The Harbinger

I log onto LiveJournal to find a disproportionate amount of McCarthy era paranoia over a business decision.
So I hear we’re going to be owned by the Russians and everyone is scared that they’ll pull a Bolshevik on us and murder our royal family of dreams, hopes and fan-fics.

Don’t care. Already backed everything up…again, and really don’t see what cause there is for alarm. What are people scared of? An invasion? Secrets being passed back and forth? Locked posts people think I don’t know about where they bravely try to talk shit about me getting unlocked? Pfft. There’s been ways around that for years. As in the past, there will be a cry for mass exodus, and not much will happen. You’re really not that important that this will be some kind of coup to steal your thoughts. Since I have some Russian friends now, I say Pervert Godzilla, Russia! Enjoy your new view of American insanity!

Being a fan of all things Kaiju, I requisitioned Godzilla 2000…the answer to the grotesque titular Godzilla from Tri-Mark fame starring a tuna eating lizard. Blockbuster claimed to have had my back. Not even remotely. Popping the DVD into the 360, I am greeted by what looks to me a familiar menu. Nah, can’t be, can it? I wasn’t looking for the original, I own it…and it has the American version of the same on it. Not the Showa series Godzilla, nor the Heisei era either. I wanted the first of the Millennium series. What do I get? The fucking 1998 Tri-Star abortion known only as “Godzilla.” Should have been called “Zilla”, because there was no God in the making of that film. I quickly emptied the DVD tray and then my stomach’s contents, and sent that back as soon as I could stagger outside. Not content to merely register my abnormally large displeasure at having to watch 10 seconds of that countermeasure to logic and good storytelling, I wrote them an e-mail.

Dear Blockbuster,

You apes. You incompetent, acerebral groin pullers. You have ruined and saved me. Let me explain. I was to receive Godzilla 2000 in the mail from your Johnny Come less that Netflix service, and got the American version that forced the Japanese to counter with a new Godzilla just to protect the integrity of a rubber suited monster. Think about that for a second…they spent a lot of money protecting a rubber suit because Roland Emmerich screwed up so bad they felt they had to. So what do you do? You send me HIS version of it. The result was terrifying. My date was all liquored up and I was ready to go to town. I was planning on hitting that shit several times that night. I hate condoms. Really hate them. She loves Kaiju movies as well and was repulsed by the Tri-Star failure, so while I was regurgitating lunch like Micheal Bay does other people’s ideas in the bathroom, you forced her to induce an early period replete with bloating cramps! Thus, no sex and no subsequent pregnancies. I guess that’s where I may thank you, so thanks Blockbuster…thanks for killing my future kids! I’m sure if you’d have let them live to talk, they’d thank you too as they’d only get Godzilla related clothing and toys, and I hear that’ll emotionally stunt a kid as they get older.

All the best you baby murderers,

Gary

I wonder what kind of reply I’ll get?

Since there is so much chicanery happening in my personal life, let’s turn the ever so opportunistic screws to music relations. I have decided that in my perspective interests, music is indeed an essential portion of living. So, therefore, I will hereby establish a new edict that decrees such as one who shall display the ability to play all the instruments pertaining to this song, More Than A Fucking Feeling by Boston, shall be the only person (s) I personally take music advice or criticism from. Not by playing Rock Band or by flailing away at Guitar Hero, but by earnest advancement in the acquisition of the talents required to play the song. If not, I don’t care…because understanding music theory, there’s so much crap masquerading as talent out there and people eat it up. So unless you can play the seminal classic aforementioned, I go BZZZZZZZZZZ.

It’s annual gift giving season, so I have to bring this up. Brand loyalty, what is it? I can understand if you prefer Apple’s I-Pod to something of equal storage retaining strength, but why Apple if there is something superior in way of price? Understanding the branding and meaning the portmanteau that Apple portends to, the Microsoft Zune was being sold for half the price of a competing I-Pod with more than three times the memory and I heard people saying that they wanted the I-Pod. Why? Not for I-Tunes…which is a bloated piece of software that MS would be proud to call Vista worthy. If it is, tell me why, please. Not that I use Windows Media Player either for my MP3 player…that way leads to madness. It creates individual folders for each artist…which is a pain when you want to play on random. My preference is simply Windows Explorer so that I can easily drag and drop stuff over when I want. This is something I hear the Zune doesn’t do due to MS wanting the Zune to be like an I-Pod, which is incredibly dumb. I feel that it is brand loyalty that pulls people into the I-Pod gravity, which I don’t get. I-Pods are status symbols, but they are not the first nor best MP3 players for the money. Hell, I’d take an off brand player at a discounted price before paying for a symbol that hardly stands up to the industry now with respect to price to performance ratios. I also think it’s a bad sign to send when you’d pay so much for so little space when it does not come close to the standard monetary value on HDD or flash memory space anyway. If you pay that amount for a status symbol, the clear sign is that you are willing to pay so much for it, validating its price point. It’s the same with the 360 hard drive that 99 bucks for 120 gigs. NO! That’s not nearly market value, and it sucks, which brings me to console loyalty. PS3, 360, Wii…what is it? I hate Sony for their business practices, but that does not bleed over to their performance as console providers. I hate MS for the same, but the same applies. Nintendo is the worst of the bunch, despite what you think you know, yet I give them pause for the creation of the Wii. If you think otherwise, I challenge you to tell me what either Sony or MS has done in the Video Game industry to unnerve it that Nintendo did with Mr. Lieberman during the initial Parental trials. Well? Yeah, nothing. I can forgive almost anything if I get commensurate pleasure from the end product. That I do with the 360. I almost exclusively buy Sony cameras because I like them, but if something better at a better price comes along, there’s no loss in loyalty to do so. People hate companies for their own reasons, I get that. But at the end of it all, if the experience you want is offered exclusively by the company you hate the most…do you buy it? If I derive enjoyment from it, yes.

Gary is
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