Bank Holes and Revalations

Hey Lucas, you know what everyone wants? Another post about Borderlands.

Well, okay, Brain, maybe I will!

So anywho, I reached Level 50, which was the level cap in Borderlands midway through my second playthrough. At first I didn't care. Then I noticed that all the XP I was getting was just evaporating with nowhere to go. So I purchased the three DLC packs, one of which gives an 11-level bump to the cap (the cap now goes to Eleven).

Also, I played my first online co-op. I jumped into the game of a Level 40 early in her second playthrough. It was fun, backing her up, and letting her get the loot (which was not as good as what I had). Then a Level 61 joined in. He was leveled WAY above me with weapons and firepower. Then something strange happened. He walked over to one of the corners of the room, and one at a time, dropped 15 weapons. It was like his backpack exploded. I wandered over and my eyes bugged out: all these weapons were at his level, were worth 3-5 million dollars each, and outclassed all my weapons 2 or 3 times over. I dumped some myself and grabbed what I could, ran to the store and sold them all (I would have used them, but Borderlands has level-prerequisites of weapons of a certain power to stop nebs from getting guns like this and breaking the game's already tenuous balance).

While I was doing this, I noticed little bits of XP were continually being added to my meter. "Aha," says I. "When you're co-op-ing, you XP must be shared." And suddenly I was angry. I had scratched and clawed my way through 2 playthroughs on my own to get good weapons, XP, and enough money to get by, and situations like this make it all worthless, as selling this guy's 4 weapons makes me just as much."

So I started playing some of the missions on the Zombie Island of Dr Ned pack, which are a heap of fun added onto the already satisfying shooting. The zombies travel in mobs and for the most part, just pile forward trying to get to you. The few who spit or throw things add variety ("Oh, what's this, Mr Defiler? You spit mud which blocks my view and spoils my aim? luckily my Incendiary Helix Rocket Launcher means I don't have to aim TOO much." *BOOM*). Partway through the mission I notice that my money-meter has turned to $9999999. Ummmm... okay? I run to a shop, buy a few things, and it stays at $9999999.

"Wow!" says I. "I must have unlocked an unlimited money challenge! No wonder that Level 61 was dumping his stuff. When you down need money, what's the use of a selling?"

I lived with this happy fantasy for a little while, until I bought a few upgrades and saw that my money counter went to $9995763. So it only goes to $9999999 when you pass what the meter can read. So yeah.

1, 2, 3?

Tanja has been rereading Witches Abroad by Terry Pratchett as a was of polishing her adjectives (don't ask). I then recalled my favourite bit of wordplay from late in the book, and apologies if I misquote:

[Nanny Ogg is trying to make conversation while everyone else is grumpy]
Nanny: "You know what the name of the river is? It's Le Vieux River. That means The Old (Masculine) River."
She leans in and nudges with her elbow.
"Words have sex in foreign parts."

Blindingly brilliant. I think it's actually a triple entendre. Well, a single, two doubles.... A quintuple entendre?

Also it's humid and sticky and I'm having trouble getting my brain in gear.

An end before a return.

So it's the last day of my holidays and it's time to review my list.

[-]record a demo show for Mike's radio station's boss:
Did not do. I've organised the ideas a bit more clearly in my head (that I'll make two shows, one as an indie/rock show, you know, for kids, and one as an anything-goes with three songs at a time on a theme). I haven't recorded any talking because I don't have a microphone because yes, I procrastinated on that too. I've now bought one off eBay, but it's not going to get here in time. I also find it ironic that my brain's response to not get anything done on a task is to create more tasks for me not to do.

