.

So at this point I’m sat there wondering what they’re trying to secure me from? The inability to quote my new, correct address? A fucking spastic moment where I’d walk in and re-register my card to an address that wasn’t fucking mine? For a laugh?

I explained that I’ve proven who I am, how the hell can they refuse to accept my new address from my own fucking mouth? Not good enough.

Oh apparently though, if I’m unhappy I can send a letter in to their head office address.

I asked how this was helpful to me and they explained that they have my signature “on file” and can verify it that way.

Wait a minute…

The same fucking signature on the back of my valid bank card for the account I want to change the details of. That I am holding in my hand? The same one that no doubt appears as a sample on their cunting computer screens when looking up my details? The very same one I could have provided, in front of their very faces at the branch I was stood in as well as about 3 other valid forms of ID.

Oh no that’s not acceptable. Me being there in person and being able to prove several times over is not good enough, but a simple faceless, insecure common snail-mail letter with my signature on it holds the power of the sun.

So lets consider this for a second, someone, anyone, can send a letter saying they want to change my registered address on my bank account, to their head office and a simple signature will be fine. That is all they need, the ability to emulate or copy my signature. Absolutely no issues.

Me being present in the branch with my bank card, photo ID including a driving license for the address I’m trying to change, able to recreate said signature as many times as they require is not.

What a bunch of fucking useless, shit headed morons.
First chance I get, I’m closing my account of a quarter of a century and I’m never going near the useless pricks again. 2010 and with all the security in place they could ever ask for, that I can validate, they’re taking the piss out of me.

So lets play a little game.

If anyone does happen to know enough about me, my previous address, my full name etc.
Feel free to try it on. Write to Nationwide, impersonate me and change my fucking address for me, because at the moment short of jumping through their cocking hoops I have no other choice and don’t seem to give a shit that I’m threatening to leave.

Japan vs Denmark. The only game I’ve seen so far that genuinely entertained me.
Although that said I did miss the Italy game, which at 3 - 2 sounds entertaining too.

Japan eh… supremely fit and hard working right up until the final whistle, no dishonerable bs, quality free kicks and quite frankly awesome to watch. I hope they carry on for at least another couple of rounds so I get to watch some more action.

As for the Italians… bad luck you dishonest, complacent bunch of girl’s greasy twats.
Highly glad you went out in the first round having won fuck all because that’s all cheating cunts deserve. Just shows how far going down like a bunch of prepubescent girls holding your faces rolling around all over the floor after tripping over a blade of grass gets you. Assholes got everything they deserved.

End.

Ok, so England haven’t been doing well in the world cup. To be honest, couldn’t care less. It was massively over-hyped that we’ll be doing well and like normal, we’ve fallen flat on our faces.

The biggest thing about the world cup that has annoyed me, at first, was the fucking trumpets, however the more games I watched the biggest problem is the sheer amount of dishonesty from the players.

What’s the point of playing a game on a top professional level if all you need to do to win is cheat the best? This leads me on nicely to the officials and the lack of 4th referee. The sheer amount of diving, clutching faces where no faces have been touched, rolling around on the floor only for the players to wave their hands at the ref to attempt to get a player sent off has grown irritating and old very, very quickly.

It’s as if FIFA are happy to promote sheer dishonesty and have systematically hired the shittiest officials with mental difficulties to ref the games.

Take the Brazillian game, they had moments of sheer quality. Small periods of time where they were actually a joy to watch when the lazy bastards actually bothered to put some effort in. Regardless, the 2nd goal that went in against the Ivory Coast should never have happened. In the replay we see the Brazillian guy handball it once, flick it over a couple of defenders and then handball it again against the inside of his arm, before slotting it into the net.

The whole world saw him do on the video reply about 10 times.

The Ivory coast players saw him do it and appealed.

The ref casually jogs along side the Brazilian player with a grin on his face, asks him if he’d hand balled it via a gesture to the top of his arm, ironically exactly in the same place as he actually did hand ball it. To which the Brazillian player lies his as off, no no it hit my chest, the ref grins a little more, just runs on by and the goal stands.

Yeah big fucking joke, why not ask the Ivory Coast just how funny this little incident is. After all it’s only the world cup finals, lets all just cheat and be totally dishonest about it. It’s quite fucking simple really isn’t it? A 4th referee would have seen it happen, the player would have been yellow carded for cheating and the goal disallowed.

