chidade.net

Gods I hate MySpace.com - like, really, really, kill-it-with-fire hate it. The design is bloody awful, I’m getting friend-spammed and comment-spammed already after three days of having an account, and despite having Ad-Block, Flash-block and using Firefox’s built in pop-up blocker, I’m still getting ads and “warnings” that my computer has been infected, please click here for cleaning utilities…GAH!

The people who use MySpace.com must be braindead. Why would they tolerate such invasion of privacy and computery? Do they really want to make friends that badly? If they have to resort to the internet to make friends they’re probably lost causes already.

Unfortunately, MySpace seems to be the only community website that has a special focus on bands. It’s much cheaper for bands to use myspace’s community-based website than to design their own, pfft.

The Cat Empire post their blogs there. Why? Whhhyyyy? Why must I be subjected to all the bullshit associated with myspace.com just to read up on my favourite band? Yes, I know they duplicate the entries at their website but that’s not the point >.< What about the other bands that I want to read about? The convenience of having them together to read at one website is negated by the spam and attempted computer infections that I have to deal with.

One of the artists I friended was Fatboy Slim. He’s releasing a best of album, but apparently Australia hasn’t got it yet because it hasn’t been listed in iTunes, stupid iTunes >.< So I can't buy the mp3 of That Old Pair of Jeans - my favourite song of the month. I keeping pushing the play button on Fatboy Slim’s MySpace page because that seems to be the only place I can hear it.

Man, that song is feelgood. I’ve played it about 20 times non-stop and I’m not sick of it yet. And the videoclip! My gods, it makes me want to join the circus and learn how to juggle. Chris Bliss is amazing. Fatboy Slim’s videos are always amazing. Go watch and listen to it. Just not on MySpace.com.

EDIT: It seems Fatboy Slim’s Best Of CD hasn’t even been released yet, it’s just being previewed. Silly Chidade.

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So, I saw my first ever baseball game the other day.

Tokyo Swallows v. Fukuoka Hawks. Twas surprisingly good fun. I had never watched a baseball game before and didn’t even know the rules. Luckily, I went with L and S - who’s a baseball freak (he doesn’t support either of the teams but enjoyed himself highly anyway). He tried to explain the game to me as well as he could in broken English.

The game was at Jingu Stadium (at least, I hope that’s the name) near Shibuya. We arrived quite late and missed the first 3 innings but the vibe was good as soon as we arrived.

“Alright kids, who are we barracking for?”
“Tokyo Swallows”
“Why?”
“Because I like Swallows!”
“…”
“No, really, they’re much nicer than hawks. Hawks are predatorial birds, they can hurt you!”
“…good enough for me!”
“Who are you going for?”
“Tokyo Swallows”
“Why?”
“Because I like Tokyo?”
“Sounds good!”

It took until the 7th inning until I actually felt like I knew what the hell was going on. S had brought his catcher mitt which made me a bit nervous. I don’t exactly dig being thwacked in the head by an accelerating ball of bloody hard leather. This guy had the right idea, methinks. No balls came flying our way, thankfully.

Hehe, I love live sports crowds.

The vibe was so much fun. The fans were chanting and singing and playing trumpets almost non-stop. At the start of the seventh - apparently lucky - inning, the fans for both teams released balloons just before their first batter went up to the plate.

One thing I like about the Tokyo Swallows is that they have some cool traditions. When the Swallows get a home run, or a ‘home in’ as they call it, they fans bring out these mini green umbrellas and start bobbing them up and down. Looked freaking mad! Colourful, hand-held fans came out for the 9th inning. Fun, fun vibe!

The Swallows were the home team, and the atmosphere was definitely in their favour. The giant screen would show a fancy animation for each new batter or pitcher on the field. Music pumped out and they were treated like rock stars. Big, flashy animations would come up everytime somebody got a hit, a home run, or even if they made it to second base. If something similar happened to the Hawks, you wouldn’t hear a peep. Now, I can’t say for certain, but I don’t think that “home town advantage” has that much meaning for games in Australia. Then again, it has been a damn long time since I saw a sports game live, and even then it was a tennis match.

Dang, this is kinda fun.

“(announcer speaking incomprehensible Japanese)…MIYAMOTO!”

“Yay! Miyamoto! I don’t know who you are but you have the same surname as Shigeru Miyamoto! So, go Miyamoto! Ganbatte! Fight-o!”

This random ranting amused S no end, so Miyamoto immediately became my favourite player. He scored a few hits which resulted in home runs, and I later learned that he’s the captain. Go Miyamoto, indeed. Hehe, this is kinda fun ^_^

Ooh..tension!

