Blue Cheese (or How I Learned To Rhyme) #2

Janet was a magician at a magic school,
Luring every man and using them as tools

She never practiced levitation nor transformation,
But when it was philandery, there was no hesitation

Everyone doubted her intentions and always knew the truth,
She was no magician at all, just a wretched witch of youth



















(PS: I'm not sexist. Just about a book character I really dislike.)

Whineblog #3 Piracy... and stuff

The other day I was talking with a dear friend of mine when piracy and copyright came into our discussion. See, a while back sometime, last year or so I had bought a DVD with my own money of the 2006 Eurovision Song Contest and planned sending it to her in a package, along with some sweets as a gift. I had been talking a lot about this contest and so she became rather intriguied because of it!

Anyway, I sent the package and a few days later got a rather cheery reply that she really enjoyed what I sent her, but something didn't work. The DVD. It said the DVD didn't work because it was being used in an "unauthorized area".
As probably everyone knows by know, certain material like music CD's or DVD's brought from outside of your own country may not work because of the strict laws of copyright and the fear of the source material being sent around, in other words, being pirated.

Now, I believe that artists and companies deserve getting money earned for what they publish and have put their effort into, but today, thanks to both parties, record companies and such have resorted to a tight fist around distrubution. I shouldn't only put mention to the music industry only, but books also. The whole media circle, pretty much. So now, the joy of experiencing and sharing is totally lost, I think, and so does my friend. She began talking about how difficult it is, when it doesn't have to be.

C: We actually had a big discussion about sort of this issue on the nook boards.

Swede: And what did you discuss?

C: How the publishers of books, but also distributors of other media, are still very behind the times when it comes to technology. The nook initially has been only available in the US. Other people outside the US have gotten them, though. If you're outside the States or Canada, it's very hard to download books, however. One guy is in Stockholm for work right now, and even though he has a US credit card, address, and IP address, he still has to work around the bans on not being able to buy ebooks where he is. It's outdated that they release books, movies and music at different times around the world. It seems much more efficient and fair to release them everywhere at the same time. It would eliminate a lot of piracy anyway.
Give everyone the opportunity to buy things for the same price at the same time and let them simply decide if they want to pay for it or not.

Swede: I'm not saying that anyone should start seeding stuff they want without paying, but I agree that if they just released stuff at the same time, or as closely as possible to first release dates, then there would be less piracy.

C: And it's all about publishers and producers having a stranglehold on the business. Realistically, if I buy a book and read it, and then share it with friends and family, that's not a crime.


I think personally that the business is greedy, and a lot of people agree. I mean, at a lot of times they don't even have to spend a lot of money in order to make a whole bunch of money in return! My friend here, who owns one of these nooks, can loan out a book to someone else for 14 days, ONCE. And then the reading code will be invalid, and she can never loan it out again. It costs them next to nothing to publish an E book and they charge for a usage that is terribly limited.

Maybe one day, when they start to realize that consumers aren't willing to pay what they're asking, they'll finally rethink things, and perhaps the piracy rate will drop by... a gazilion, or something!

The only thing I can think about now though, is that DVD I sent her. It feels like it goes into personal matters. Like it's THEM stealing MY money when stuff like this happens.

Blue Cheese (or How I Learned To Rhyme) #1

Beware - This is really, really silly.


If you're dripping of sweat, if you're feeling upset
Grab a box of Bawl Wipers, and you'll be all set!
If they stick to your thigh, if you're time is nigh
Use our crappy tissues, we made them, we were high!

It happens to all of us, it's not really that serious
But Bawl Wipers work, we are so not delirious
It happens for men, we might be unlucky then
To inherit inconvenience, a pain in the "den"

Nevertheless...

Bawl Wipers; Keeps your nuts refreshed and cool
(PS, don't use them out public, you'll look like a fool)

WhineBlog #2 Disturbed; Unfortunately Destructible

Now Disturbed is probably one of my favorite bands, at least surrounding the hard rock/metal genre! They're catchy, heavy and musically great for hooking you in! Entertaining, pretty much! While I do love this band, it's come to me that their quality has sort of degraded.