A comment from some idiot in the BBC commentary team suggested “there was no way the player could say he hand balled it at that point”. Yeah why not promote a little more dishonesty to the entire nation and all the kids watching. Why not justify the outright cheating by claiming the player couldn’t fucking possibly actually own up and say he hand balled it. The idea of actually admitting what the entire world can see anyway on video replay is obviously an impossible nonsense.

There was another incident when someone called Kaka got sent off towards the end of the match. One could say the Ivory Coast got a little revenge on the Brazilians taking full advantage of the shit officials once again. Kaka already on a yellow card gets run at by an IC player, off the ball. He stands his ground and admittedly sticks a little elbow into the mix to stop the player and they clash. The IC player goes down holding his face after a small elbow dig to the ribs, thrashing around on the floor like an electrocuted salmon. The dishonest cunt.

Then comes the waving of hands to emulate cards from the IC players to attempt to get the guy another yellow and sent off. Guess what, it worked. The ref who saw nothing of the entire incident, his eye-line demonstrated to be positioned completely towards the ball - then proceeds to judge his entire response to the situation on the IC players response and didn’t appear to consult the linesman. Who probably missed it anyway.

Awesome, another result for not having a 4th ref with video evidence. Kaka gets a red card, sent off for an action by the IC player that was obviously designed to do just that. Why run at and eventually straight into another player off the ball in the first place? For a laugh? He now faces at least a match ban that apparently can’t be appealed or overturned - what fucking pathetic and archaic laws, especially as WE CAN ALL FUCKING SEE WHAT HAPPENED ON VIDEO.

I believe the referee is not allowed to view any sort of video replay, what a fucking nonsense. This just strikes me as FIFA absolutely supporting the complete pricks that dishonestly bring this game into disrepute time, after fucking time and the world cup will ultimately be won on who can cheat the best and get away with it.

This behaviour needs to the controlled, curbed and eliminated, FIFA have the power to do this but don’t seem to have either the balls or the desire to do anything about it. Perhaps turning it into a fair, sportsman like game would damage their cash flow as the majority of the complete fucking morons that watch the game might get turned off and actually find something better to do with their lives.

So, please FIFA, you absolutely bunch of greedy, selfish, twats - Stamp out this unsportsmanlike nature of the pussy, dishonest, overpaid, complacent losers you have playing the sport at the “top level” you are ultimately responsible for governing, so people can actually get on and play a fair game without the falling over, cheating, baiting the ref, swearing at the officials and general shit attitude.

Finally managed to pick a copy of this game up on PS3. Unsure what happened with distribution and creation of units but for a major Rockstar release the shops ran dry pretty quickly indeed.

Ok, so this is a game that is basically GTA4 on horses, set in the wild west instead of a busy city… very simply put.

Now my reviews are very much akin to Yahtzee in the way that I won’t sit here and tell you what is good about the game. You can find that out from any deadpan boring paid off reviewer out there on IGN, gamespot or whatever. I bring you what can be improved or what has pissed me off about the game.

The first thing I’ve noticed about the game is it has a very similar, if not the same feel as GTA4 control and movement wise; supposedly because it uses the same physics engine, with the same bugs. Very disappointing to be honest, a very well written and pretty game crippled yet again by dodgy controls, visual bugs and retarded random events that shouldn’t happen.

Noticeable events so far are being stuck in walls and objects, unable to jump over objects such as logs laid alongside a campfire that are about a foot off the ground and the horse rocketing sideways and keeling over dead from falling about 2 feet off a rock. All very strange, all very present in GTA4… anyone who played it for any length of time must have experienced the classic car hitting a curb at 5mph and flipping into the air resulting in a barrel roll style affair.

The controls are also pretty shite to be honest, basic movement of person and horse seems clunky and slow. I’ve lost count of the amount of times I’ve tried to get through a door, ran into the side of it, turned around to try again and ran straight into the other side of the door frame. You get to a point where you’re getting frustrated at the control method because you know exactly what you want the character to do, you just can’t manipulate him into doing it effectively.

The other ever present Rockstar copy-write (c) (r) on how missions play out is the random ending of such missions for seemingly no explainable reason. To name a couple of times:

One mission I was told to follow a dog around a local ranch to scout for criminals and rustlers, keep the place safe. So I got on my horse and followed this fucking dog around for a couple of minutes until at last it’s ears pricked up and off it went barking away. I followed the dog but after getting within about 3 seconds of the vicinity that it had stopped at, the mission ended with red characters displaying “You failed to stop any criminals”.

I didn’t see any criminals the entire time.
To this very confused moment, I have no idea what actually happened.