[-]register my ABN and look into the shirt press idea that I meant to do in freaking January.
Nope. Started the ABN process Wednesday morning, only to find that before I can get one, I should a) register my business via snail mail which takes two weeks and costs $152, and b) be "already conducting business." What? Before I get registered, I'm to be conducting business? Tanja later explains that they mean I should be ready to go and start the day my ABN is registered. It seems they're petrified of people registering, then not filing any returns for 6 months. Problem is, the money I need to lay out for equipment and substrate is substantial. The whole point is that I have an ABN so I can claim it back as expenses. Then there's the equipment I researched. Turns out there are a few different methods of heat-pressed inkjet printing, and my current printer and inks will produce shirts that fade in two washes. So now, instead of a heat press and sheets, I need a heat press ($450-$1150), a special dye sublimation printer ($675-$1000), special inks to go with the printer, special sheets (two kinds, one for cotton, one for dark clothes, both about $1.50 per sheet), plus the actual shirts to print on.

Further study is needed.

[-]practice with Ted and lay down some tracks.
We practiced yesterday. Ted has a very fancy new kit that he's letting me use that has great snap and response. However, I was not as sure of the one track we wanted to record as I thought, and stumbled through a few records. We then tried to improv on something new, which we kind of did. Then we talked about games and stuff for ages. I then showed him the works of Brian Brushwood, which he liked (I think. It's hard to tell with Ted) which was awesome, but not productive.

[-]relax a little. Sometime.
It's so weird. I didn't feel like I was on holiday this whole holiday. As I described it to Tanja, it was like an extended Sunday that lasted two weeks. Now, don't get me wrong. Sundays are nice. I like Sundays. But there's always the knowledge that the next day is a Monday, so you don't completely relax. I'm not sure I completely relaxed all fortnight. We did fun stuff, like seeing How To Train Your Dragon and Tanja's dad's 60th (where, apparently, I was the life of the party, go figure), I've been cooking more, to more or less okay results (only one mishap involving a pot burning). So why aren't I all mellow?

When Tanja finished her holidays, she was very sad, not wanting to return to work. However, her first day, she said she was all energised and got lots done.

Here's hoping.

Focus!

Alright. This is the first non-long-weekend-day of my two weeks of holidays. The first week Tanja is home with me, the second week its just me.

Things I intend to do in this fortnight:

[-]record a demo show for Mike's radio station's boss to consider (best left for second week, when Tanja's not around).

[-]register my ABN and look into the shirt press idea that I meant to do in freaking January.

[-]practice with Ted and lay down some tracks.

[-]relax a little. Sometime.

Also? I'm writing this on Tanja's laptop and I realise that I hate all laptop keyboards utterly. They don't register when you type.

Squick.

And another thing...

I'm about a third of the way through Guillermo Del Toro's "The Strain" (loaned to me by Adrian). The villain is described as a sort of ghost-vampire that sires zombies. I think. It's early in the book. Well anywho, the main bad guy is described as sort of a moving inblot, with long toe/talons that scrape along the floor as he walks, and a long tapered head with leech-like skin, glowing eyes & a slash of a mouth, which opens to lots and lots of teeth. Basically, it's a childhood scared-of-the-dark-thing-behind-the-wardrobe description.

My brain showed it as a combination of Inque, a shapeshifting villain from Batman Beyond, and Candle Jack (don't say his name) from Freakazoid. While Inque is not portrayed as scary, just a dangerous mercenary, and Candle Jack is played for comedy (he even sponsered a meme), the combination hit the "Scary" button in my head that hasn't happened since Stephen King's IT when I was 14.

Think of a Candlejack head on top of a sinuous, Inque-type body, and that it attacks you hen you're asleep, and feeds upon you, so you're found dead with a tiny bloodless superthin cut on your neck (and maybe rise up as a horrific zombie thing 3 days later).

Brr.

See also Squick, Body Horror, and Orifice Invasion.