The Sickness, their first album was a hit and still contain a lot of their most listened to music. It's hard to forget Down With The Sickness, Stupify, Voices and so on. This album was animalistic and pretty darn dark and stood in the alternative/nu metal genre.

Believe, their second album was more Hard rock oriented but didn't shy away from the drive theyd been known for. The songs had soul, power, compassion and still has to me a great replay value. One of my favorite albums, to say the least!

Ten Thousand Fists was... surprising, both in a good and bad way. This was after they had fired their original bassist Fuzzy and replaced him. It seemed like Disturbed had changed their sound yet again, this time totally removing most of the melody in Believe, the loud animal cries in the Sickness and just turned into... yeah, Hard Rock, really. This wasn't Nu metal, alternative, it was straight forward Hard rock. I kinda grew negative to that at first, but nonetheless it's to this day probably their most popular album among the kiddies today who sit infront of the TV playing Gears of War, MW2 or what not... *sigh* Yeah, hard rock AND video game music.

And then... Indestructible. More promises of DARKER MATERIAL AND MORE BADASS THINGS; OOOOOO AH AH AH AH- and that's it. And by their first single you actually thought that was true. Inside the Fire was the first single on there and had to do with suicide, mainly about the devil talking to David after his girlfriend has commited suicide, prompting him to take his own life so David and his love can see each other in hell.

I was hyped as HECK!!! Everyone was! We ate that stuff up! The video was totally creepy and awesome, too! And then, June 3rd it was out in the stores and I got it in the mail (pre ordered it). What I heard was brutal hitting, melody, fast riffing that completely blew me away!!!!!!!... til about the 7th song and through out to the last song, where I just shook my head and cried at this lazy SECOND HALF I HAD JUST LISTENED TO! It only got worse when I played through it again, it became standard and then... dull.

And this year, two years later Disturbed are out with a NEW album titled Asylum, out the 31st August. The new single Another Way To Die (not the Bond one...) was released the 15th of June and... I won't go there. But I was reminded of how disappointed I was after Indestructible.



I did like it, though, the album, at first! It had a few moments... actually, it's like the album works the first half of the album, and then just goes iffy. Like Indestructible is a great intro the whole album, and the song is great, filled with energy and power. Then Inside the Fire comes and it's also very hard hitting and even really dark! Deciever is fast paced and brutal. The Night is a really good moment after these songs because it's particularly slower but holds a great epic feeling into it, being probably the most prominent moment on this record when it comes to music structures. And where the recycling part starts is with Perfect Insanity. Or well, no, it doesn't really. It's hard for me to say but I do really like that song too, and that one's a really old song that Disturbed had back before the Sickness days and to me they did an awesome job restoring it.

After that song Haunted starts which is probably one of my favorites on there, the atmosphere being very eery. And then it kinda goes iffy after that, like the album is starting over and rehashing shit just to fill the album up. Enough sounds a lot like Deciever, infact you could've called it Deciever Part II just as well. The Curse isn't that interesting. It's okay but it really seems off place together with the rest of the songs. Then you have Torn which... I'll admit the solo in there is really damn awesome, but the song itself is so BORING.

And the insult that comes next is these other two old b-side songs, first Criminal and then Divide. Criminal is repetitive and when talking about Disturbed you can usually live with it but I don't like this song much at all. There's too many uses of the word Suffering on this album, and about half of those quantities come from this song, and it just turns into being silly. I guess I just don't like this song because it sounds like Sickness kinda, but covered, you know. It's like a different band.



Divide is... *groan* It's like Criminal. Insulting. It's compelling sometimes but ruined by the solo. Yeah, that's another thing. The solo's just seem like they were PUT there sometimes, just because they felt like putting one there! Not because it fit with the song or anything, solo's are just COOL I guess.

And the final song Facade. This one is... fair, I kinda like it actually, but the problem with this song is that it's not an album closer to me. Which brings me back to the fact that the second half of this album is iffy, messy and uninspired. The first half is EXCELLENT to me.