Another situation had me going into a burning barn to rescue the horses inside. I made it into the barn no problems, climbed down and was told to open the door. I saw a rake across the handles of the barn so I shot the rake and was then told to smack the horses to get them out. I did this successfully for 2 horses but on approaching the 3rd horse the mission ended, the screen faded to black and I was told I’d failed because I “Terrorised the locals”.

Again, utterly no idea what was going on there.
Possibly because I shot the rake off the door rather than removing it, but er… the mission ended about 30 seconds after I’d done this.

On the 2nd attempt the game reloaded and I was placed back inside the barn; I decided to remove the rake without shooting it this time. No problem. I got the 2 horses out, approached the 3rd, a cut scene played and some burning timber fell in front of the door blocking my path. I was told to mount the horse and jump the burning embers to get out of the barn, again no problem! Point in the direction you want, hammer X, press square to jump. If only it were that simple.

I got on the horse and steered it towards the back of the barn for a run up, arduously turned it around aimed at the door and started running. Just as I got there the camera veered around in a weird pan, the horse clipped an object on the floor and as a result shot off 45 degrees towards a wall. If that wasn’t bad enough it then got its head stuck through the barn wall and wouldn’t move. I stood there in the burning barn with no way out and eventually the game faded to black again and told me I’d failed.

Another situation of randomness saw me sat up on a rocky hill after chasing down a city man that was captured by a cannibal. I shot the cannibal, gained “honour” (without a u) and off ran the city guy. I decided I wanted to know where he was off to, so started following him running madly into the distance. I got to a point where I was on said rocky hill and some wild dogs / coyote things came up to the horse and started nipping at it’s ankles. I sat there for a while convinced that a little dog running around the feet of the horse wasn’t going to bother it too much, utilI saw the horse kick at one of them so I decided to shoot one.

Next thing I know, one more coyote has run up to the horse, which until this point has showed utterly NO sign of being unhealthy. It nipped at the horses leg again, at which point the horse decided to instantly die on the spot, flipping sideways and throwing me a few feet away. At which point I realised I was completely stranded out in the middle of nowhere, left scratching my head as to why my horse had just died on the spot, so I directly powered the machine off so this hideous seemingly random fuckup wouldn’t completely ruin my save profile.

One final example, I was steering a wagon away from some people who er… wanted my wagon? Or the guy fiddling with the dead people on the back of it, something about treasure I think, I didn’t really care. I was racing along these tiny fucking pathways only to get pushed off the path by someone on a horse. Ok fine, a single horse pushing an entire moving stagecoach, I can let that off as it’s part of the game. However for some reason the designers had created some sort of bent metal object along side the road that just happened to er… be there. I don’t know why.

Said object was exactly wide enough to enclose and trap the stagecoach within the metal structure and hold it perfectly half way. So my wagon is now lodged head first in some weirdly designed/placed object and there is no way of reversing. So er… the result of this was I sat there on top of the wagon frantically belting the controller to fuck all effect, whilst gradually getting shot to death. Getting off the wagon and attempting to run instantly failed the mission also as certain NPCs apparently are not allowed to die. I can understand being punished for not doing something as skilfully as I might as it makes no sense not to be able to fail a mission; but getting stuck head first in some random object that then pins you and doesn’t allow you to move removes any object of challange from the “GAME” and turns it into a pointless escapade.

You see, I think something as simple as basic directional movement should not be this fucking bugged in a game released in 2010; physics generation on the fly when done well is great, something like halflife/halflife 2 shows a great relationship between the source engine and the phys-x physics add on. I am not sure what Rockstar is using, engine wise, but its blighting all their games with poor controls and ridiculous events that would/should never occur.

You see, I’ve been playing games a fair old while now, 20 something years and I’m fairly adept at them. Pads with analogue sticks… those new fangled things that appeared on the N64 etc, I’ve got to grips with recently and whilst I’m no pro gamer, when I learn the controls to a game I’m confident enough not to get into a fluster when the shit goes down and I need to react to a situation in a skilful manner.

However, all recent Rockstar games with their cack physics engine and shite controls always instill a mild feeling of panic in me when I’m required to act swiftly. Mostly because I know when (not if) the shit starts going down and I need to react, the control method is so bad and unresponsive that I’ll be sat there feeling helpless behind the pad because I know full well when I need to react I’ll be unable to do so in a timely or effective manner. If you don’t perfect the movement and get a bit lucky, first time, chances are you will not be able to recover at all and you’ll fail the mission and have to start all over again.

