I know I said just yesterday that I hadn’t had time to start playing Halo 3 yet, but I ecided shortly after I wrote that to give it a try.
And I’m done.
What the hell? I already played all the way through it. How is that even possible? I remember the first two games taking me days, but this one took maybe 8 – 10 hours. I think the answer is fairly simple: Bungie, the maker of the game, got scared.
Where Halo 2 had actual improvements over the original, this one could only really boast better graphics and lots of new superfluous crap. And that’s exactly what it was, crap.
The game is awash in new weapons and vehicles, but the gameplay is just nothing new. Some of the levels were repetitive of past levels (the big escape at the end… won’t say more so as not to spoil), and even inside this game it was repetitive! Three levels that end in fights with Scarab tanks? You had to be so unoriginal that you ripped off yourself… in the same game? Wow.
While I loved the single player campaigns in the first two games, this one just felt like it was just phoned in. I haven’t had time to play the multi-player portion yet, but my gut tells me not to get my hopes too high for it.
This seemed like such a simple idea when I started: Find some blogging work, earn a couple hundred bucks a month. Well, it seemed like a good idea, but, apparently I’m good at it.
I got approached by a company to ghost write a corporate blog (hence why I can’t link it) from them following my work on the other blogs I was working on. I had actually approached this company early on, but we hadn’t been able to find a fit for me. They had a project come up I seemed suited to, so now I’m blogging there once a day now. I have also been asked to be a guest blogger on another site about blogging and social media, and since they offered a link to this site (what a concept, actually getting to promote my own site!), I agreed to it. They have no requirements as to frequency, so I can just write for that one when it strikes my fancy.
I’ve finally gotten in to a groove with balancing my day job and my “night job”, as I call it, but finding time to do any side projects is at zero. My plan to start a novel this year? Totally shelved. My nearly 3-year long fan fiction project is at a crawl. I finally popped Halo 3 in my Xbox for the first time today, even though I’ve had it since release day.
So, yes, if I could ever learn the ability to say “no” to a project, it would be nice. The drawback is, if you do say no, and you need them down the road, they’ll remember you said it.
Pictured at left are all the logos for the subsidiaries of Tagruato Corp.. Who is Taurato Corp.? Well, it’s the 1-18-08/Cloverfield version of the Hanso Foundation of course. For those unfamiliar with Hanso, it is the fictitious group on JJ’s show, LOST, that created the island everyone is, well, lost on.
I talked briefly about the Slusho! site back in August, but now it turns out that Slusho! is owned by Tagruato Corp., and their primary business is deep sea oil drilling. There have been rumors the monster in the oddly named (for now) 1-18-08 has something to do with underwater creatures, and this seems to back up that theory.
You know, I like back story to my movies and television series, but there is a point where it goes from “Kudos for thinking this through!” to “Seriously… enough!” There is a point where I feel like I am being led around by the nose by Abrams, and quite frankly, I don’t appreciate it. Sure, viral marketing is fun, but when I have to expend actual effort to learn about your product (and let’s face it, at the end of the day, that’s what 90% of movies are), it just crosses a line I feel.
Take ParafFUN – Wax Distributors for instance. The explanation on the site is that paraffin wax is a byproduct of Tagruato’s oil drilling. Okay… fine, but does anyone REALLY think this plays in to the movie’s plot? No. Yet, someone in the marketing department went through an awful lot of trouble to come up with slogans, a back story, and a logo for it… and then I wasted time reading it. I admit it.
All that is CONCRETE about this movie is the trailer, but in addition to that we now have multiple websites, MySpace profiles, and enough rumors to make Perez Hilton go “ENOUGH!” How about you just concentrate on making the best movie you can, and leaving the insane marketing to LOST? At this point, I’m not sure any movie could live up to the hype that has built up around this project. And with the more they add to the “mythos”, the less interested I seem to become.
Well, the court case I discussed on Tuesday and Wednesday is over, and it didn’t have a happy ending.
According to the report on Ars Technica, Ms. Thomas was found guilty of willfully violating the copyrights of the record companies, and was fined $9.250 per song out of the possible $150,000 per separate song. Her grand total comes to $222.000, and there is no word on an appeal as she was rushed from the courthouse by her counsel.
