Chasing Stardust

Caution: Self-indulgence and self-pitying ahead. You have been forewarned.

Ever had the feeling that you’re just chasing something that doesn’t quite exist? Something intangible, that you know you want, but struggle to even describe, let alone put your hands on? And you just know that if you got your hands on it, you’d be that much happier?

I got a new job recently. I’m a primary school teacher – a return to classroom teaching after two years’ break, and a shift from my original profession as secondary school teacher. Now, I like teaching. I’m even good at it. I’ve been told so by many people. But the frustrating thing about teaching – and so many other things – is the other shit you have to put up with at the same time. Behaviour, for example. I lost count of the number of times I had to stop and “give warnings” today simply for kids being stupid, or talking when I’d asked them to listen, or getting up and wandering around the room, or… You get the idea. Kids will be kids, you may say. Well, yes, they will – but it’s frustrating. I remember being a kid and being terrified to step out of line. I was (and still am) a bit of a goody-two-shoes, of course, but you know what? I’d rather be that than a dick.

Then there’s the other stuff. I’m new to primary teaching, so I’m feeling pretty overwhelmed with new things to learn. The year group team that I’ve joined are very supportive, though, which is good – it means I can bug them with questions when I don’t know what something means, or don’t understand a procedure, or, more to the point, haven’t had a procedure explained to me.

Ah, procedures. Close friend of paperwork. Both of them largely pointless in nine situations out of ten. All they have succeeded in doing so far is 1) messing up my desk within five minutes of me taking possession of it 2) overwhelming me with unnecessary paperwork and 3) making me feel inadequate. And I can do without feeling inadequate right now.

Everyone gets the jitters when they start a new job. I’m hoping this feeling of being overwhelmed and unsure of myself passes. I’m still in two minds as to whether I’m doing the right thing. Lots of people have told me that they thought I’d make a good primary school teacher. I agree – at least that I would be good at teaching primary-age children. It’s the other bits that I worry about not being able to hack. I am neither the most assertive person in the world nor the most organised person in the world, so the twin evils of “behaviour management” and paperwork together form a giant super-nemesis for me. It also doesn’t help that previously, having found a job that I genuinely did enjoy, like, even love for a while, it was taken away by an inconsiderate management team who succeeded in destroying my self-confidence by caring more about the bottom line than the welfare of their staff. So a big “fuck you” to them, if you please.

Of course, I have only been working there for three days so far, so it is highly likely that I am being premature in my judgement of myself as borderline-incompetent. That’s that pesky tattered and torn self-confidence talking.

This is the rub though. I find myself struggling to think what else I can do. Actually, that’s not quite accurate. I find myself struggling to think what else I can do that will pay the bills in a reliable manner. There are loads of things that I love doing – things that I’d much rather do than be cooped up in a classroom with thirty kids – but they’re either unpaid or erratic work. Writing, for example. I love writing. I love blogging. I love writing fiction. I love writing about games, and about music. I love writing semi-incoherent rants that people somehow find entertaining while the big vein in my head pops. I love tweeting and commenting on things. I’d love to be able to sit and write all day and be paid for it, but realistically that’s highly unlikely to happen. Of course, a glass-half-empty approach doesn’t get anywhere, but it’s – yes – frustrating. It doesn’t have to stop me enjoying doing it when I have the chance, though – hence this blog, and hence my entry in this year’s NaNoWriMo.

There are so many things I love doing – teaching, music, writing, gaming, podcasting, production, film – so why is it so damn hard to find something to settle on and just enjoy? Why does everything have barriers to entry – and yet more barriers to negotiate once you get inside?

I guess I should be more positive. But I can’t help but think that I’m getting that “I’m nearly 30″ feeling and wondering where on Earth I’m going. One day I might find an answer. Until then, I’m just chasing stardust.

The Hate List (September 2009)

Hello!

Here’s the official September 2009 edition of Things That Piss Me The Hell Off That I Can’t Do Anything About So Might As Well Ignore Them But Can’t.

Irrational rant and much sarcasm ahead.

