Author Archives: Craig

Who needs Windows Vista???

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What would you do if someone asked you for CHF 3’699 for a kick-ass flat screen TV / PC and this is what they use as the advertising / recommendation?

Personally, I can’t imagine what the benefit would be of shelling out all that cash when I can just go to the local second hand store and pick up something that displays this screen for about $20 bucks!

Needless to say, when I saw this on the screen at the local store, I simply had to take a pic. I guess it is all part of my “Windows is shit, want me to convert your PC to Linux” campaign.

So, do you want me to?

*I realise that the device in the first pic has Windows Media Centre but you get the idea, right?

A last hurrah?

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It seems like Mr. Winter has decided that he’s not finished with us yet. This was taken from the door to the balcony 30 minutes ago. There was no way I was going out there! I hate frozen rain – it hurts when it falls on you.

In other news, Scotland are being absolutely pasted by Italy in the Six Nations: 21 – Nil after 10 minutes!!! Glad I didn’t buy a ticket for Murrayfield for this game.

Television Without Pity: 24 – Season 6 Edition

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At the outset I want to say that I watch 24. I won’t go so far as to say I enjoy it. I think that it is more of a fine line between pleasure and pain thing. Ms. Mac and I watched the first season in a weekend and we have been pretty much consuming them ever since. The first one was extremely enjoyable. Later seasons – not so much.

But if it’s so bad, why do you watch it Mr. Mac? Good question and I’m glad you asked!

You see, for me, 24 is a kind of rite of passage. I do actually enjoy the program, but I find myself going “Pffftt!!” more and more as the producers deviate from any semblance of reality or plausability.

***SPOILER ALERT***

Ok, so Jack has been held prisoner by the Chinese for the last 20 months and he gets rescued by the President for a mission. A special mission. In fact the mission is to be a sacrificial lamb a la St. Jesus (generally acknowledged to be the most famous of all the saints). Hence the outfit and visage that you see on the left. Hmm, it is starting to seem far-fetched already.

To make things worse, they prepared an area for him to get cleaned up inside the 453rd abandoned hangar that the series has used – they really have a lot of hangar space available in L.A – and it is curtained off like a scene from The English Patient! Honestly, right down to the chipped enamel bowl for him to shcave with and the old-school hospital curtain/screen things.

Cut to the Oval Office, and the President is none other than Wayne Palmer!?!?!?! Puhhleaze. I was really hoping that they would have come up with someone more plausible but I digress. He’s the President and we better get used to it.

Anyway lot’s of things happen between 06:00 and 07:00 that really do beggar belief. I won’t bore you with a synopsis but instead will give you some of the funny comments / observations that were made during its viewing.

1. To be a successful terrorist, you must have a LOT of computers! Every bad guy is hooked up in some sort of computer den with multiple screens and racks of servers but only ever one keyboard and never a mouse! Plus, they prefer to use predominantly green text and graphics on their screens. They never seem to set up a sweet desktop wallpaper and some cool icons – they don’t seem that 1337 to me. According to Ms. Mac, all terrorists are geeks. Ergo, all geeks are terrorists

2. Only losers use a mouse! Whether you’re a terrorist or a top CTU agent, the mouse is your enemy. From redirecting some satellite coverage to establishing a protocol, it’s all done with just the keyboard. What’s more, you will never pwn the USA unless you can type sans mistakes.

3. When an inspector asks for your ticket, tell him about a bomb on the train and that you’re a federal agent. Ms. Mac said that she would be saying that next time her and Antipo are kontrolliert on the S-Bahn – should be interesting. I’ll just get ready to pay the CHF 80 and be done with it.

4. How stupid do the producers think we are. As a self-confessed computer geek, the premise of 24 seems highly interesting. Use of technology for exciting purposes like counter terrorist actions – sounds awesome right? Except that they have the most unbelievable user interfaces and ridiculously advanced capabilities. Also, they always have to write scripts for everything that they do. It all comes back to point 2 – you’ll never beat Osama if you’re using a mouse.