This is quite frankly, unacceptable. The control mechanism is meant to be such that after sustained use it becomes invisible to the user. I shouldn’t have to worry or think about whether or not I can simply navigate the player character through a situation effectively, if my own skill or intelligence lets me down that is completely fine, but not being able to perform and react in a timely manner is the most frustrating feel when you, just, want, the guy, to turn, around, to shoot, the person… frantically, shooting you, in .. the… back… … but, the… player, spazzes, around… too far… and… oh I’m dead.

Anyway not to go on, this guy makes the point in a more articulate way than me. So watch it.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/1776-Red-Dead-Redemption

How do companies and businesses get away with charging adult prices for people over some arbitrarily assigned age?

Last time I checked a person was a child until they hit 18, this is the law.
At 18 they are considered an adult, not before.

So why is it companies when selling products, tickets for events, hotel rooms etc, are freely allowed to redefine what is already set by law in order to charge more money?

I’m not aware that a business can change the law off it’s own back and lower the age of buying alcohol or cigs for smoking, just on a whim that they see it as being “fairer to their business”, so why is a 16 year old charged adult prices in hotels, at concerts, on various transport methods etc… without the rights of an adult?

I’m currently listening to a debate on question time about public sector and MP / Prime Minister’s pay.

Apparently it has been revealed recently, that some public servants, civil servants, whatever, are paid more than the Prime Minister. This has caused outrage, but I think, for the wrong reasons.

Retard number one stands up and reasons that the prime minster has ultimate responsibility (which is actually true), but goes on to say, as no one else in the country has as much responsibility he should be be paid the most. No one should be eligible for more pay or is clearly more valuable.

Retard 2 reasons that the prime minster “does the most” in the country, and therefor everyone should be benchmarked against him because they “can’t possibly do as much”.

Ok sure.

Lets think about this for a second, the prime minister is a privileged bloke that ran a party with decent credentials behind him but was ultimately ELECTED IN. He has no previous experience of running an entire country and we’re going out on a limb putting confidence in someone to do a job who has no past experience of doing it.

Sure he’s a confident and experienced politician so that puts him in an ideal position, being leader of the opposition for a few years, but how valuable is he? Has he proved any valuable and decent credentials as a Prime Minster just yet?

Rhetoric.

So yes, ultimately the initial argument 1 of Ms retard was true, he DOES hold the most responsibility. However responsibility is not the ONLY factor that attributes to value.

Argument 2 was a nonsense, “does the most” means literally fuck all at the best of times. Does the most what, whores on a weekend? Hairbrushes up the ass passage the wrong way up, concurrently?

The thing that we need to keep in scope here is there are high skilled and experienced individuals doing jobs that no one else in the country, let alone the world are qualified to do, and have been doing them keeping us safe and running very important institutions and agencies, for fucking years.

That is the be all, and end all of the issue. The Prime Minister is the most media exposed, accountable and potentially “important” person in the country, but he is by no means the most useful, experienced or VALUABLE. There are a lot of highly skilled jobs within the public sector that some people, simply can not, or could not do. They might not be the Prime Minister, but they are ultimately more valuable.

One good point I heard put forward which won’t go down well, but to me makes perfect sense… The Prime Minister’s salary should be doubled. Let’s face it, is 140k a year (approx) actually a decent wage for someone running an entire country? Is it fuck.

Ever since building a media PC for myself to have all my movies & TV shows available at the touch of a button I haven’t had much need to even handle a disc for a while, in fact the media PC experiment has proved so compelling that messing about with discs evokes similar feelings to handling audio cassettes or floppy disks.

Anyway unlike a lot of people I actually do buy things on Bluray that seem like good value for money.  A while ago I bought the metal box version of Band of Brothers - the critically acclaimed mini-series about WW2.  Recently I decided to rewatch it and straight away I was struck by just how long I had to wait before I could even choose which episode I wanted to watch from the menu.

The PS3 - whilst still apparently one of the better Bluray players available - still seemingly has to go through some sort of routine when playing Bluray movies where it changes resolution several times, “loads” something (fuck knows what, dynamic content?) before finally getting on with the job of actually playing the disc proper.

What this all means in practice is that from the moment you put the disc in the PS3 and choose to play it you’re sat there for several minutes whilst unskippable copyright & anti-piracy notices appear on screen, in several different languages.  I swear on this particular BoB boxset I have to wait at least 5 elapsed minutes before I get to the menu.