In no particular order:

• People who cough, then gob on the floor.
  If I can cough and then either swallow my own phlegm or spit it into a tissue just to maintain some amount of public decorum, you can too. You’re not a pirate. Or a cowboy. You’re an idiot.
• Casual lawbreaking.
  “Ah, it doesn’t matter if I speed/park here/drop this litter/break this thing that doesn’t belong to me/steal this thing/let my dog shit there/threaten someone. Everyone else does it.” That’s right. And that’s why driving means you take your life into your own hands, you can never find a parking space (and when you do, it’s blocked by someone who has parked where they shouldn’t), our streets and parks often look more like rubbish dumps, kids whinge that there’s ‘nothing to do’ because it’s all broken or stolen or covered in dogshit, and people are afraid to step up and stop people from doing these things. Everyone hates the idea of a nanny state (myself included) but by doing all these stupid things you just encourage those in charge to put tighter and tighter controls in place in an attempt to stop you behaving like a self-obsessed bellend.
• Cyclists who don’t understand the Highway Code.
  If you are cycling, you are a road-based vehicle. Granted, a very small one that is mostly person-propelled, but you’re still a vehicle. Don’t swear at me if you come screaming down the pavement and nearly ram into me when there’s a perfectly good road with no people walking down it. Also, red lights mean stop. You massive twat.
• Car drivers who don’t understand the Highway Code.
  Quick recap: Blue sign with white arrow means “one way”. Red sign with white stripe across middle means “don’t go this way”. Stop muddling the two up.
• Lorry drivers who overtake on the motorway.
  You have an acceleration of 0-60 in 3 years. The thing you’re trying to overtake also has the same acceleration and there is a difference of 0.01mph between the two of you. Overtaking it will likely take you a very long time and get you into a position where you’re stuck behind another lorry that is going the same speed as the one you just overtook. Why not – here’s a thought – not bother?
• People who absolutely have to get where they’re going faster than you.
  Subject of the second ever entry on this blog, fact fans. Travelling around London is a sure-fire way to see this. You know the whole point of an escalator is that it’s a moving staircase that you don’t have to walk down, right? So pushing past to get to the bottom two seconds faster than everyone else achieves nothing except annoying the people who are patiently waiting. Also, standing behind someone who has a large suitcase that takes up a large step and tutting isn’t going to make the suitcase magically get small enough for you to get past.
• Mercedes/BMW/Audi drivers. (Except my Dad, who drives a BMW in the most non-BMW-driver way I’ve ever seen.)
  Those flashing orange lights on the side of your car are not “parking lights”. They do not mean you can park anywhere. Similarly, if you are in a traffic jam, weaving between lanes actually slows everything down rather than allowing you to get anywhere faster. Also, if you come up behind me and flash your headlights when I’m driving at the speed limit in the fast lane, overtaking things in the slow lane, I will slow down just to annoy you.
• Fat exhaust pipes on shit cars.
  Your car is loud! It sounds like the exhaust is broken! You’d better get that looked at. In the meantime, why not drive like you think you’re in a Mercedes?
• Using the word “fucking” as punctuation.
  When considering whether it is appropriate to use taboo language in conversation, consider 1) your audience, 2) the context and 3) whether it will help your message to be heard. “Ah went dahn the fahkin’ shops and bought some fahkin’ bread” is an example of the word “fucking” not being used to enhance the sentence in the slightest. “People who do this are fucking idiots” is a good example of using the word “fucking” in one of its primary uses as an intensifier. A “fucking idiot” is more of an idiot than an “idiot”. However, the “fucking shops” are no more or less a shop than the shops. Also, bread.
• T-shirts with slogans about being drunk.
  Oh! You like to drink! You’re so wacky! “Take me drunk, I’m home!” That’s clever! That’s so clever!
• T-shirts with slogans about having a large penis.
  If you need to shout about it, it’s probably not worth shouting about.
• T-shirts with swear words on them.
  I’m not averse to using bad language in a situation where it is appropriate and/or acceptable, but to walk around town where there are often young children and also people who don’t particularly want to see your T-shirt imploring them to “FUCK OFF” present marks you out as being 1) inconsiderate and 2) a massive tool.
• Men who wear too much aftershave.
  If I can still smell you a minute after you’ve walked past me, that’s too much.
• Smokers who smoke underneath “No Smoking” signs.
  Ooh, you big rebel. Get you. Now take your stinking cancer-sticks and shove them up your arse where I can’t smell them but you can feel them. Preferably lit.
• Beauty fascism.
  Eyes age in two ways! (So you must fix them!) Wrinkles appear on your body! (So you must Polyfilla them!) Your teeth are dirty! (So bleach them!) Your skin is pale! (So paint it orange!) Your hair is not quite blonde enough! (So dip it in Domestos until it’s just right!) Your clothes suck! You’re a failure! A FAILURE! WHY DON’T YOU JUST DIE, YOU PATHETIC BAGGY-EYED, PALE-SKINNED FAILY FAILURE FAILINGTON?
