Diskage:
DVD • Brotherhood of the Wolf
CD-ROM • Empty
CD Player
• Bang Tango - Psycho Cafe
• Mindfunk -  Mindfunk
• Guns 'n Roses - Use Your Illusion I
• Faster Pussycat - Wake Me When It's Over
• Rammstein - Mutter

Books Lying Open
• The Books of Blood, Volume Two, Clive Barker

Soul-Devouring Worry
• My face getting stuck like this.

When I Grow Up:
• It won't all seem so scary.

Curse of the Day:
• May you be too tired to think of anything clever.

I have long enjoyed the game of Risk, and I used to have a decent shareware simulation on my old old 8086 that I played a ton.   I hadn't played the actual game, or any computer version of it, in years and years, but for some reason Sunday afternoon (probably related to the football games on TV being boring) I had a fever to play it.  An easy Google search located me a couple of decent shareware versions of Risk, but neither of them are very good on the AI.

The main problem with both is the computer is stupid. One on one it's not bad, but it's both too easy and too hard due to stupidity, and is quite predictable.  Each computer opponent will attack viciously whoever is nearest them with a large force, regardless of the overall situation. So if you can get into a corner and just build up, they'll all grind each other up, letting you swoop down and pick them off once they are weakened.  It's less fun when you're the one stuck in the middle and two idiots are chewing on you while ignoring the other opponent who is a space further away, but has 5x the troops.

So despairing of those after a while, I dug out my old Risk board game, and played a six-player game.  Yes, Risk solitaire, but as long as you don't cheat yourself at it, it's pretty fun.  You have to pretend you don't know where someone is going to go next move, or if they're going to trade in some cards for bonus troops, etc, but there is enough chance in the game (in the roll of the dice as well as the draw of the cards) that it's fun and somewhat unpredictable.  It's not like playing yourself at chess or checkers or something pointless like that.

It was fun, but took way too long, which is why I'm now typing this while yawning enormously at 8am, and a big project I wanted to have done by this morning on the D2 site is still pending.

Some news.

• This article claims that Winona was guilty of several other shop lifting incidents but got away with them, before her eventual arrest and subsequent conviction at Saks in LA.  This shouldn't really be a surprise to anyone; shoplifting is an addiction, or at least a seductive joy, and as you get away with it you're going to keep trying it again and again.  Obviously Winona doesn't need the items; she has money to buy them; it's just a criminal impulse that she and other kleptos get off on.

I'm assuming she actually was stealing the other times, being as she was convicted of it this time, but I suppose I could be wrong.  First time for everything, right?

• The cops are saying that the younger man with the DC sniper was the shooter in most of the murders now.  At first glance I assumed this was a way to try and build their death penalty case against him, since he's 17 and there are conflicting laws in the US, depending on location, whether or not minors (under 18) can be tried as adults, especially in terms of the death penalty.  So they really want to kill them both, and have to make it sound like the kid was the trigger man.

However the story doesn't sound entirely full of crap once you read it.  For one thing, the opening into the trunk where they had a hole to shoot out of was very narrow and low, and they don't think the adult could have squeezed into the space, at least not very easily.  Also they claim to have found DNA evidence of the kid on a couple of the notes, and on a grape stem at one shooting spot. The thinking is that one of them was in the car ready to drive, so whoever was not in the car must have taken the shot that time.

I dunno if this is true or not, but it would certainly add to my previous comments that it's absurdly easy to kill someone with a good rifle and telescopic scope.  I've looked through them for hunting (animals) years ago, and it's basically like a telescope; whatever you're looking at is as big as a wall.  There's virtually no skill involved in hitting a stationary target if you have time to aim and the range isn't too great and your gun is correctly-aligned and well-manufactured. All that Army-trained sniper stuff may be irrelevant.

• 8 Mile is going to make around $54m for the weekend, which is just mammoth, far surpassing all estimates.  It played to mostly under-25, more women than men (surprisingly-enough), and was the second biggest opening for an R-rated film ever.  Hannibal has the record at $58m, and it was in 30% more theaters when it opened a couple of years ago.  Plus tons of fans were under 17, and no doubt buying tickets to The Santa Clause II or I Spy, and sneaking into 8 Mile, which would cost it some sales.

