So I came home after a stressful day ov work, with the full intention ov sitting down with the rest ov the shrimp-fried rice and watching my copy ov Vidocq, right? I went up to the guest room where my telly is, set the steaming half-filled bowl ov rice down, and fired up my trusty & beloved CyberHome CH-DVD-500 player. Open disk tray, set disk in, close tray, wait for LOADING screen to finish. And wait. And wait. And wait. ?? I eject the tray, waited a couple ov seconds, and loaded it again, only to wait another couple ov minutes. Hrrm.

Okay, maybe I need to reset the region-free hack, I figured, as I really haven’t used the player since I moved back into my parents’ — I set it up for the first time since moving only a week ago; I’d been watching my R1 DVDs on my PlayStation 2, and watching my other region disks on my folks’ computer. So I redid the hack, and, for good measure, threw in my R2 copy ov Twenty four hour party people. Once again, the fecker refuses to play. Desperate / fuming, I grab a VCD and drop it in.. and that plays just fine. Okaaay, time to try another R1. No dice. Jesus. My player’s fucked.

You have to understand my love affair with my CyberHome player. When my circle ov friends gets together on Sat eve, 90% ov the time, we watch a film or two, and since our tastes run far, far away from the mainstream, most ov the DVDs we view aren’t R1 disks. Last year, Jeff, purveyor ov most ov the filth that we watch, had passed along info that he’d read on one ov the DVD forums that he frequents about the CyberHome CH-DVD-500 player, as he was, at the time, the only one in our group that owned an all-region player. This player was the stuff ov legend. Progressive scanning, Dolby 5.1 sound, aaand the ability to play not only DVDs from all regions, but to instantly convert PAL and NTSC?? Sweet baby James, how is that even possible?? They originally retailed for a little over $100, which wasn’t bad, considering that Jeff’s Malata cost over $200, but still, at the time, the asking price was a little steep.

Then, round Xmas, BestBuy had the bastards on sale. It was like a dream! They were stacked in the aisleways four feet high. We were like, ‘they’re here?? At BestBuy?? But.. they’re region-free! That naturally goes against anything that corporate America stands for!’ Mike was the first to have a go; he bought one at the startlingly low price ov $80. After he frothingly informed the rest ov us, Tomas & I went to the same location the very next day, and each bought one for $70. A week later, Marika bought hers at a different location, for $60. We couldn’t believe it; they did all they said they could do, and more. It was like a dream! Our respective DVD collections grew exponentially, and personally, I’d say that a third ov my disks are now non-R1s. I managed to get The Italian Job (the good one with Michael Bloody Well Caine, not the shitty remake) from England, when it looked like there wasn’t going to be a domestic release. I picked up Trainspotting – the Definitive Edition, with the better-looking case, almost a year before the R1 version appeared. I bought Ichi the fucking Killer. Sure, everyone has a copy now, but back when people were like ‘You’re itchy what?’ I was the coolest kid on my block. Or at least the weirdest..

So now what? Luckily Amazon still stocks the Player ov the Gods; oddly enough, when we bought ours, Amazon had them for like $90, now they’re $70. Ugh. O, well. That’s money I’d have liked to spend elsewhere, but for something like this, the choice is clear

Davecat here, wishing everyone out there on the Information Superhighway a fine ‘oozabootye?’ as they say in fair Scotland.
My goodness, where to begin? It’s been quite a week! So many people have written in, saying ‘Your blog saved my son’s life!’ or ‘I read your blog, and thru a series of events too complicated to explain, I met my future wife!’ or ‘Thanks to your blog, I can see again!’ Well, if it weren’t for people such as you, the reader, I wouldn’t be able to provide such witty, original, insightful, and life-enriching content as I have been for the past *looks at calendar* seven days. I’d just like to raise my glass in a toast, and say, Here’s to another seven days!!
THANK YOU!! I LOVE YOU ALL!!1!1@@

(don’t worry; I won’t be doing this sort ov thing every week)

Anything by Oscar Wilde — maybe start with The Ballad of Reading Gaol and work backwards — and Dulce et decorum est by Wilfred Owen, which I just read myself for the first time last night. Both are extraordinarily upbeat poems. You’ll love them, I promise

It’s come to my attention whilst driving round the streets ov Detroit; from looking at the vehicles, one would surmise that the ‘in’ thing is to have some sort ov body panel damage. Seriously, every fourth or fifth car has something wrong with it — a cracked fender, a dented quarter panel, a broken-and-shoddily-taped-over taillight.. If you ask me, this is just further proof that most ov the people out there need to not be driving, period..