• Confused.com’s advertising. (YouTube)
  Are you really expecting us to believe that people voluntarily sat down in front of a webcam and talked about their experiences buying home and/or car insurance so you could put their gurning Everyman mugs all over our TV screens every five seconds? Because I’ve bought both home insurance and car insurance. Both experiences made me want to kill myself. Maybe I should go on cam and say that. Apparently the emo-looking kid in the purple top (“Phil”) is quite well-known on YouTube. Sell-out.
• GoCompare’s advertising. (YouTube)
  No-one sits in a coffee shop saying things like “Car insurance, eh? What can you do?” – even floppy-haired douchebags like the ones in the advert. Also, if a singing twat burst in encouraging me to “Go Compare” I’d tell him to “Go Fuck Yourself” and punch him in the neck.
• Compare the Meerkat. (YouTube)
  Almost funny once. Not funny the five hundredth time. In fact…
• Insurance advertising.
  Just sod off and stop trying to make one of the most boring things in the world look exciting.
• McDonalds’ advertising.
  You have a recognisable jingle. Well done. Would it kill you to put it in the same key as the rest of the music in the advert?
• People who use the word “unfortunately” when they don’t mean it.
  You don’t care that I can’t do that thing I’m trying to do. It’s no skin off your nose. So don’t patronise me by bemoaning my poor fortune.
• Unnecessary layers of management.
  The most extreme example of this I’ve seen came while I was temping for a loss adjustment company. An insurance company hired a firm of solicitors who hired the loss adjusters who hired some surveyors who hired some building contractors who hired some builders who charged the building contractors who charged the surveyors who charged the loss adjusters who charged the solicitors who hired some cost recovery specialists to recover the costs from the insurance company who hired their own cost recovery specialists to recover the fees from the person whose fault it might have been (but they weren’t sure). Unsurprisingly, the whole case (which was incredibly boring, something to do with a little crack in someone’s living room wall which may or may not have had something to do with a tree outside the window) took several years to resolve, by which time the crack had probably gone all the way up the wall and broken the house.
• Spar.
  Why is it I can go into Tesco Express, buy lunch, dinner, toilet roll and a few household essentials and spend approximately £10, while I do the same in your rotten little shop and have to spend £20 for inferior products? Also, one of your cashiers needs to buy some deodorant.
• The X-Factor.
  Simon Cowell was quoted this week (in the Star, admittedly, but I’ll let that pass for the sake of this rant) as saying “The Beatles wouldn’t have won the X-Factor”. Good. That means they actually have a future and won’t ever do a duet with Flo Rida. Speaking of whom…
• Flo Rida.
  You can rap in triplets. Well done. Now try writing your own songs instead of pinching other peoples’. Which reminds me…
• Cover versions that aren’t cover versions.
  Sugababes recently covered Right Said Fred’s “I’m Too Sexy”. Badly. Pussycat Dolls recently put out a song which wasn’t “I Will Survive” but inexplicably breaks into it completely incongruously halfway through. Flo Rida… ugh, just make him go away. If you’re going to cover a song, show it some respect and/or creativity.
• Radio 1.
  There are more than ten songs in the world. Some of them aren’t even done by floppy-haired idiots or women with shiny legs. Please play them.
• There/Their/They’re.
  You learned this in primary school. I can still remember it, so why can’t you?
• Your/You’re.
  You also learned this in primary school. I still remember it also.
• Basic punctuation.
  Capital letter at the start of a sentence. Full stop at the end. No need for kisses. “[Anonymous] is pleased today over it really should be better paid for all the hassle going to enjoy a bottle of wine and a good catch up x” is a sentence that makes fairies cry.
• Apostrophes.
  Apostrophes denote possession, a missing letter or being pretentious. (People know what a “bus” is now. We don’t really need to call it a “‘bus” any more. Same for the phone. Or the ‘phone.) “Flower’s for wedding’s” (seen on a road outside Fareham) is not correct. “Please do not use mobile phones or personal stereo’s in this area” (seen on South West Trains) is not only incorrect, it is inconsistent. “All reasonable offer’s will be considered” is similarly not correct. “Pete’s last entry sure was full of vitriol” is correct. “Fish ‘n’ Chips” is correct.
• Facebook games.
  No, I don’t want to join your Mafia or adopt your stupid spastic black sheep that “turned up” on your farm. If it turned up on your farm, you take care of the little bastard.
• Facebook.
  Facebook is full of noise. It’s like trying to be heard while standing in the middle of a ball pit filled with drunken giggling teenagers at the local Happy Eater while a man shouts “MAFIA WARS! FARMVILLE! AAAAAH!” at the top of his voice. (This has now been allayed somewhat with the launch of Facebook Lite, aka We Wish We Were Twitter.) (Additional note: I still like and use Facebook. But it is getting noisy.)