And you know, isn't it kinda insulting throwing B-side songs onto an album you worked so hard on to make dark and brutal? These are songs they decided NOT to have on the Sickness album because they weren't deemed good enough for a first release.
I'm not saying it's an insult giving us more music. But say Criminal and Divide, you could've put THOSE as B-sides AND had the b-sides for Indestructible on the album instead! You know! Run and Parasite! Those were great compared to Criminal and Divide! Heck! You could've put Midlife Crisis on there!

Now, there's nothing wrong here with the performance of the songs, musically or lyrically (except for a few too many SUFFERINGS, David...), but this is an album that I think I'd just pick the songs I like on it from the internet and download them legally as mp3 files. IMO. First half, great. Second, failure. Ten Thousand Fists, the album that stretches on and never ends is a master piece compared to this. And I'm not saying TTF was or IS a bad album, infact, it has grown on me since my own negative view on it (Believe was them at their finest) and by now I really like the gritty hard rock approach that was on there, which they kinda castrated at the second act. Although the whole fourth album sounds clean, I'll admit is nice, it doesn't help the garbage that comes after Haunted on the tracklist. Or at least Enough.

Kinda ironic. That kinda name for their fourth album and it's so easy to pick apart. Funny how that happens! I am just hoping for a solid new effort by Disturbed at the end of this summer.

WhineBlog #1 Ads, Justin TV

Well, seeing as this is my first ever blog entry, my thought is that it should be unique and set the kinda style I'm going for with my future entries! Then again, it's hard maintaining a focused and pretty understandable roll when you're ranting your arse off (being a Swede nontheless), but I will try to make myself clear and so that everyone who may stumble into my little lair can sit back and either snicker or shake his/her head at me because of either my illogical grounds of what I'm nagging about, or totally agree.

Enough about introductions, let's get on with my complaint of the day! Even though I don't think I'll be doing this daily...

Sometimes I happen to visit the livestreaming site Justin TV when I have the time. On occasion when I finally do go there (2-3 times a week while chatting with one of my dear old friends on IM) I'm met usually with bugs, lag and etc. which can easily be dealt with. You either wait or delete your cookies, although sometimes JTV just flips out for some reason, I don't know why. But see, the problem or the issue I have isn't those kind of things. All that's expected and I really don't mind, BUT, what does piss me off recently is advertisements.

Yeah, you heard right, I'm about the one billionth person on the whole world wide web to start complaining (or blogging) about those darned, annoying ads. And too be honest, I can deal with those. I don't mind if they are at the side, or at the top of a page, as long as they don't completely distract me from what I'm either reading or watching! The ISSUE is ads that pop up into the livefeed video when you're watching a stream. Like, compare the Youtube ads. They may be there, but you can just click that X and then it'll go down and stay down! It won't suddenly pop up in say 2 minutes or less. It doesn't matter if they take up space because you can simply just get rid of them.

On the other hand, there's this.



THAT'S FRIGGIN' HUGE! And when you cross it down, it'll appear just less than two minutes after you get rid of it! It's INSANE! It's probably one of the most tedious things I've ever had to do! Click the X, see the little AD+ button in the corner, like it's taunting you with it's simple existence! "Yeah, that's right, ain't getting rid of me."

Here's the thing. JTV makes their money mostly out of AD revenues. Without ads there probably wouldn't be a JTV to begin with. I know that somebody would make that remark, but I'm already aware of it. I'm not saying STOP ADVERTISING if it keeps you going, I'm just saying that things like that picture up there makes watching streams on your site unappealing and it won't have a good effect on you or those who come to the site. You know, personally, I wouldn't mind the AD popping up so much if you could just keep it AWAY and have it not pop up again by just clicking it down! LIKE Youtube or some other Stream/video site.

You can, to my knowledge, get a PRO account which will totally get rid of ADS for you. For 10 $ a month. *cough* nonsense *cough*

Or just get an adblocker, something I've also heard of. Unfortunatly I've heard it lags the stream you're watching some AND it only runs for those with a Firefox browser. I'm at the point where I'm considering switching if the darned pop ups do not stay down.

Thanks for reading all the way to the bottom, and thank you for just paying attention to my insignificant issues that have no effect on you. You get an imaginary cookie everytime you imagine it. Good bye!


PS: If I do discover that it's only me with this issue one day, I'll never came out to the daylight again and forever live in shame.