Commitment And More Lands That Border

More Lands That Border

More things that are satisfying about Borderlands:
1. The World is HUGE. I keep discovering new outposts with different mission, some as trivial as "collect 5 mission recorders and bring them back" to "collect 50 crystal samples, defeat the two giant monsters guarding the samples, refine the crystals into an artifact."
2. The Sorting Algorithm of Weapons: The weapon that was your best friend and most trusted problem solver will be nearly-useless later on, as all the enemies around you level up as you do. Even the ones with comically low levels (a Lvl4 Skag attacking you, a Level 30 Gunslinger Hunter) can still nearly kill you if you ignore them. Sure, they die comically in one hit and you get little to no XP for them, but if there's a pack of them, you can still croak.
3. Different experiences. I was discussing this game with Luke at work, and I had an experience I haven't had since Fallout 3: We were discussing the game and the environments, and we had had completely different experiences. He played as a Bruiser (a Tank class, with a berserk ability and a love of fisticuffs and rocket launchers, quite the opposite of my Hunter's love of ranged weapons and one-shot kills), and as such had a different playstyle and strategy, and in the end, got a different result.

This segues me nicely into the unsatisfying thing about Borderlands, though, the more I think about it, it's something that's wrong with me. I had the same issue with Fallout 3, and in discussion with Ted, that many people had with Diablo. The inventory.

Now, in Borderlands, you're given twelve slots in your backpack for weapons, shields, grenade mods, health kits, and class mods (which give bonuses to skills). You also have two equipped slots (later four), which are mapped to the D-pad. You can complete Claptrap side missions to increase your carry capacity.

Here's my issue. I'm a hoarder, and a worrier. I try to carry a mixture of weapons, so I can be covered in any situations. My twenty-seven slots are filled with, currently:

-6 revolvers (two normal, one with zoom, one without & four elemental)
-6 sniper rifles (two normal, one with a stupidly huge zoom, one with massive damage, and four elemental)
-3 shotguns (two elemental, one automatic and fast-firing)
-2 submachine guns (one with scope, one that does 4x projectiles & reloads super-fast)
-2 repeater pistols (one with Shock damage, and one with a scope)
-3 combat rifles (one with large magazine for support firing, two elemental)
-1 rocket launcher (after much deliberation)
-2 shields (one high-capacity with corrosive resistance, and 1 medium capacity with fast health recharge)
-1 grenade mod (changed often, depending on the situation)
-2 Class Mods (Gunslinger & Ranger)

Now, where this gets frustrating is that when I find a piece of loot that I like (or just one worth a lot that I can sell), I then get to spend loooooooong minutes, staring at my inventory screen, agonising over what to leave behind, the distance to the nearest shop ("If I pick this up, then drop it, then run to the shop to sell something, can I make it back so that the thing I dropped is still there?")... I'm also a cheapskate, so the idea of dropping a weapon that's worth four thousand dollars bothers me. I'll occasionally do an inventory cull, leaving a few spots open for sellables, but the minute I find something decent, it becomes "Well, I have a Shock Revolver already, but this one does more damage, even though it's got a lower fire rate and only holds three bullets... it has a higher accuracy and zoom, though... I could do more damage more accurately, but if I miss, I'm screwed..." For ages.

I was the same with Fallout. Most people I talked to customised their character with a persona, based upon the upgrades they took and the skills they developed. My overarching ability? I could carry a lot. I took every Strongback upgrade to the pount where I was carrying 300 pounds of gear on my back (mostly weapons and armour, with some space for things I wanted to sell). Doesn't make for a memorable character.

Think of it as a video-game based fear of commitment. "Do you take this sniper rifle, to have and to hold, in sickness, and when something better is dropped by a dead Rakk?"

Forced typesetting

I spent most of today (well, the parts not spent having brunch and walking back from brunch) locked in the spare bedroom, writing an assignment.

"But Lucas!" I hear you posit. "You aren't taking an courses or classes! What gives with the assignmenting?"

That's true. I'm actually finishing assignments for a course put on by work that I began in early 2008. It's a course whose last assignment was due in May of 2009.

Now, when it came to assignments in school, or university, or the various tertiary courses I've taken (be it work-based, or my advertising stuff at TAFE), I alays try to be my best. One memorable work-based-course-presentation was supposed to be 10 minutes. I overprepared and went for 25, although if they hadn't had a stopwatch, I don't know if they would have noticed (no bragging, that was my feedback). I like being able to pit my brain against something and put a project together.