Picked up the new Hives Cd on the way to work, and gave it a cursory listen on the way home. So far, not bad! It’s less the mix ov ‘Kraftwerk meets the Sex pistols’ that Howlin’ Pelle said it would be, but more like Devo meets the Jam, if you can dig that. It’s really Eightiesy. Gotta give it a good honest listening-to, but so far, I’d still say that ‘Veni vidi vicious’ is their best release

Just woke up after a delicious set ov micro-dreams; one wherein I was giving this lass that I know a foot massage. (One thing you, the readers, will get to learn about me, is that I have a serious fetish for female feet. I’ve tried shock therapy, but I believe that only exacerbated the problem. C’est la vie..)

Also, if you’re living in or near the tri-county area ov southeast Michigan, Patrick, my best friend from Cleveland, will be performing his synthy-dancy-crazy music stylee with his band Subliminal Self over at Paycheck’s Lounge in Hamtramck on Fri, 6 Aug. Go see him, shake his hand, and call him friend

Making up for a shitty day at work — I got written up for pulling a recent no-call, no-show — when I got home this eve, my package from Merlin Enterprises had finally arrived. w00t!

it’s Punitive Guillotinna, a character created by another one ov my favourite artists, Yasushi Nirasawa. The guillotine actually works, too!
And until I can suss how to add permanent outgoing links to this blog (I don’t think this template supports links, but it’s aesthetically the best one on offer, so I’m not changing it), here’s some links to sites by friends ov mine:

+ Five Dollar Beer – Patrick, synthesiser boffin from Cleveland
+ The Backroom – Monti, screenwriter extraordinaire
+ The House of Rotating Knives – Jeff, Wellesian archivist & Arsenal supporter
+ Kitten with a Whip! – my Synthetik Mistress & sex slave 😉

There’s gotta be a way to add external links. I’ll check the forums & see what I can scare up. Wish me luck

EDIT (1.22am): That was deceptively easy. Look to your left!

I mentioned in a previous post that I was slightly depressed. It’s an on-again, off-again kinda ov thing; nothing clinically serious, but it’s insidiously ever-present. I’ve pretty much been this way roughly since January ov this year, and it all started because ov a girl. But I’ll get to that in a moment.

Currently, I’m thirty-one years ov age, and living back at my parents’ house, which is a quarter-ton barrel ov fun, believe me. I’m attending courses at a nearby community college so I can obtain a degree in court reporting/broadcast captioning, as my current job ov fundraiser *coughtelemarketercough* sucks an incredible amount ov cock & balls. I decided to go into the court reporting thang, as I did some looking into it, and it fits two essential criteria ov mine perfectly:
1) it’s a lucrative job
2) you don’t have to deal with a lot ov people if you don’t want to.
Round December 03, I enrolled in the Elsa Cooper school of Court Reporting, where I was told this story: One ov their graduates has a job where she works four hours a day — from noon to 2pm, and from 6 to 8pm — doing the onscreen captioning for a local television news programme from her home. This woman makes about $65,000 a year. Yeah, that cash register sound? That came from me. See the $$ signs in my eyes?

Ever since the Telecommunications Act in 1995 was passed, stating that all programmes shown on American television have to be close-captioned by 2005, there’s been a huge job field open, and the best people to do this would be those trained as court reporters, as they have crazy typing speed. But there’s currently a lack ov court reporters available. See where I’m going with this? So I signed up at Elsa Cooper, one ov the preeminent schools in the nation. Trouble was, they were undergoing some changes; they were being bought by another company, and changing their name to Key Institute, which would hopefully allow them to offer financial aid to students, as they weren’t an accredited school. So I signed up, paid my entrance fee ov $95, and took & passed the entrance exam in December, with classes beginning in January. January rolls around, and they delay the start ov classes for a fortnight. Two weeks later, the school closes its doors after 44 years. Apparently, the deal with the Other Company That Was Buying Them Out fell thru, and they had to close. I was advised to look into classes at Oakland Community College, as their classes are the most similar to Elsa Cooper’s. Needless to say, I was crestfallen.

So yep, I’m at my parents’, not paying rent so I can pay for school. I’m jumping thru some serious fucking hoops right now to try to get a grant, which I’m sure I’ll touch upon in a future entry. But I guess between my telemarketing job & the person I used to live with, my experiences with them were so hideously unpleasant, that it drove me to say ‘I need to do something to get out ov this situation before I kill her, and then kill myself’. And if I’m dead, how would I be able to move to Toronto? There’s no such thing as a ‘corpse visa’. So I suppose I should thank my ex-roommate for being such a despicable slag, otherwise I would be much more miserable, and probably in prison, or decomposing. Thanx, you ridiculous tart!

Oops! We’re out ov time! Heh heh. 🙂 I’ll get to the details ov the Slag later. TUNE IN NEXT TIME!