Now someone who has in their possession a genuine Bluray disk that the PS3 presumably verifies (somehow) as genuine (I can only presume that PS3s wont play copied Blurays) it is fairly safe then to assume that the person who put the disc in the drive either bought it or is renting it.  Either way they’ve paid money for the experience, money which the MPAA/RIAA etc are constantly moaning that they’re not getting the right amount of from consumers.

Since piracy is so easy and convenient nowadays if I go out of my way - because someone who is au fait with the internet & has high speed broadband, that’s exactly what it is - to purchase a genuine authorised copy of something I don’t want an experience that is worse than the people that have pirated it!

With the Band of Brothers bluray boxset if you choose to buy it - as I did - then you have to suffer through 5+ minutes of unskippable content on every disc, when someone who downloads each episode of it from Usenet or torrents has as-near-as-dammit the same picture and sound quality experience but instead they are watching the episode mere seconds after choosing to watch it.  In every way that matters they are receiving a better experience in spite of having not paid for it.  The honest buyer has quite literally lost 5 minutes of their life every time they put the disc in the drive.

Also the PS3 has this great feature whereby if you start watching Sky or anything else (I guess it relates to it detecting when it is no longer the HDMI connector that is in use) it automatically pauses playback, even on the copyright notices/adverts (which you can’t incidentally pause manually - none of the controls work, you just get an “Operation not permitted here” error).  So not only can you not skip the notices but they have to be visible on screen otherwise they’ll be sat waiting for you when you switch back to the PS3.  Your only options are either to “sit there and watch!” or physically walk away, fortunately TVs aren’t at the stage where they can tell when you’re not watching.

Yet.

For a change I’m not writing about something that rages me, it’s more mild astonishment and general confusing. I came into this election scenario as an outsider, thanks to my local council. I also leave as a spectator.

As a side note before I start:

Big thanks go out to my local council, to whom I pay about £120 a month for seemingly piss poor service when I actually need them. Most for utterly failing to register me on the electoral role. All this  after 1) sending someone around to my door to wake me up on a Saturday morning in 2009 2) patronising me at the door because “This is what happens when you don’t fill the forms in” 3) Taking our names and filling the forms in 4) Ignoring any contact we had and failing to put us on the register 5) Further completely ignoring any correspondence from myself for a solid month up until the election asking why they’d done all this and still not made us eligible to vote.

So anyway, what a situation we have here.

The Conservatives came away with the majority vote, but not enough of it to be in control of the government. The Labour party lost over 80 seats in a massive swing. The Liberal Democrats who were apparently “on fire” up until the vote managed to also lose around 5 seats. Good result for them.

Looking at the map of the UK you’d be forgiven for wondering how the Conservatives hadn’t got a clear majority with such a huge land mass.

Then again looking at the actual votes cast you’d be forgiven for wondering how the Liberals did so badly, depending on how the data is interpreted gives very differing and contorted views of what appears to be fair and just, and what is just plain strange.

It strikes me something doesn’t add up about the ways votes are calculated and tallied on a constituency or volume basis. Then again lo and behold the only party pushing for a major change to proportional representation is the party that would benefit the most from it, the Liberals. Can I suggest a better, fairer way? I’m not sure I can, not enough going on in my head to deal with that sort of thing right at this moment, however it does seem more than fairly fucking bent that Labour were allowed to change constituency boundaries over the years to try and rig themselves a more efficient share of the vote.

Regardless, as of today we have now rid ourselves of our own unelected Prime Minister and found we’ve actually got a Green government… yellow and blue, geddit?

Now I’m a bit shocked about this because of the main parties I thought the Liberals were almost an accepted stark polar opposite to the Tories, many of their supporters on Facebook going as far to claim that Cameron is a Nazi and people who vote Conservative a) don’t care about the country b) hate minorities c) hate blacks d) gas Jews e) openly stab small kittens in the eyes then roast their carcasses on makeshift knitting needles and then spit-roasting them over an open flame, gorging on their erupting bodily juices from their previously eviscerated eye sockets.

I made the last one, e) up. And possible the one before. Maybe.

Perhaps such tossers in question may well grow up one day, as most of them seemed to be about 14 but it seems the entire politics thing between anyone who can voice an opinion turned into a stupid fucking trendy war that was almost akin to mindless football supporters battering each other to death over what is essentially a game and someone they’ve chosen to support with no more reasoning than a fucking sheep following the one in front.

