Kerblam! by Christopher

Thursday, July 24
Cactus & The Shears of Consumer Opinion

I. Hate. Copy protection.

I went into a music shop yesterday, SPECIFICALLY to buy The Darkness' new album, only to see a nice big "Copy Protected" logo on the front. As it turns out, the CD is protected using Cactus, which I can just rip with a copy of CD-DA Audio Extractor (or CDex, I daresay), but the whole point is: THIS CD IS CORRUPT! (due to the way that the "protection" deliberately corrupts segments of the audio.

Boy, am I mightily pissed off.

But there's light at the end of the tunnel yet; Robin Ward has very kindly written up his experiences of the latest Radiohead album & his findings with ripping on his blog. So it turns out I might as well buy the album, rip it at 350 Ogg, and take it back saying "it won't play on my hifi"... cause I'm certainly not buying an album whose very manufacture harms my consumer rights. Why the hell can I not make a copy of an album I've bloody well shelled out for myself?

Yes, I know a "digital copy" of the album's included - which you have to play with EMI's own player, which sucks up CPU like small rodents in a vacuum cleaner, and the quality is nothing like CD quality. I don't call that a fair deal.

This has really got me wound up.

For the record, more stuff about this whole issue on the following sites (mainly concerning the Radiohead album, but both The Darkness and Radiohead's albums - at least the first pressing of the Radiohead album, for sure - are "protected" in the same way) can be found on Minchin's blog.

(...Protected... from consumer purchasing? hah. Own goal time EMI.)

And, on a related note, a nice web site concerning EMI Music Anti-Copy Control Information and a nice site with all the OFFICIAL, Red Book-compliant CD types - and logos. Bet you won't see any of those on a Cactus album.

Oh, and yet more feedback from an angry copy-protected-cd purchaser. Right here.

Dragged out of Christopher's memory and pasted
into his blog at 7/24/2003 11:58:00 PM. Roughly.
Blog ID: 105908748776697530· | Permalink

Tuesday, July 22
A Glass Of Water... RIP Jackie

In error I forgot to pay my respects to Jackie Chan, who died 30 years to the day yesterday (20th of July). A tragic early death.

RIP Jackie Chan.

Ever wondered what the American(™) for a word is in the right (British) version of English? Heh, thanks to Our Man In America you now can find out.

English to English
Wonderful.

Failing that, if you're ever bored, watch some Retromedia.

THEN, while you're off doing that, stick the video On Top and then check out the BeautyCheck pages. Apparently they've found the formula for the perfect face... And it looks interesting: I went for the virtually-generated female face instead of the comparison face, that of Miss. Germany.

... Quite a clever excuse for German Uni students to gawk at ladies all month. ;)

Dragged out of Christopher's memory and pasted
into his blog at 7/22/2003 04:22:00 AM. Roughly.
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Friday, July 11
T Shirt Whore Of The Month =D

Caption reads "I swear I didn't know she was 3"

OWN3D!!!!!!!!1111111111111!111111!!1111111111!!

!!! :D

Dragged out of Christopher's memory and pasted
into his blog at 7/11/2003 01:38:00 PM. Roughly.
Blog ID: 105792711487454801· | Permalink

Friday, July 4
GRIDLOK ... the dubthief =)

Talked to this very nice man, he's very nice.Gridlok - D&B DJ (part of the UK-based Spin Technician crew). He came on slsk cause he'd knackered his neck drying his hair after stepping out the shower :haha:... And decided to see who was trading his dubplates :D

Not me ;)

Dragged out of Christopher's memory and pasted
into his blog at 7/04/2003 05:06:00 AM. Roughly.
Blog ID: 105729160277629827· | Permalink

Wednesday, July 2
BBC - Somerset - Friday at Glasto 2003

Look! It's the Radio 1 stage at Glastonbury. I was there for Fab & Groove live :D :D :D :D :D :D

BBC - Somerset - Friday at Glasto 2003

Dragged out of Christopher's memory and pasted
into his blog at 7/02/2003 08:20:00 PM. Roughly.
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The War On Error

This lecture given to students at Leeds Uni a while back makes for quite an interesting watch. Perfect Transmissions - Evil Bert Laden.

And the name's catchy :)

Dragged out of Christopher's memory and pasted
into his blog at 7/02/2003 08:11:00 PM. Roughly.
Blog ID: 105717311144053080· | Permalink

Ah, sweet sweet irony. I return from Glastonbury! ... with this news: nearly a quarter of those arrested at this year's Glastonbury Festival Of Contemporary Performing Arts were from Merseyside. Hah. Hahahahaha. :D

Why does that not surprise me :D hahahahaha

Dragged out of Christopher's memory and pasted
into his blog at 7/02/2003 07:58:00 PM. Roughly.
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