Anchorage

photo credit: Tambako the Jaguar

My good friend over at Response Function felt the need to justify his personal grooming habits and associated thought processes. Now, so there is no confusion from the outset, I do not share his favourite flavour re: flesh (though if I did it probably would not surprise my girlfriend). As Response Function’s author is my gym partner, one can assume we share certain days working out. In addition, my luscious locks reach the bisector of my shoulder blades, and anyone with long hair can understand that it requires more attention than your average Fridén styling. As far as scheduling dilemmas, I wash and condition my hair every second day, unless I have been swimming, in which case I wash, condition and protein treat it straight away. However, looking at his reasons, I don’t think they justify his choice of sexual appetite at all. So, in response, I present unto thee the small army that resides in my bathroom cupboard.

Pictured Above (left to right): Ear Piercing cleaning fluid atop swisspers, hair product, stress relief skin lotion, Body hair clippers with assorted attachments, Nivea sensitive skin aftershave lotion, Shaving soap applicator and Nomad shaving soap, Mach 3 razor with spare hair lackeys, different piercing balls for variable spikiness, moustache wax, DaVinci deodorant, Christian Dior “Higher Energy” and “Farenheit” colognes, Delva leave-in hair protein treatment, Joico moisturising shampoo and conditioner, Dettol handwash disinfectant, floss, Liquid and Pen eyeliner, hairbrush, Lux Gentle Loofah bodywash, Pirate bandaids, Shower mirror, Listerine (1L bottle), electric and “stealth” toothbrush.

So, there you have it. Proof that a perfectly heterosexual man can have a strict body maintenance regime without compromising his image.

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photo credit: mdezemery

For some reason the Auzentech Prelude X-Fi 7.1 soundcard always makes me think of Sarah Blasko’s Overture and the Underscore. Maybe that’s Freudian, maybe it’s the rogue soviet psychics and their mind control microwaves. The soundcard, however, is one of my favourite purchases this last financial year gone. While only hooked up to a set of Logitech’s Z-5500 5.1 speakers through the optical connection, the quality of the sound output is phenomenal. With the new Beta drivers out from Auzentech, I thought I might write some of my opinions should someone find them interesting and google manages to find me in this ocean that is the blogosphere. However, a caveat before I continue:

Sound quality as a premium niche is somewhat akin to elite wine appreciation. It is populated by complete and utter tosswanks who use more colourful words than Shakespeare himself. In principle they are reviewing sound quality and timbre, etc. You would be forgiven if you thought they were eating a delicious brownie, or smelling an orchid.

The new DTS option isn’t yet stable, and I have experienced a couple (not many) cases of weird distortions in the sound, but the caveat was on the Auzentech website so I had expected them. The question on my lips was, however, will it make a difference to the DDL that I was currently using. The answer is yes. The difference is noticeable, but will likely not knock you out of your chair. If you are using a good amp and a set of floor speakers of reputation then you will probably appreciate this difference more than I, but the fact that I could tell an improvement in sound on these high end computer speakers speaks volumes in my opinion. The main difference in sound is a broadening, or to put it visually, as if each element looked more resolved. My test was the special edition DTS DVD of Opeth’s Ghost Reveries. The strings and keys were more pronounced and Åkerfeldt’s vocals sounded clearer. I don’t want to say that I could hear his individual vocal cords vibrating, but that is the only way I can think of describing. It’s not a case of being louder or more sound, just clearer; crisper.

However, imagine my surprise when I had finished the album and put on a 128 kbps mp3 of Sweeney Todd’s soundtrack, only to find that the sound quality was much better. I guess it’s all a case of diminishing returns, but the lower bitrate being filtered through the Crystaliser (“tha bit wot maeks bad fings not sound so bad” in common person speak) actually sounded better with DTS than through DDL. Go figure. I guess the moral to this story is something along the lines of “You won’t ever know if you don’t experiment”. Which, of course, is just my retroactive excuse for breaking things by fiddling.

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photo credit: SARhounds

Before anyone attempts to correct my spelling regarding a Bravia watching Monochromatic bamboo eater, it’s a pun using homophones. I’m quite proud of this one, bear with me (Get it? Bear? Bah! amateurs). Having seen Hancock last night, and The Dark Knight a couple of days prior, the oxidised cogs in my brain were forced to start ticking over in the crude imitation of thought. Before anyone starts firing up the hate; I thought Dark Knight was one of the most amazing films of our generation. However you cannot tell me that the entire audience was beaten around the head with the whole “Sometimes a Hero has to be evil to be good” bullshit one too many times. This is where the imitation of thought comes in, and it is an imitation because there really is nothing left to think about. As if the title of the movie weren’t enough to convey the notion clearly enough, someone thought that the viewer simply wouldn’t understand the overwhelming complexity of the topic unless every lead character in the movie (and several minors) all say the same thing every seven and a half minutes.