But I don't know. Something happened with this course. I liked the presenters, the subject matter was relevant to my work, but somewhere along the line it stopped being important to me to do the assignments. I got the knowledge, I participate in class, I took notes, but once I was home, I had no motivation or drive to complete things, let alone complete them well. The last assignment I turned in late, incomplete and didn't think about it again.

That is, until the presenter showed up at work in June with a paper full of notes and corrections with a big legend across the top saying "Not Competent". I took it, saying I'd try again (I couldn't even lie and say I had tried. We both knew I had half-assed it).

I put the assignment on my desk at home and there it sat for 8 long months. I didn't think of it again. I'd occasionally look at it, but the only emotion I could raise was a sort of impotent anger towards "fake assignments about fake meetings" that even I know what bogus and childish.

Eventually, as they were wrapping up the course (they're revamping it next month), the presenter got around to marking some of my old assignments and emailing me the results, full of glowing praise about my written composition, the structure of my arguments, and my in-class participation. I do not pretend that ego did not play a part in what followed. Guilt was also there. It had snuck without paying while the show was starting and snuck in a bag out outside peanuts to throw at the screen.

I responded to the email, thanking the presenter for his marking my paper, and complimenting him on his new beard that I had seen him sporting.

Should have seen it coming.

He responded with thanks, then... "Oh, by the way, I'm still waiting on Module 8, as well as parts of Modules 4 & 6. It's been months If you don't turn them in by the end of this week (it was Monday), we'll be forced to mark you not competent and you'll need to start the course over again."

Well, shit. Part of my new slacker personality wanted me to just go "Fuck it, let 'em fail you." but there was enough of the old overachiever in me to respond in the affirmative, asking for a list of what I was missing from each assignment, so I could sort them out by the end of the week. Yes, by Friday.

The presenter responded by explaining that I'd missed out on small-to-medium bits of 4 & 6, but all of 8 needed to be redone, preferably using his notes.

"No problem", says I. "I still have the copy you gave me in June." He took the opportunity to tell me that he was rather disappointed in me, since I was clearly good enough to do this, and I was the first to hand the assignment in, and now the last to finish. Thanks, Dad.

So Tuesday night, I sit down and I clear off assignment 4. Then I prep assignment 6 to do later at work (since that assignment is about meetings and one-on-ones and I had based my prepartion and reflection on imaginary meetings, the part I was missing was, you know, the meetings).

I also noticed that I couldn't find the copy that the presented had returned to me with his notes. I also couldn't find the book of data from that lesson that was necessary to do the report. Non-plussed, I emailed the presenter, saying that if he could, could he bring me a copy with his notes and another booklet, or I could go pick it up before work.

Felt good about myself.

So good, that when I came home from work Wednesday night, I sat down with Tanja after dinner and watched a bunch of Madmen. I remarked on the way to bed that I hadn't done any assignment work, but it's okay, I'd do the hard yards Thursday night, and hand it in to the presented on Friday, right on time. I put the stuff I'd finished into my bag to bring to the presenter at the other office in my lunch break sometime this week. He hadn't emailed me about the booklet/notes, so I sent him (and another presenter, for good measure) another email saying that if he wanted the assignment done by Friday, I was willing, but I needed him to help me out.

Oh yeah, and did I mention? On Wednesday I got a flu shot.

Thursday I was sick. Really sick. Like wake up at 4 am to throw up kind of sick. II didn't go to work, I didn't think about the assignment, I just laid in bed and literally (with no hyperbole, superlatives, or exaggeration) cried, and willed myself to stop hurting and not die.