5. What is wrong with Chloe?? I am going to invent a new drinking game whereby you have to take a shot every time she puts on that stupid duck-faced scowl. You’ll be smashed before minute 34 of any episode – might make some of the things more plausible though – must try it with the next ep.

Anyway, I could ramble for hours here about the program and its flaws. Ask Ms. Mac how many times per episode I roll my eyes or tut at something they have done, yet, despite the lack of credibility of the program, I will still be sitting down to watch the next episode as soon as it is ready.

My name is Mr. Mac and I’m addicted to 24…

How did I ever manage?

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>These here internets are gettin’ to be pretty much integral to everybody’s life, right? I use it for as much as I can seeing as human interaction is so 20th century.

The question in the title refers to how I ever managed when all I had was 33.6kbps dial-up internet. We have gotten so used to having broadband that the very thought of dial-up at even 56kbps makes me feel sick.

We just got an upgrade with Cablecom to 10Mbps which is blazingly fast (we had 5Mbps and I thought that was quick) and it’s CHF10 per month cheaper than my old plan – bonus. The best thing though is that there are never any download limits so I can have a lot of “traffic” over my connection and not have to worry.

Check this out for speedy

Try your connection and tell me how fast yours is.

The Macs Leap into the 21st Century

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>Well it is all happening here at the Chateau! In our never ending quest for the cheapest solution to our English TV needs we have decided to cancel our Sky subscription. I was resistant for a long time because I wanted to keep the channels that we had despite the fact that we never seem to be able to find anything to watch and seem to be on the same channels all the time. It cost £21 a month and there was nothing on it!

Plus, I absolutely resent the fact that I pay a subscription to be shown ads!!! What a fuckin’ liberty!!!

Anyway, we canceled Sky and will now just get the free to air channels. No biggie. The big deal here is that we just grabbed the new Cablecom Digital TV Recorder package! It is totally awesome because it now has BBC1, BBC2, ITV1, ITV2 and Film4. The BBC channels and the ITV channels could never be watched because the satellite signal dropped out if there were any clouds in the sky (but all the other Sky channels worked). So I could never seem to watch my beloved Formula 1 on ITV or Top Gear on BBC2. We also missed a load of Masterchef and University Challenge.

We’ll miss them no more! I am very impressed so far. Especially that we have got TWO tuners so we can record Never Mind the Buzzcocks and Corrie at the same time!!

If you need us, we’ll be watching telly.

Trying to be evil.

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>Today, my miraculous record for finding awesome mobile telephones was augmented by the addition of a Nokia 9300 Personal Communicator (CHF 999 rrp) to my list.*

I got onto my train at 7am this morning and sat in my seat waiting for the train to depart. Normailly, I put my head down and read my book and listen to my iPod, but the seat that I wanted today was slow to be evacuated so I was still too busy huffing about the stupid slow bitch who wouldn’t move.

I have always said that huffing is my way of coping with the world. Truly, the anger that builds up inside me over trivial things is ridiculous. However, I don’t really get too bothered by big stuff so it balances out. Anyway, thanks to the huffing, I spied said mobile phone on the other seat/table-y thing and nabbed it.

Immediately, I thought of how I could get this phone back to its rightful owner, but was worried about having to go through the whole speaking in Swiss German on the telephone to a stranger blah blah thing. Instead, I tried to ascertain if the persons details were inside the address book or messages. I did find the number of their home and called when I got to the office. Then I called her husband and told him I had the phone so he arranged for them to pick it up tonight. Coolio.

The thing is, when I showed it to my colleague and said, look what I found, his immediate response was “That’s an awesome phone! You’re keeping it right?” I thought to myself “Shit, in Australia, I would have had the other SIM card out and thrown off a freeway bridge** and mine in there before the other person even knew they’d lost it.”