That’s nearly 2,000 words there. I think that’s probably enough for now! If you have any pet peeves of your own you’d like to share, please do make them known in the comments.

If all that depressed you, let Maru cheer you up:

‘Tis the season to be miserable

So what’s the deal with winter anyway?

Trite opening I know but it bears some discussion. Exactly what is it about those winter months that makes an already-curmudgeonly old git like myself into a regular Sad Sack? I refuse to believe there’s not an answer beyond “it’s cold” because I’m not the only one it happens to.

Case study number one: my very good friend, who we’ll just call “E” in case she minds being used as a case study, cited the example to me that every bad breakup she’s ever had took place in the month of December, almost without fail. Is this a symptom of the winter blues or just a coincidence? Whatever it is, it’s made her just as distrustful of the month of Our Lord’s birth than I am.

Who knows. All I know is that it’s dark in the morning when I go to work, often dark in the evening when I return. The general public are in that irritatingly frenzied state of “panic buying” – because some people still aren’t aware that most shops are shut on Christmas Day after all – and all those little annoyances about the general public that you already notice more than the average man in the street when you work in retail suddenly become ten to fifteen times worse. (I have no scientific basis for quoting that figure, I just thought I’d channel the arseholes who come up with make-up “fake science” adverts for a moment – they’re gone now, don’t worry.)

Last year I had the most miserable Christmas of my life. My wife-to-be had departed for Bolton to spend Christmas with her family (duty calls and all that) and I was scheduled to work.

But I had ‘flu (and don’t even get me started on that “man flu” bollocks that is such an unfunny running joke in this country), so I was confined to bed, unable even to go to work and spend time with the few buddies who were still here. Nope, instead I lay in bed on Christmas Day until about 3pm, only rising to make a Beechams Hot Lemon drink when the banging headaches and joint pains were getting a bit much.

I know there’s people out there who have far more miserable Christmases than that, but this is my rant and god-dammit if I’m not going to be a bit selfish! (I also hate how political correctness dictates the necessity of a paragraph like this one, but that’s another post all of its own)

Anyway. This Christmas is fortunately shaping up to be a lot better, as my now-wife Jane and I are spending our first Christmas on our own as a married couple.

It’s not that I don’t like spending time with people, you understand.

Actually, that’s a lie. It’s EXACTLY that I don’t like spending time with people. Especially stressed-out people which, it often seems to me, is becoming more and more a part of the holiday season. The clue’s in the name, people! A holiday should be a break, not an excuse to panic over a fat-ass turkey and whether or not you’ve got enough bloody vol-au-vents to feed Uncle Boggart.

Breathe.

So, there you have it.

I hope you, if you’re reading this, have a better experience in the wintertime than either I or several of my friends have had or, in some cases, are having.

And if you do have friends who are having a tough winter, give them a hug. Sometimes it’s all you need to let someone know you care, and it immediately makes things feel that much better.

I know, I’m a big girl, but I don’t care.

Merry Christmas.

HUMBUG!!!

We’re Doing It Wrong

Facebook readers! Read the full post with videos here!