Friday arrives. I've shaken the flu. My immune system for the freaking win. I go to work and find an email from the presenter saying "Hi Lucas, yes, you can come get the booklet and my notes whenever you like." Also, the second presenter that I'd emailed, whom I've known for longer, stopped by the office to needle me about the assignment, um, I mean, to say hi. Actually, I'm making it sound callous, he was actually really nice and cool as he always is, and just gave a gentle reminder that these assignments should be a snap for me (again, ego). I called the first presenter and said I'd be over in my lunch break to get the booklet & notes. I head over there (about a 20-minute walk, in the rain. He calls when I'm just outside his office to say "Don't worry, I'll be over at your office, I'll bring it."). So I get the details from him, and give him assignment 4, completed. I make an offhand comment about how it's really quite tough filling in the blanks on an assignment I did in June of '08, and frankly, didn't give my best effort to then. I found it hard matching the more-complete answers with some of the sketchier stuff I'd put in earlier."

Should have known that was laying it on a bit thick.

"Well, you know, Lucas, I'd prefer if you you didn't write stuff out of context. I mean, if you need a few more days to rewrite it all and make it good, then that's fine."

*deep breath*

A FEW MORE DAYS??!

It's okay, I'm calm. He put the guilt boot in a few more times, and I left.

I wrote up his comments in Lucas-speak on Saturday, so I'd know where to start. I would have done more work, but Tanja had decided she felt like cleaning and was doing this thing where she talks to what she's cleaning. "Oh, well, that's no good, is it. It's so dusty!" It makes it hard to concentrate.

Also, I was distracted by internet.

Anyway, wrapping up, I sat down today and did it. The whole thing. And it was fine. Actually, now that I knew I was writing for content, I expounded a bit more than I usually would on a business-report-style format. The questions that had frustrated me previously were much easier, thanks to the practice I have now with handling metrics and strike rates at work. Frankly, as I said to the presenter, I'm a different team leader now than I was then. Admittedly, the math I used was different to what they wanted, but I got there in the end.

So now I'm in a frenetic writing mood. I left two loooong and one longish comment on blogs, and now I've written one of my own. It's not too long, though.

...


...


What?!?

Things that are satisfying about Borderlands

(Note: I'm playing as Mordecai, the Hunter class (read: sniper), and Borderlands is the type of game to cause spontaneous markup in my writing.)

1. Pipping an enemy from half a world away with a sniper rifle.

2. Using that same sniper rifle, firing from the hip, to cut an enemy
in half at close range.

3. Shock repeaters. Tiny little gun, tiny small-calibre bullets that
do hardly any damage... ...that can short out an enemy's shield,
causing it to shock him to death.

4. The first time you find a revolver, and discover it's essentially a
high-powered sniper rifle in a pistol.

5. Skags (combination wolf-boar-armadillos with Predator faces)
launching themselves at you, mouth open... Only to be shotgunned in
midleap and slide to your feet, dead as a doormail.("ROOOAaA-*boom-
thud!*")

6. Using exploding ammunition to snipe Crab Worm Larvae (which are the
size of a golf cart) and watching them go boom.

7. Psycho enemies; they rush when they can, or throw knives when they
can't. If the knives miss, they pull out a grenade, pull the pin, then
charge you for a suicide attack. Gets really funny when where you're
standing is more than 3 seconds away.

8. Rakk-hunting. Rakk are this game's Goddamned Bats. they circle, usually in pairs. If you hit
one of them by accident, they fly out of sight... Then you'll turn
around to see the entire flock swooping down at you screaming. If you
have a shotgun, you'll probably be okay. Where it gets awesome? When
you've denuded the flick and the stragglers dwindle to specks, firing
your shotgun and watching that speck suddenly drop.

9. Running outvof ammo, pulling back, frantically reloading; your
enemy rushes in, turns the corner to kill you... ... only to be hit
full in the face by the talons and beak of your trained hawk
Bloodwing. "Good boy! Someones getting a treat!"

There's more, but I'll stop there.

Introspection & Gazing At Navels.

I love my wireless keyboard. Not just because I can operate the computer on the TV, but mostly because when I type quickly on it, it sounds like a typewriter. I have always loved the solid, clunky immensely satisfying *clunk* of typewriter keys. I even briefly flirted with the idea of buying an old one off eBay, just for the cathartic feeling of typing (I was held up by the fact that you can't buy ribbons for them anymore, and anyway, shipping would be a bastard).