So what now.. I guess seeing as Cameron is a Nazi and Clegg is an utter sell out betrayer we better start building some gas chambers to rid ourselves of the pesky Jews that Nazis hate so badly. Yeah right. All the kids that joined the facebook groups that ran along the lines of rather living elsewhere under a Tory government or I’d rather dying than live under Cameron as PM… well lets hope they fuck off somewhere else or kill themselves eh. A lot of childish bullshit from morons, I’m sure it happens anyway but it all comes to light when the internet is involved as every moron has a voice.

I’m not really on anyone’s side politically, I suppose a lot of my theories on things veer mildly towards the right side of politics but only because I see them as being more applicable to a real life circumstance and I have this niggle that people should take more pride and fucking work for what they own, rather than take everything they can out of sheer lazyness.

Anyway, the thing that strikes me as a little disturbing is two political parties with such opposing views suddenly teaming up to form a majority government, or as they keep referring to a “stable” government. Seems strange that in a pinch an “agreement” can be found over policies and a government forced with the leader of the losing main party.. becomming deputy prime minister. I mean the two guys were only openly slagging each other off and focusing on a lot of negativity before this situation happened… now they’re supposedly best mates and have to stand together to run a country? I wonder if it will last.

Something is fairly rotten there when the smallest mainstream party effectively decides who will run the next government for us. When the two larger parties have to sell out ideals and alter manifesto promises to pander to the needs and win the support of the smaller party. That lost seats in the election.

That the liberals can take their share of the vote and more or less use the number behind it to push towards a huge change of ethics that they just happen to agree to get into power. Sorry, but surely in that case a certain percentage of the 7 odd million people who voted Liberal Democrat must have a seriously strong case of feeling betrayed? Even if a lot of good policies are put in place from both parties it may well hurt a lot of people with a strong political compass.

The biggest laugh of the day though was Brown’s exit speech, something along the lines of “it was the joy of the job itself and not the prestigious title or status that being PM granted. In fact I hate that side of it”. Yeah right, you utter liar. It’s pathetic that someone who has just resigned from running a country, previously unelected and in a lot of people’s eyes a hideous failure claims on their way out they were doing it for the love of the job and didn’t give a fuck about being in charge.

The other laugh of the day was the BBC interviewing someone who claimed Brown wasn’t at fault at all for the huge financial failures in the private sector. Sure, being the Chancellor for years and eventually head of the entire government with a pretty sound understanding of economics meant he had no involvement at all with the financial industry. I mean what would the head of the FSA know on this matter? Shall we see a quote from him?
Gordon Brown helped fuel Britain’s banking crisis by pressuring the City regulator not to intervene and stop reckless lending, Lord Turner, the head of the Financial Services Authority, said.
Well, thats pretty conclusive then, Brown clearly had nothing to do with the financial ruining of the country at all, only being the person in charge of the countries budget and a serious influence on the financial sector for around 10 years. Deluded moron.

So anyway, lets hope this coallition is stable and lasts a while, hopefully with a good balance of left and ring wing policies in the correct places things might improve considerably… as long as it works and lasts.

This is the biggest pain in my fucking huge asshole at the moment. No one seems to give a shit, fullstop. No matter how much money you’re paying them, no matter how much of a premium service you’d paid for, how much you’ve been fucked around already, how much you’ve waited for anything you’ve ordered… no one cares.

It enrages me to the point of wanting to smash things, stab things in the face with blunt objects and so on.

Cases in point:

GAK Brighton.

1. Order a 2 grand amp and foot switch, pass on instructions I will not be at home, supply address to deliver kit to
2. Kit does not turn up as promised
3. Retard at shop blames warehouse people, truth is he didn’t pass any details about alt address on
4. I drive 45 mile round trip in rush hour to get amp myself
5. Cunts at delivery place, in front of me, roll amp across the floor out of a cage with “HANDLE WITH CARE” clearly displayed on it
6. Get amp home, doesn’t look new to me, switches are in wrong positions, power is left on, whatever, it works.
7. Footswitch missing, call GAK
8. Apparently the warehouse “couldn’t find” the footswitch showing in stock
9. Dude orders one in for me, promises delivery on Saturday
10. I wait in on Saturday, nothing arrives
11. Call shop, an excuse about “the delivery driver turned up at 3:30 instead of 4:30 so the switch didn’t go out
12. I find it strange that seeing as the switch was in his hands Thursday evening and didn’t go out for delivery Friday “because the driver turned up at 3:30″ a complete non excuse. What the fuck is going on.
13. Monday passes, no switch
14. Tuesday passes, no switch
15. Wednesday Switch finally gets delivered a week after everything was meant to arrive

DV24/7 Guitar case.