My hatred and loathing for my home country of the UK has been well documented both on these pages, on Twitter and in various other places that I’ve deposited little pockets of mental detritus around the Web. The reasons for this are manifold, of course, but the recent US elections highlighted one of the reasons that I don’t feel proud to be British, English, United Kingdomish, whatever you want to call me.

Congratulations, by the way, America. You made the right choice by electing Obama as President-elect, the first black President the US has ever seen (a fact the BBC were fond of reminding us roughly every ten seconds during their coverage). You have elected a leader who is intelligent, articulate and inspirational – a leader who certainly gives the impression that he can make a difference and who inspires trust in the things he says. His acceptance speech made me want to shed a tear and made me feel proud and patriotic… towards America.

I’m sure pretty much everyone has seen this by now, but here we go again:

The man is a fantastic public speaker, it can’t be denied – even if you don’t agree with everything he says, or doubt he’ll be able to get the job done, or whatever… there’s no denying that he knows how to instill confidence and pride in a crowd.

We get this:

This is Gordon Brown. He is our Prime Minister. Our unelected Prime Minister, I might add, who sat waiting for Blair to resign like a rabid dog waiting to pounce on a hunk of meat before jumping in and continuing the mess his predecessor had created.

There are many things I object to about Gordon Brown and his government. The biggest thing that struck me about the US election is that I actually cared about the outcome. I cared about the candidates. I was keen for Obama to win because I supported him as a person, I supported what he stood for and I found him an inspirational candidate. I felt uneasy about McCain and particularly about the Evil Ice Bitch that stood with him with her strangely plastic face. Conversely, I’ve watched several UK elections over the years and not one of them has inspired the same kind of pride, patriotism and edge-of-the-seat excitement that the US elections did. This is largely to do with the fact that our politicians are boring and uninspiring, as clearly demonstrated above.

Couple this with the fact that they seem to make consistently stupid decisions, particularly when it comes to things like criminal rights, education and the like, and I can say with some confidence that I have roughly 0% confidence and trust in our government… and the trouble is that the “other sides” don’t inspire much confidence either. David Cameron is a posh public-school boy who is widely regarded as “out of touch” with much of society. I will likely vote for him in the next election purely because I’ve seen what a hash Gordon Brown and the Labour Party have made in the last few years, but I know that it’s unlikely there will be any great change. Our “third option”, the Liberal Democrats, may as well not exist because they consistently gain so little votes in the elections that their presence is merely an annoyance to the “big two” parties.

Our MPs are fond of that particularly odious brand of management-speak and obfuscation of what they actually mean through dumb buzz-words. (I realise “obfuscation” may qualify as one of those words, but I like it.) None of them will ever answer a direct question. I realise that this is nothing new, but it does little to inspire confidence. Obama has, conversely, in the speeches I have witnessed so far, been relatively plain-speaking and comes across as honest. Time will tell if he can live up to his promises, but at least I’m feeling pretty good about him at the moment.

I don’t see any change forthcoming in the UK. Each new generation of politicians in this country is more boring, dull, morose and out-of-touch than the last. Each new generation is doing more and more damage to the country in the name of being “progressive” and encouraging “diversity” when in fact all they are doing is removing rights from people who deserve them and providing them to people who don’t, like criminals and poorly-behaved children in schools. As a result, the country is becoming apathetic, with little to no respect for authority. There’s no chance of any kind of “revolution” forthcoming because the country is so weary and exhausted by the constant beatdowns and the amount of effort it takes to get a straight answer out of a politician.

I realise this all sounds a bit Daily Mail-ish and for that I apologise. But I wanted to share my thoughts, post-election. I am filled with pride and “patriotism” (for want of a better word) towards America at the moment, but it only highlights the fact that we’re doing it wrong here.

Fuck the Internet

Okay… the irony of saying “fuck the Internet” on a blog post isn’t lost on me, but bear with me. There’s a rant and a half coming your way right about now about, paradoxically enough, people moaning. However, I feel rather more justified in my meta-moaning than the whiny little sods I will be discussing throughout the next few paragraphs.

But first, a little history lesson, if you’ll indulge me for a sec.

My family had been online junkies since before the Internet was a widespread global phenomenon. An irregular “treat” for us was to be able to use our Atari with its mighty 300bps modem to dial up to a local bulletin board system, read some messages and maybe download some BASIC games to play. At the time, I thought this was incredily cool. Looking back, at the time, it was incredibly cool. I mean, being able to use your telephone line to dial into someone else’s computer and do stuff with it? Neat.