Femme Fatale barely even made the top 10, sneaking in at #9 with a whopping $2.6m.  Critics seem to love it or hate it, with few being indifferent to it. I've seen a lot more pans than raves, but some people seem to love it. Ebert gave it 4 stars, for some unimaginable reason.  I don't really care about it one way or the other, Rebecca Romijn naked and doing soft core lesbian stuff might be sort of spicy, but I'm not about to pay $8 and sit through an hour and a half of absurdly-stupid plot twists just for her well-publicized boobies, for God's sake.  I just mention it since I predicted it would be a train wreck a week or so ago, while wondering what movie this year Antonio Banderas hasn't been in.  I was actually optimistic, saying it would make about $7m opening weekend.  It might not make that much in total.

In another random movie mention, I've not seen one thing in the new James Bond movie trailers that looks very good.  The car chase over a frozen lake looks pretty cool, but then there are fake flipping car special effects in the middle of it. There's one quick scene with laser beams making an "X" that looks like someone drew them in with MS Paint, a fake fire explosion later, etc.  However early reviews of it are raving, at least the ones from geeks.

• JLo and BAf are engaged.  Any bets?

1) They won't late til the wedding.
2) Married, but it's a Dennis Rodman/Carmen Electra thing, where they divorce as soon as they sober up and leave Vegas.
3) Six months, tops.
4) It's all a publicity stunt.

I'm sure it'll do wonders for whatever movie they were making together, the history of pop stars and movie stars being in a film together is so strong.  Shanghai Surprise, for instance.

Or perhaps I'm just deeply envious of their happiness?

• Clearly the kids in Scotland are just about the most fucked up in the civilized world.  Past news has dealt with epidemic heroin use and their habit of sniffing anything they can imagine giving a buzz, including melting plastic bus benches.  This new one is even dumber. The kids are now climbing street light poles to break open the ends of neon lights and try to inhale the gas that comes out.  This would be clever and somewhat innovative if it had any effect; neon is an inert gas with no "getting high" side effects, at least not in the amount you could hope to inhale from a broken light.

More than 100 Scottish youngsters died between 1990 and 1999, and thousands are placing their lives at risk by sniffing solvents in aerosol cans, glue, lighter fuel and other dangerous chemical solutions.

John McVey added: "We're extremely concerned - solvent abuse in Scotland is far worse than anywhere else in the UK. We've recently prepared special education packages to go out to every Scottish school to try to combat the problem."

Last month, youths in Edinburgh and West Lothian were found setting plastic wheelie bins alight in a bid to get high inhaling the fumes. Police were alerted after a spate of wheelie bin thefts. Vandals were also found setting fire to plastic bus shelters to inhale the fumes.

As I said last time, what the hell is wrong with Scotland?  Is life there so incredibly boring and tedious that anything can improve it?  I assume they can get beer and pot, but those aren't enough?  Go play Diablo II or something, you dirty little junkies. Just another reason no one under the age of 17 should be allowed out of their house, for any reason.

I shall attempt to make this a saying.  "You're more messed up than a Scottish teenager." or perhaps, "He was snorting like a Scottish runaway."

Yes, those both suck. I shall try to refine the humor to a more palatable state. The main stumbling block is the "Scottish teen" part, which takes way too long to say, and isn't a funny term.  Yet.

"Appreciate" in a "confirm your worst fears" slash "curse loudly and punch a wall" sort of way, I mean.

Among radio broadcasters across the country, Hilary Duff's sugary pop tune "I Can't Wait" has fallen completely flat. A single station -- in Albuquerque -- has played the song just one time, and that was back in September.

There is, however, a glaring exception: the Radio Disney empire. On its 52 stations nationwide, "I Can't Wait" is ranked No. 1, with Duff getting more airplay than Britney Spears. In Los Angeles, Disney's KDIS-AM (710) has played the song a whopping 850 times during the last six weeks.

Why?  She's under contract to a Disney-owned record company, and obviously they don't care if her music sucks and no one wants to hear it.  They're going to play it until it sells some records and possibly catches on, and by playing more of that they play less of other competing artists, ones they don't have record deals with.  Sucks for the consumers, but that's irrelevant, no corporation cares about that; they care about pushing their product and making money.