 

Today is my first day on prescription pain medication. As anyone who's known me more than 5 minutes knows, I've suffered from headaches pretty much all my life. I hesitate to call them migraines, as what people have described to me as migraines does not fit what I get. More accurately, they're just really bad headaches, usually focussed at the base of my skull in two little knots. I have no doubt that things like stress or adrenaline bring them on, and they are occasionally resistant to medication, and often helped by physio. Lately, and by lately, I mean in the last fortnight, I have been having... different experiences. I'll go to sleep about 11:45 or midnight, then wake up roughly an hour later with a headache. A specific kind of headache, only on the left side of my head. For a moment, it'll feel like a minor thing, like you might have after just one too many beers the night before. But then as soon as you shift in position, it levels up.  If you'll forgive my purple prose for a moment, I'll describe the feeling: imagine a ball of lightning. Not a big ball, perhaps the size of a golf, or ping-pong ball. And it's spinning and roiling on the surface, kind of like the CGI Sparks in the Beast Wars: Transformers TV show. This ball sits just inside my left temple, and throbs. Then, in a motion I can only describe as similar to the lightning attacks in InFamous or Storm from Ultimate Alliance, it will lash out with lightning strikes. These strikes can hit anywhere along my head, but seem to like just behind my eyebrow, the sinus next to my nose, my upper molars, the hollow behind my jaw, and yes, the base of my skull. When they strike, they tend to march along a path, like an ellipses (you know, one of these --> ... ... ...) and then conduct off the bones in my face, before retreating again. The severity of these strikes can range from electric-shock-uncomfortable to body-wracking-painful. The first time it happened, it hurt so much I could barely speak. I have never hurt that much that I can remember. I tried to get up, but couldn't. I had to wait until the strikes died down, then lurched out of bed, staggering, really, up to the kitchen looking for some panadol. I also heated up a wheat-bag heat pack, and laid it on my face until the medication kicked in, and I could relax enough to go to sleep. The next morning, no pain. However the next night? Repeat scenario. This basically was three nights of last week. Only once did it carry over to the day after. Night before last, it happened again, just as severe as the first time. But it stayed. I had the same feeling all morning. I took more panadol (panadiene now, with codeine) but or once, the edge did not come off. No. Instead it got worse. And I was at work. Blurred vision, loss of balance... I at one pointed wished I could do something as dramatic as collapse so people could see how much I was hurting. Finally, after a "go to the doctor, you bloody fool" email from my loving wife, I did. Dr. Lentham, who I'd gone to before for my other headaches, looked on my file, and tried to offer my Cafergot. "You gave me that last time," said I. "The caffeine nearly did my head in." (see earlier post for caffiene related wackiness). So after hearing how bad it was, he prescribed Durotram XR (or tramadol hydrochloride to those playing at home) along with a huge pack of dissolveable aspirin. Instructions? Take one Durotram before bed. It will slowly dissolve over 24 hours, and take 3 aspirin when I get a headache, and 2 more if it doesn't help after 3 hours. I took the Durotram last night. I woke up at 1:00am with another lightning blast. Got up, took the aspirin, went back to bed. Did I mention that my brain tends to process the pain visually? Blame years of video games and TV. When it hits, I usually involuntarily picture marching lightning bolts raining destruction. Last night? It was raining fire. Odd, surreal, cartoon fire. I eventually got up and slept on the couch to spare Tanja my tossing and turning. This morning, I was wide-awake at 7:15 with the oddest feeling. I'm still in pain, but I feel like my head is numb. As I described on Twitter, it's like I'm standing between two white sheets on two clotheslines, looking West, while behind the East sheet is a huge grey silhouette (that would be the pain). There's a breeze blowing, and the sheets move and someties I get a glimpse of the grey in the corner of my eye (followed by a brief, but solid pain that, were it in a comic book, with have the sound effect "SPANG" like the glint of sunlight off a blade), but then it will fade back. And, if you'll keep to the metaphor for a moment, I don't want to turn, or move too quickly, because the sheets are barely any refuge. I feel fragile, like a spiderweb.