A few years later came CompuServe, which was a step closer to the “real” Internet, at the time still very much in its infancy for consumers. CompuServe offered a service that was essentially hundreds of these bulletin board services, called “forums” along with news, entertainment and real-time chat services. Again, it was something of a “treat” to be able to go online and look at stuff and to actually be able to communicate with other people. As a matter of fact, as a result of a message exchange between myself and another chap on the CompuServe Gamers’ Forum, ten levels that I had created for Wolfenstein 3D made their way onto the official Apogee “Super Upgrades” expansion pack for Wolf3D, netting me a cool $200. I still have a (now very faded) photocopy of the cheque as I thought that was so awesome.

A while into the “CompuServe Age”, I read an article in PC Format magazine discussing this new and interesting-sounding thing called the Internet. The article was awash with buzzwords like “telnet”, “FTP” and curious sounding things with lots of dots and coms in them. But it was still quite some time before CompuServe actually offered full Internet access.

Now here we are, some ten-to-fifteen years later. Web 2.0 in all its self-publishing, self-expressing, lower-case logo glory is upon us offering anyone with a pulse the opportunity to spill their guts on the Internet and share their innermost thoughts and feelings on a whole variety of topics.

This, on the surface, is a great thing. Never before have people had such an opportunity to self-publish anything they like – be it creative writing, academic research, odes to the fit girl in class 3B or simply waffly old bollocks like this place. Why, then, do so many people feel the need to use this great medium to batter down anything around them?

I have two recent examples of this, though these are by no means isolated examples. They are merely the most recent things where this issue has cropped up. Firstly, we have the “new Facebook”. Secondly, we have EA’s new game Spore. Let’s take these two things in turn.

First up is Facebook. Facebook is such a global phenomenon that I heard on the news this week (on the radio, how old-school of me) that they’re planning on making a movie (presumably of the docu-drama variety) on the site’s rise to success.

For the unfamiliar… actually, balls to that, even my Mum has a Facebook account. You all know what Facebook is. Let’s not forget that it’s a free service supported almost entirely by ads that anyone can sign up for and use and never have to pay a penny. It’s a social tool that’s allowed millions of people across the world to connect with one another and rediscover old friendships after many years, in some cases. In short, it’s a pretty marvellous thing that both Facebook themselves and numerous third parties keep adding new features to.

So recently Facebook redesigned their site, changing the way the functionality of the site works and, to me, making it rather more streamlined and clean. It also uses more of the browser window which, when you’re working on a 1920×1200 screen, is most welcome. They’ve obviously worked hard on this site redesign and are still tweaking things even as we speak – each time I log on I see some new little feature that makes navigation and use of the site even easier.

So how does the community at large respond? By creating “OMG 1 MILLION PEOPLE MUST JOIN THIS GROUP AND STAND UP FOR OUR RIGHTS! NEW FACEBOOK SUCKS!”. You’d think that Facebook had summoned the spirit of Hitler and then allowed it to rape all the world’s children before taking a chainsaw to them, while the shareholders sat in the background wanking and laughing. But no – they’ve done what any good website does every few years, they’ve had a refresh and a redesign – and, compared to many websites’ complete overhauls that I’ve seen over the years, this has been a fairly minor one in the grand scheme of things. You can still do everything you used to be able to, and more so in many cases.

So why bitch and moan? It escapes me. Do these people seriously think that getting a million people together in a group that is HOSTED ON THE FUCKING SITE THEY ARE COMPLAINING ABOUT – the site they aren’t paying a penny to support yet are happily cluttering up bandwidth with their photos and videos – is going to achieve jack shit? Why bother? Fuck the Internet.

Why bother complaining about the complainers? It makes me feel better. One may argue that all these people are doing is “making themselves feel better” also, but the fact is, it is Facebook’s prerogative to change their site as and when they want to – whether it is from the perspective of improving the users’ experience (they must be sitting around thinking “Those ungrateful bastards” right now) or from the perspective of increasing advertising revenue (which for a site that doesn’t make much money from its users is perfectly reasonable).

Next rant. Spore.

