I can fluff your Garfield, if you know what I mean... (No, I don't know what you mean)

Last entry's title, "Great for parties...if you don't have any chicks or booz", is often uttered by Drew Carey on his show Whose Line is it Anyway? when describing the various games the cast members play from time to time. And often it's true the games played would only be fun in a more family-friendly kind of setting.

Since I may be having actual visitors beside myself maybe in the near future I should perhaps explain about the titles to the entries of this blog. I like coming up with creative/humorous/weird titles to things. I like the funny ones most of the time but sometimes I'll get a serious one because I couldn't think of a funny one that time. So the "game" I have is to try and figure out the obscure pop-culture origin of the title of the blog entry, which I will reveal at the top of the next entry.

Now some other notes about his blog perhaps. I started this blog for myself and because I some what enjoy writing and not for any other reason. So I write long blog entries about weird the weird things that happen to be traveling through my mind at the type. So the entries are usually pretty long. I wasn't even reading blogs when I started this blog and I still don't really read blogs all that much (unless slashdot really counts). So I don't do like other blogs and have real short blogs and I don't usually talk about relationships and really personal stuff. This may be un-blogish but this is the way I am doing this.

By the way I would like to mention my first reciprocal link thanks to Justin Blanton dot com (new window). I immediately received two hits after I noticed he had posted me as a link. So I can only assume those came from him. Now sure he is a Mac user, but I'm not holding that against him :-).

Generally speaking I am not really fond of the Mac. Now I realize it has a really dedicated user base and everything is all easy on it and the interface is all pretty and blah-blah-blah but I start to think some users are a little too dependant on all that "usability". For instance a few years back I was talking to a Mac user who didn't like Windows because the mouse had a second button. The second button freaked her out because it made her feel like something was being hidden from her. I tried to explain the right-click in Windows is identical to the "click-and-hold" in Mac OS but she didn't seem to get it. I also don't like the hold ctrl+click, alt+click, shift+click, ctrl+alt+click+drag stuff you get stuck in on the Mac but maybe I'm just old-fashioned.

Now none of that was very specific. Personally I just really do like Windows. It just has so much software all over the place. You can change the interface to look completely with LiteStep, change the look with WindowBlinds, download UNIX command shells and emulators. Keep in mind I'm talking about the NT derivative versions of Windows (NT4, 2k, XP) not that Me edition or 98. And if there's a cool program for Linux there's probably a port of it in development for Windows too leaving me little reason to switch to Linux or anything else. And I really can't think of any reason to by a Macintosh. Cruising the Internet I very rarely come across a website with a piece of software that also has a Mac version. Often it's Windows-only or Windows and Linux but rarely also for Mac. I already know how to do everything on Windows to the ease of use thing isn't really an issue either. There is no piece of software just for Mac that makes me want one. A lot of the stuff touted as a feature of Mac, like the .Mac Justin talks about in a recent entry of his can actually be done on Windows via third-party software (again not as integrated or as easy to use).

Now this isn't to say I'd like to see the Mac go away. As it exists any time I hear some whiner complain about the "Microsoft monopoly" I can say "buy a !@#$!ing Mac!!". After all ask any Mac user: it's way superior to Windows anyway ; )

I would like to complain about that now that I think about it. Apple started including an icon on the MacOS 7 (I think it was) desktop much like the way Microsoft included an MSN icon and the Windows95 desktop, and yet the justice department never raised an eye brow (the online service soon sank there after anyhow). Later apple saw start-up BeOS released for the Mac's PowerPC processor and decided it was worth purchasing. So Apple purchases BeOS and then shuts it down and doesn't even allow the source code to be opened up. So see a possible competitor, gobble it up and kill it eh? That's a lot like what it looks like to me. Any images of Apple CEOs dressed as Borg on the web? Any Justice department investigations? No? And now Apple ships a their own web browser with every copy of OS X much like Microsoft did with IE. Any complaints? Hello? Why do I only hear an echo?! Bah.

I may also point out MS doesn't really have a monopoly. In the OS market there's OS X and Linux. With Linux you get the advantage of horribly bugged windowing systems, a horribly convoluted and unorganized software installation system and new features that never quite work the way they're supposed to. Outside the OS market we have Microsoft actually losing in quite a few categories. For example MSN has lost to AOL, MS Money has lost to Quicken, MS Publisher has lost to Adobe PageMaker, X-Box is currently losing to PS2, and Windows 2000 and Windows Server 2003 losing out to Linux and other alternatives along with Apache dominating the web server market over MS IIS. My point being obviously competing with MS is not impossible, in fact it seems rather common. There are even several free and low-cost alternatives to MS office.

Now I'd like to comment on censorship. Or more specifically "mandated voluntary" rating systems and "broadcast standards".

Now first of all lets go back to the 80s. You remember the 80s right? Well I was only a little kid trying to see an episode of G.I. Joe because every 8-year-old boy in America was trying to see an episode of G.I. Joe. Many at the time complained of it being "too violent" so it was always altered so as to be appropriate for 8 year olds. One rule was about people dieing. No characters were ever allowed to die nor was there any blood of any kind. I believe this is the wrong way to approach violence. Consequences should be expressed for acts of violence. Every time a jet was destroyed or a building blown up all the people inside would eject and safely land on the ground or get out just in the nick of time. And never any blood. Seems like it would be healthier to have people die and collateral damages from explosions and consequences. You can say this about any kid's show out there. Lots of machine gun fire, never but no one ever gets hit because of it. This should be the opposite of what's appropriate for kids.

Next is about the mandated/voluntary rating systems for TV and video games. I happen to know wholly and fully why the rating system was forced on video games. In the early 1990s a few games like Mortal Kombat and the infamous SegaCD game Night Trap were too violent for just anybody like little kids. So that rating system was imposed under threat of government regulation. Ironically with the rating system in place the developers felt much freer to put in much more adult content then ever would have been inserted without a rating. Grand Theft Auto for example might never have been made or at least not existed as it now does with that all-familiar M rating. A rating parents don't even seem to notice for some reason. I mean it's right there on the bloomin' box! How can you miss it? If the box has an M on it DON'T BUY IT FOR YOUR 8 YEAR OLD doesn't seem that complicated to me.

The same can be said of the TV ratings. I some how doubt I would have seen the edited, f-word filled presentation of the South Park movie, albeit at 1am, on basic cable this week had it not been for the rating system on TV.

So essentially this mandated voluntary rating system has yielded the inverse results of what it was intended to do. Although I guess kids now I have to actually take 10 seconds to read a VCR manual to be corrupted by the South Park movie as opposed to renting it or seeing it on one of the premium channels or downloading it off the Internet.

Well I guess this is the end of this entry. And here I thought I had so much to write about and I go and write about a bunch of other stuff I wasn't even thinking about... : )

  ¶ 1:48 AM