Hancock, however, takes it up a notch. The movie seemed to be a series of catchphrases repeated ad nauseum, strung together on the worlds thinnest plot and threaded through the audiences brains with something resembling a cricket bat more than a needle. After the credits began to roll, I honestly could only sit and wonder what exactly just happened. My head was sore and any hopes I had once had for the movie lay impotent around my feet, like the remnants of a spiderweb after a hailstorm. So much potential. What happened to the concept they originally showed us? A fallen superhero, hated by the world for the lackluster style in which he goes about his trade, decides to disappear for a spell leaving the world to quickly succumb to the darkness that is “evil”, only to show up once again to kick ass. Hell, the posters for the movie looked practically Post Apocalyptic! This is where something inside me died and I realised I couldn’t take it anymore.

What the fuck happened to subtlety?!

Stop pandering to the lowest common denominator and bring back the reason we go to a theatre in the first place. I don’t want to see Colin Fucking Firth in “Sometimes You Need To Hurt Someone To Show Them You Really Love Them IV”. The theatre was never a place for redneck hicks and back-alley whores. We gave those guys the Television to hold sway over their simian minds while we enjoyed a more complex palette. The cinema, as an evolution of the live theatre, was somewhere were we could take a situation and explore its nuances over the course of a couple of hours. The audience was given a seed with which they would nurture and cultivate into something that could be quite beautiful. This is sadly no longer the case. Our cinemas are flooded with the kind of pond scum one finds in Cannington on a Thursday night. I tire of having a narrative punctuated with cat-calls and hyena-howls from an audience with the collective cognitive capacity roughly approximate to that of the afformentioned pond scum. The only answer is to deprive them of their low-brow fart jokes and bludgeoning quips on morality. Bring back intelligent cinema and stop pandering to the lowest common denominator.

Also, I hate Brendan Frasier. There, I said it.

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photo credit: Lawrence OP

For those who missed my earlier explosion of rage, I will quickly sum up the state of play as it stands before moving on. Yesterday it was announced by the Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC) that Fallout 3 would be refused classification in Australia. The lack of an R18+ rating for games in Australia has cost us several titles over the last couple of years. Everyone remembers the outcry when it was found out that GTA IV, a game with an equally rabid fanbase, was refused classification. Now I’m no fan of pointless repetition, and if you want to hear a rant about the inconsistancies in the rating boards idea of what exactly constitutes an R18+ verus an MA15+ game, then Kotaku has a couple of posts with the basic facts laid out for easy consumption. If you want to read badly worded articles on how this will push users to torrenting games, Shamus may be your man. I will however give you the original leaked paper from the OFLC that states exactly why the game was too heinous for human consumption.

What I havn’t seen anyone talk about, however, is just how this effects us as a consumer. I have no doubt that many will simply wait for the revised copy, the censorsed copy, that no longer portrays the gritty feeling the developers set out to convey. Honestly, it is like watching Snatch with a bleep track. The whole ordeal becomes light hearted and fivelous because there is no longer any depth. Yes, I am one of those self professed twats who stands resolute behind the notion of “Games are Art” but I at least like to think I’m one of the more rational breeds. The other half will no doubt torrent the uncensored (International) version, and probably would have regardless for myriad reasons.

However, there are enough of us who actually want to buy this game, be it for moral reasons (not me), or maybe they have an insatiable lust for limited edition boxsets of things (yes, that one is me). Either way, the only avenue here is to import the game from an overseas supplier. The only thing about this, and it is almost always overlooked; Importing an RC rated product of any form is a breach of Federal Law. We are not talking “I download my mp3’s” illegal, either. This is a physical product that must go through a customs check before it reaches you. What is more, breaking this law can result in anything from a $110000 (yes four zeros) fine, to 5 (five) years in Ye Olde Gaol. When you look at it under this light, you suddenly realise the implications of what is happening here. It makes you wonder just how far you are willing to go for a game.

*Edit* I just wrote a letter, and Kotaku is right. The only way this changes is if someone actually says “We are not OK with this”.

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photo credit: edgeplot

I don’t own a console, so I didn’t kick up a fuss when GTA IV was refused classification due to the lack of an R18+ rating in the Australian Classification Board’s worldview. Already, this sounds like Pastor Martin Niemöller’s too often quoted poem. However, now they really have come for me, or more particularly, the single title of this year that I was looking forward to.

This is not the last I have to say on the matter, mark my words. Mark ‘em good… but it is late and I need to cool off.

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