Spore’s a great game that came out this week. From Will Wright, creator of the Sim games (and the The Sims games, natch) it allows you to… again, I’m sure you all know about Spore already, so I’ll cut to the chase.

Spore ships with some security software by Sony called SecuROM. SecuROM is a system that is designed to protect discs against being copied and installed by hundreds of people… i.e. piracy. As such, it limits a purchaser of a copy of Spore to installing it on three separate machines. That’s not, as many people have assumed, three installations and then it’s all over… that’s three machines.

Who has three machines? How many people, apart from people with more money than sense, buy a new PC gaming rig often enough to make this an issue? I buy a computer roughly once every five to seven years and it serves me fine in that time, unless I want to run something like Crysis – which fortunately I have no interest in whatsoever.

EA released a statement quoting usage and activation statistics from the Spore Creature Creator, released some months prior to the full game. While Creature Creator’s stats may not necessarily reflect exactly the same userbase as Spore, the figures were telling. Most users activated the product on one computer. A few did it on two. And about 1% tried to activate on more than three. I’m often loathe to believe company hyperbole, but in this case those figures certainly seem a reasonable assumption in my experience at least. I don’t think I know anyone who has more than one computer for gaming purposes. Sure, I know some guys who have PCs for gaming and Macs for professional/creative work, but even then, that’s still only two computers.

The nonsense with Spore went way overboard. Amazon.com was bombarded with over 1700 one-star reviews of the game, very few of which commented on the game at all. Several users bandied the word “draconian” around and many promising to go and pirate the game rather than purchase it – indeed, the main argument that many people were throwing around was the fact that somehow Spore had been leaked, cracked and torrented even before the game’s street date, thereby, to these people, making the DRM pointless.

The fact is, were there not such wanton levels of piracy on the Internet today, these measures wouldn’t be necessary – and the people on Amazon who claimed that pirating the game was “making a stand” are simply adding to the problem, not making a point. EA’s a big company and they have to be seen to be doing something more than plugging their fingers in their ears and going “lalalala” on the subject of piracy. While DRM clearly doesn’t work as it should at present, at least it represents a symbolic gesture on EA’s part to help tackle the problem.

The fact is that Spore’s actually a great game, but all this nonsense has put lots of people off playing it, for completely unjustified and ill-informed reasons. It’d be lovely if just, for once, people on the Internet could sit down, appreciate what someone else has done for them, pay for it if it’s a paid-for service (like Spore) and appreciate it being free if it’s a free service (like Facebook) without bitching and moaning any time some tiny little change to the “norm” comes along. I’m sure there’s something Orwellian in there somewhere…

Anyway. Rant over. Assuming no-one else pisses me off my next few posts will be about Spore and other games I’m playing at the moment!

In praise of slow

(With apologies to Carl Honore for shamelessly liberating the title of his book, which I haven’t read, but respect the sentiment behind the title.)

I sauntered to work today. Tomorrow I might amble, stroll, perambulate or, you know, walk. This is nothing unusual, you might think, but I’ve noticed a curious phenomenon develop over the last few years, and that is the fact that everyone seems to have somewhere more important than the place I’m going to get to, preferably much quicker than I do. As such, as I wander down the street, it’s almost inevitable, even at unsociable hours in the morning, that at least one person will come charging past me – not running, because that would look panicky – but walking at at least twice the speed I do. I don’t walk as slowly as, say, an elderly gentleman, but I still walk considerably slower than these people who are inevitably dressed in some sort of suit, wearing clip-cloppy shoes that immediately makes them somehow seem incredibly arrogant. Quite how shoes can be arrogant is anyone’s guess, but that’s what it makes me think.

Then there’s London. Anyone who’s ever visited London, however much you may have liked it, will have noticed how much of a hurry every damn person in that city is in. Traffic lights go amber and horns sound immediately like some sort of automatic reaction. Dare to stand slightly left-of-centre on the escalators leading down to the Underground and some greased-up City-boy businessman will make a snide comment like “Slow lane’s over there, mate”. Stand in a queue at Pret and you’ll see at least five people who have been waiting roughly fifteen seconds storm out in seeming disgust, muttering about inefficiency. (Contrast this with my experience a few years back when an entire symphony orchestra descended on one tiny kebab shop in the middle of Warsaw which was staffed by one rather uncomfortable looking man. Now that was inefficiency, although to be fair he was somewhat up against the wall. Almost literally.)