Ninth inning…score was tied, Swallows were batting second…2 out, bases loaded…and Miyamoto comes out to to hit the Sayounara Home-In…

…he struck out. Thrice.

Game had to to go to a tie-break tenth inning but we had to catch the last train home so we couldn’t watch it. S messaged me later that night to tell me that the Swallows had lost.

Godsdammit!

Stupid sport anyway >.<

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I wrote a guest article for Gridskipper about the Stencil (street art) Festival that was recently in Melbourne and will soon be on in Sydney. You can find it here.

Will hopefully write more about Melbourne for Gridskipper in the near future.

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Graduating high school? Nah, not important. Just humour the mother while she gushes and takes photos.

18th birthday? No thanks, not interested. Costs too much and I don’t like alcohol anyway.

21st birthday? Bugger off, people suck, I don’t need embarrassing speeches from friends, let alone friends in the first place.

Finally hitting level 99 in Ragnarok Online after three years, several character resets, multiple internet disconnections and 2 laptop breakdowns?

Yes. That’s a good reason to actually have a party!

Eilix, you’re weird.

But, you know, happy 99 and stuff.

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Kotaku compared the E3 trailer for the new episodic Sam and Max game from Telltale Games with the dropped game due from LucasArts. They commented that the LucasArts trailer looked better, and I have to agree. It was funnier, the voices sounded better, and the Telltale version looked like a half-hour mock-up job.

I will be buying the Sam and Max game anyway, but geez I hope it’s better than what this trailer leads me to believe. Watching the LucasArts trailer and thinking that they cancelled such a fantastic project makes me sad in the pants.

The trailer for the new Telltale game:

…vs. the old LucasArts trailer…

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SAN FRANCISCO — Sun Microsystems Inc. at its JavaOne conference today announced that it would open-source Java but added that before it does so, company officials have to be certain the move won’t lead to diverging paths in the code.

You hear that, Eilix? More reason for you to sit down and learn Java.

read more | digg story

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In America, Congress is looking at removing the network neutrality of the Internet. If network neutrality is removed, this means that ISPs and telcos can restrict what sites you can access and what sites you can’t access on the internet. They might do this because, say, Yahoo pays them a ‘tax’ for faster access to the ISP’s customers while Google did not. Hence, Google may be blocked or slowed down significantly.

It’s utterly disgusting that something like this is being considered, but sadly it’s already happening in some forms today, notably with AOL. Three big telcos are pushing hard and paying lobbyists big money to pressure Congress into passing the bill.

What’s even more disgusting is that the telcos are actually trying to make it seem like it would be for the good of everyone to pass this bill, so the ‘government’ does not have control over the internet. The propaganda is frightening. On all sides, really.

This law only affects America, and I don’t have any First Amendment ‘protecting’ me in Australia. But it’s still a frightening concept because Australia does tend to follow sheep-like in America’s steps.

If this goes through, the websites we choose to go to may be blocked or seriously slowed down because they haven’t paid ISPs for the privilege of being read. The ones most affected will be bloggers, small businesses and the innovators on the web. It could also be turned into another form of propaganda, á la China.

Even big businesses like Google, Microsoft and Yahoo would be affected, but they have the advantage of being able to buy themselves out of their problems. Hopefully they’re not willing to and will fight against this.

If you’re American and reading this, please check out savetheinternet.com, where you can sign a petition and mail your Congress representative. David S. Isenberg, who used to be chief executive of one of the perpetrators: AT&T also has a blog where he’s details the fight against the bill. There’s also the Wikipedia article, of course.

This video is also a good, non-flashy way of describing the network neutrality debate.

EDIT: Edited after some clarification by Moto - thanks!

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I waited until after E3 to write about Wii because there was a rumour going around that it was all a huge viral marketing hoax, and not the real name of Nintendo’s next-gen console, codenamed Revolution.

But, alas, no big joke was unveiled at E3 and Kotaku posted that the Wii trademark was found. So it seems that we’re stuck with the worst game console name known to mankind. No really, it can’t be any worse than Wii. Even ‘Rotted Warts’ sounds better than the name ‘Wii’.

So, on that note, I will hereby always call Nintendo’s next-gen console ‘Revolution’ and now let’s never speak of it again.

It is looking sweet as, though. The last few days I’ve been glued to YouTube and the gaming sites for E3 goodness and while the PS3 will also be a must-buy for me, it didn’t quite give the warm-in-the-pants feeling that this video did:

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