 

Also, if I may dirgress for a moment, I'm finding myself focusing on things too intently. Anyone who's known me for the afore-mentioned 5 minutes also knows that I doodle. A lot. Almost compulsively. It's a habit I picked up in high school, carried on to university, and worked into my various careers, be they retail, on-phone, or managerial. When I was on the phones, I could go through a pen in 5 days. As a symptom, I've also gained the habit of buying pens (usually gel pens of varying brands, I prefer 0.7mm points or above, rollerball better than brush) from newsagents. I have a huge pencil-case at work (which at one point 6 months ago, was raided and many of my pens stolen, which displeased me to no end). I usually have a few in my backpack, in case the mood strikes me. This morning, as I was watching The Digg Reel & iFanboy, trying to relax, I had grabbed the desk calender from the computer room and was using my Pilot Vpen (you know, the ones with the fountain pen nib?) to doodle. My usual subjects are stars, which I've taight myself to draw freehand, without interior lines, specifically what some people refer to as "<punk stars", but compounded with many layers, and random words being said around me or thought by me in block letters, usually serif, done in alternating outline and filled styles, though occasionally I'll like the look of certain letter) were being used, but I realised something: I was bringing my face closer and closer as I drew, the edges becoming sketchier and sketchier, like something out of a Spawn comic (ironically one of the discussion points on iFanboy). After a while I was not paying attention to the show, just watching myself draw. I had to shake my head to break my concentration. Is this part of the medication? I don't know.

 

And I still find it ironic that a potentially side effect listed for headache medication is "headache".

Hyp(irate)ocritical

So I buy iTunes cards with some vague regularity. Let's say one or two at a go, maybe every 1-3 months. Usually I won't bother unless JB has some sort of deal like two $30 cards for $40. Most of the time I'll get one around the same time as The Word magazone and after I'm done with the magazine, I trawl through the reviews, make a list of the stuff I like and try to find it on iTunes. The reason for this is simple: most of the stuff The Word talks about isn't available to be pirated, so I stopped trying. Also, iTunes store is accurate, high-quality, and I know what I'm getting is the real deal.

Now I've been a pirate since Napster at university and am not averse to torrenting something if I'm not able to get it legally due to Coming-To-Australia-lag (I'm looking at you, Avatar: The Last Airbender, True Blood & Dollhouse). Conversely, I have the stance that when I like something created by the little guy (be it an iPhone App, or a podcast like TikiBarTv), I'll pay to help support them (like buying the Apps instead of jailbreaking, or buying merch for TBTV).

This leads to some interesting situations. Last month I had a $20 iTunes card. I read The Word, and found a bunch of tracks from Half-Man Half-Biscuit, Zoot Woman, Wintersleep, Hockey, and an oddball English Beat track. However, one of the reviews was for She Keeps Bees, a two=piece that drew comparisons to the White Stripes, which got my attention. Nowhere to be found on iTunes. So? Straight to PirateBay, where I found an EP and a CD. Turns out they weren't that impressive and I only kept a few tracks.

On the flipside of that anecdote, I bring you another: today, $30 iTunes card in hand, I looked up Kill It Kid, and bought two of their tracks, then, on Sam-from-work's recommendation, looked up Them Crooked Vultures. Quickly, I found 5 or 6 tracks I liked, then thought "Bugger me, I want the whole album." iTunes had it for $19.95 ($3 more than usual!) which gave me pause. I like the album, sure, but did I want to spend 2/3 of my rarity-finding-money, with half the magazine left to browse, on 1 album by one artist?

So I bought one single, then pirated the rest of the album.

Am I a hypocrite?

Also, here's a video from Zadi at Epic Fu, whose message about copyright I completely agree with.