With his bushy tail wagging and whiskers twitching, some weasely Mouth of the Mouse scurried forth to set the record straight:

Robin Jones, head of programming at Radio Disney, said the radio chain does not give preferential treatment to acts with business ties to its corporate parent.

"I could see where someone might misconstrue that there was a conflict of interest with this song," Jones said. "But Hilary Duff was truly driven to No. 1 by kid requests ... not by what label" her song is on.

Jones said Duff is more popular with Radio Disney listeners than young pop star Avril Lavigne is. Lavigne has sold 2.5 million U.S. copies of her smash CD "Let Go," according to Neilsen/SoundScan. Duff's song, a track on the "Lizzie McGuire" soundtrack, has sold barely 124,000 copies.

Is there any industry that can surpass the music business in the ease with which they issue bald faced lies?  Politicians perhaps, but there they at least make an effort to lie convincingly.  Most of the time.

There is a reason government needs to keep control of and regulations over industry of all types.  In the US it was illegal for individual companies to purchase more than a few radio stations or TV stations, and you couldn't have more than one in the same market.  All of those laws have been greatly cut back in the recent years, largely during the Republican-controlled Senate/House Clinton years, when industry of every kind had their lobbyist writing legislation through their bought and sold legislators.  I'm certainly not saying Democrats are immune to corporate bribery, but they do at least give lip service to the interests of consumer and rights of employees/trade unions.

Communism ruins business.  Socialism is far too restrictive and keeps industry expansion too constrained.  Democratic Socialism, which we see in much of Europe today, allows for decent economic growth, but coddles workers too much, allowing incompetence and sloth and non-competitive wages, which holds back the overall economy.  Pure capitalism is almost as bad as communism, where you have uncontrolled robber barons with monopolies left and right, and consumers and workers being screwed like lug nuts.  Quite a few people in Russia today would prefer a return to Communism, simply because the robber barons took control of all the formerly state-owned industries, and there is horrible customer service, rampant corruption, and billionaire owners who could care less.  The US is far from that point, and obviously you can't compare Disney playing a horrible selection of music to people in Russia unable to get electricity due to lacking sufficient bribe money, but the principle is the same.

The real issue in the US is that the air waves are a public trust.  Radio, TV, cell phone signals, all of those public airwaves are open to anyone, and owned by the government, which rents the rights to broadcast on various signals.  Those are enormously valuable, and as part of the right to take up broadcast space radio and TV stations are required to abide by various community rules, run some public service programming, etc. The Federal Communications Commission is supposed to administer this sort of thing, and not let corporations do whatever they want to in wide-spread fronts.  You own your own single radio station, you can play whatever the hell you want, as long as it's not obscene (as determined by the FCC) and you do some minimum amount of public affairs broadcasting. That's what you hear on rock stations at like 5am Sunday mornings. When you own dozens of them, and are making a coordinated effort to use them as a vast promotional tool for your other businesses, there are laws about that sort of thing.

In the past media companies couldn't mix.  You couldn't own TV and newspapers, or radio and record companies, since there were obvious conflicts of interest and opportunities for exploitation.  Those rules against monopolies and cross ownership were rewritten in recent years as well, allowing the merger mania that has swept across the US since the 80's.  And resulted in hundreds of thousands of job lay offs along the way as one company buys another and cuts 50% of their work force to save money.  This drives up the stock, rewarding investors and the remaining employees, and tough luck to the 50,000 who were just laid off and have to scramble for another job before their limited severance pay and unemployment runs out. You want a living wage for being unemployed, move to Germany.

No one really asks if this is a good thing, other than very left wing economists, and it's almost thought to be Communist to oppose any such "progress".  I'm far from an economics expert, but in my view there is a definite need to reinstate a lot of the monopoly-blocking legislation and other governmental oversight.  However, with Republicans in control for at least the next two years, you can pretty much rule this out any time soon.  Especially since the public demand for such things isn't very strong.   Especially with the people distracted by the much more interesting tail wagging the dog spectacle of war and terrorism.

Not that I'm saying there's a connection there or anything. *cough*

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