Somehow, my first reaction was to try to find the person so my karma must be going up.

Until, that is, I went through the messages*** (it’s ok, this is the internet – nothing’s true) and found out that the owner of the phone gives her husband good blow jobs and likes analbümsä (anal sex)!!! Wa-hey, things are getting interesting. I can’t wait to see this chick when she picks up the phone. Immediately on the phone to Ms. Mac and we had a little chuckle over the peek into someone else’s boudoir.

Fast forward to tonight. Round these parts, it is customary to pay a finder’s fee to people who return your shit to you, so I was quite looking forward to seeing how much this chick valued her phone. When the buzzer rang, I nearly ripped the door off its hinges because I was dying to know a) what the sexy / dirty chick who owned the phone looked like and b) how much Finderlohn I was gonna get.

Let me say that I have never been more disappointed to have someone put CHF 50 in my hand in my life!!! The old lady (she was past 50 – and that’s too old for anal action in my books) was skinny and bespectacled and not anything like the hot sexy bitch I was hoping to see.

Moral of the story: 50 Francs or not, don’t get too invested in the owners of Nokia 9300 phones. They’re not as hot as their SMSes would have you believe.

*Also found a Motorola flip phone when they were small and awesome!
** Didn’t give it back – actually did this with their SIM, used it for a year and a half then sold it to Cash Converters for $80 – I’m burnin’ baby, I’m burnin’!
*** The good / evil balance is restored

I watched some men doing it…

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>…and it didn’t affect me in ANY way.

That’s right, Ms. Mac and I just watched the new film Shortbus by John Cameron Mitchell. It was not so much of an action / adventure (although there was plenty of “action”) as a human interest / charcter development piece. Despite this not being my genre, I enjoyed the film a lot.

Obviously, the main point of controversy about this film is the explicit (I prefer to use the term “actual”) sex scenes. Since the film revolves around the sexuality of the characters, there is a lot of it going on. I already knew that the actors had real sex in the film but I was still surprised at the graphic scenes. Unfortunately, the straight boys among us were left out a little bit since the raunchiest scenes were of the Gays and their fun-loving antics. I’ll never hear the Star Spangled Banner in the same way again.

I enjoyed the film and am glad I watched it. I also feel relieved to report that it didn’t move – which was nice.

More money than sense!

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>I just read on The Age that Paris Hilton was paid A$5 Mil. to fly down to Australia and launch a new beer called Bondi Blonde. John Singleton should be boiled in oil for that idea – trouble is, he probably wouldn’t feel it!

Further to this, we (I say we, but it was they since I don’t live there anymore) also had to endure the presence of another walking STD – Tara Reid – who was shipped in to add some “glamour” to a horse racing carnival in Brisbane???

It’s no secret that I find these two creatures repugnant. What troubles me most is that as a society, we have become so obsessed by the cult of celebrity that we feel that we aren’t complete until we throw a self-absorbed slut or two into the mix to “glam up” the proceedings.*

I don’t want to get started on this because it just makes me spiral everytime I think about it but I can’t help myself. Is it the “celebrities” I hate or society for lauding such dubious achievements of being born to wealthy parents whilst giving the worst blow job in the history of oral sex and being so bombed on the red carpet that your Franken-nipple showed and you didn’t even know it?

I read on Wikipedia that Paris Hilton was going to be in the 2007 Guiness Book of records as the World’s Most Overrated Celebrity – someone might be onto something here.

I have to stop now or I am going to have an aneurism.

*Don’t get me wrong. Self-absorbed sluts are the perfect gift for a loved one or friend.

A Christmas Miracle of My Own

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>Hurrah! He lives! Rising like Lazarus, I thought that I would make a post on this seemingly defunct blog. There isn’t anything to say, just been insanely busy / lazy and haven’t really been bothered to blog.

So there you go. I am still in the game and might even be tempted to resume a semi-normal service in the new year (don’t hold your breath but don’t write me off either.).

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.