Then there’s the laziness of people who use computers. “Why can’t I drag that text into my subject header?” I heard one person ask of an email application – because using two keyboard shortcuts to copy and paste it was obviously just such a hassle. “Why can’t it do this?” “Why doesn’t this do my work for me?” “Computers are supposed to be efficient!”

And then – then – there’s the attention span of people on the Internet. Dare to write in more than one paragraph on a message board and there will be at least one response along the lines of “OMFG WALL OF TEXT” with nothing more meaningful to say. Well, thanks for that.

You’d think there’d be a point to this wall of text. And I guess there is. It’s to say to these people “slow the fuck down”. Leave ten minutes earlier so you can enjoy a walk to work without barging past people. Take your time over writing your emails and they might actually be spelled and punctuated correctly. Read someone’s wall of text and you might actually find something interesting that they had to say. And London? Just climb out of your own arse and realise that some people don’t want to live their lives at 300 miles per hour before dying of a heart attack at 28.

This post is dedicated to the people who take the time to sit down, chill out, relax, enjoy some time, some space and don’t mind being a little bit wordy and pretentious along the way. If you’re reading this and you’ve got this far, chances are you’re one of them. And to you I say, “Good job. Keep it up.”

Obligatory First Post Explanation

Hello. Welcome to yet another attempt at a blog. This time I’m not relying on crappy, shit-arsed web hosts who don’t reply to my emails when I politely (and subsequently, less politely) enquire exactly why they have absconded with £30 of my hard-earned for another year’s hosting and domain name ownership. But enough about 4sites.com (who, incidentally, used to be fantastic, and just appeared to vanish off the face of the planet recently) – let’s not start this as a rant, as there will undoubtedly be plenty of time for that later.

If you’ve stumbled across this blog by accident, here’s the obligatory “hello, this is me, as if you care” post. That way you can decide whether or not you feel like sticking around. So let’s lurch right in.

My name’s Pete Davison. I am not the 1981-1984 incarnation of The Doctor, hence the title of this blog. In fact, I was born in 1981, giving my parents great joy in telling the story of my brother (games industry veteran John Davison, as press releases are wont to call him) apparently insisting that my parents gave me the middle names “Doctor Who”.

It didn’t happen.

I did, however, end up with two middle names, which has meant for the longest time I have been unable to enter all of my initials into arcade machines upon achieving a high score. I suppose as names go, things could be worse. I could be called Theophilus McShitface or something like that. Now that really would be unfortunate, although at least “TMS” fits on the Pac-Man high scores list.

Anyway, who am I? I’m a self-confessed geek. I love my gadgets, I love my video games and I love my board games. I also like hot girls in lingerie, but I think that’s something less of a niche market. I live in the UK and represent one of the last bastions of traditional Britishness, doing one hell of a Brian Blessed impression (with a beard to match if I haven’t shaved for a while) and constantly shaking my head at the rancid, disgusting, despicable state that this country is in.

I’m also in the process of attempting to emigrate, for reasons which are probably abundantly clear from that previous paragraph.

But back to the geekery. One of the main things I do is take part in legendary (well, in our minds, at least) gaming “book club” The Squadron of Shame over at 1up.com. We have a podcast and everything – see the sidebar for links to subscribe. The Squadron of Shame are a group dedicated to rescuing underappreciated classic video games from the bargain bins and playing the shit out of them before deciding whether or not they actually do belong in said bargain bin or in pride of place on discerning gamers’ shelves.

I also occasionally write for industry veteran John Davison’s new site, What They Play, a comprehensive resource for parents wanting to find out more about their kids’ favourite hobby. If you’re a parent, know nothing about video games and want to know if the latest Final Metal Gears of Halo game actually does have all the graphic depictions of interracial anal sex that the Daily Mail “reported” (and I use the term loosely) featured in it, What They Play is a great place to start.

So sit back, relax, maybe drop a comment or two (but be sure to comment responsibly otherwise the government gonna getcha) and enjoy.

If this is the only post on the page when you read this, you have reached the end of the potential enjoyment of this page. Please feel free to come back and visit later.

Auf wiedersehen.