There is no denying what Ms. Thomas did was piracy, I’m not going to argue that, but the fine is absurd. Let’s say a CD sells for $20.00 and has 12 tracks, that gives every track an average value of $1.66 at full retail. That means they feel each track was distributed 5,572 times? Er… right.
I want to make one thing crystal clear in my railing against the RIAA: I am NOT endorsing piracy, but instead I am decrying the tactics of the RIAA in battling the piracy. They are bullies, pure and simple. They strong arm individuals, universities, ISPs and more, all in an effort to milk silly amounts of money out of people. The record companies they represent are no better (as demonstrated by Sony’s stance that listening to a song from your legally purchased CD on your iPod is theft…) and the music industry as a whole is corrupt and greedy.
My brand new CD buying days are over. If I can’t find the CD used via any number of legal methods, where the companies and RIAA receive no monies, than I really don’t need it. I’ve said this before, and I still stand by it. If this organization, and the companies had their way, there would be money handed over to them for even looking at a CD, and I simply won’t support that anymore.
In the continuation of yesterday’s post about the RIAA court case, Ars Technica continued their excellent coverage of the courtroom happenings, and boy was there a doozy of a bombshell. I will block quote the piece because you really need to see this in all of its glory.
Pariser has a very broad definition of “stealing.” When questioned by Richard Gabriel, lead counsel for the record labels, Pariser suggested that what millions of music fans do is actually theft. The dirty deed? Ripping your own CDs or downloading songs you already own.
Gabriel asked if it was wrong for consumers to make copies of music which they have purchased, even just one copy. Pariser replied, “When an individual makes a copy of a song for himself, I suppose we can say he stole a song.” Making “a copy” of a purchased song is just “a nice way of saying ’steals just one copy’,” she said.
Countless studies have shown that the majority of music on portable music players like the iPod comes from sources other than download services. For most people, that music is comprised primarily of songs “ripped” from CD collections to MP3 or some other comparable format. Indeed, most portable music players comes with software (like iTunes) which is designed to facilitate the easy ripping of CDs. According to Pariser’s view, this is stealing.
You have to be kidding me.
A CD you legally purchased, that you are not sharing with anyone else, and because you choose to enjoy it in a way of your choosing… that’s “stealing”?
Is it any wonder that the music companies just continually piss me off? Is it any wonder that people they feel they are nothing but greedy bastards? If you want to listen a CD you LEGALLY purchased on another device you own… by golly, you better believe I’m doing it.
The RIAA is ready to finally do battle, and they had their first day in court today. Ars Technica has an excellent write-up of the first half of the day.
This is the first of what will supposedly be the first of 20,000 people they are going after for violating copyrights via KaZaA, but we’ll see how this goes. If they lose this one, I have a feeling 19,999 others are going to be smiling ear-to-ear as they get ammo to fight their own cases with the RIAA with also.
However, if they do win… things could get very ugly, very fast as the RIAA gains the momentum to take on more and more “pirates”.
I think the problem they are going to face is the jury. The RIAA not only has to prove their case, they have to explain intellectual property and copyright law, and also make 12 common people understand how one can exactly “steal” something that is not a tangible asset.
If the defense attorney is a smart one, they will also point out the disparity in the fact that the recording industry not only did not discourage home taping back in the day (yes, they made a feeble attempt), but they in fact kept making it easier. Blank cassettes kept getting cheaper, and then don’t even get started on blank CDs. Now that there is a way to track some inept “pirates”, now they enforce their archaic concept’s of ownership and “fair use”.
This is going to be a fascinating case to watch, and the precedent it could set, in either direction, is a dangerous one.
I was assigned to review a new site, which I will be nice and note name, hence the huge blank on the email address area, but I can’t review it because they keep giving me this error over and over.
But the snarky “Good thing we’re in beta!”… here’s a better idea, how about you actually have an Alpha phase! I think I’ve finally figured out that these mysterious, never-ending beta stages are actually an incorporation of the alpha stage in to one big test.
If you’re going to invite the press in to review your site though, it might be a nice idea to make sure the site is working.
I know I said just yesterday that I hadn’t had time to start playing Halo 3
Someday I should really learn how to say “no”.
*sigh*
Well, the court case I discussed on 
See this image to the left? This is 
