1. Truce (Dresden Dolls)
2. Ever Fallen In Love (Fine Young Cannibals)
3. Achin’ To Be (Replacements)
4. Fascination Street (Cure)
5. Bedbugs and Ballyhoo (Echo and The Bunnymen)
6. Personal Jesus (Depeche Mode)
7. Turn You Inside-Out (R.E.M.)
8. Blasphemous Rumors (Depeche Mode)
9. Walk Of Life (Dire Straights)
10. Natural Mystic (Bob Marley)
11. Ceremony (New Order)

• I’ve started Facebooking.  I should probably figure out how to link to my profile there, but I think half of my two readers already knows how to find me there.
• Nothing else to see here.  Move along.  Move along.

• Eoff: Don’t tell me you’ve been sucked into the Twilight series
• Me: I wouldn’t say sucked in, but they are okay reads.
• Eoff: I know, I’m reading them two.  Have you read the second book yet?
• Me: I’m about 2/3 of the way through it.
• Eoff: Does she ever stop being fascinated by every mundane feature about Edward?
• Eoff: His breath was like the ultimate perfume.
• Eoff: He picked his nose with elegant proficiency.
• Me: His buggers where the most fascinating sparkling shade of green…

What a good scam…

• If you purchase software, and open it, you can not return it to the store for a refund.  You can exchange it for the same title, but that’s it.  This seems to be the policy for Best Buy, Target, and everywhere else I’ve ever tried.
• Popular video games tend to have expansion packs or sequels.  So, if you create a highly successful game, like say SPORE, you might create an expansion pack to get more revenue.  On this package you would post in big letters - “Requires the Full Version of Spore”
• You might also create a mini version of one of the more popular features, like the Spore Creature Creator so that you could play with creating creatures outside of the main game.  One would think that if this game required the full version it too would have the big letters saying  “Requires the Full Version of Spore”
• What would REALLY be strange would be to create an expansion that not only doesn’t require the full version of the software, but can’t even be installed on the same system with the full version.   What would be worse, would be to not clearly label on the outside of the package that you can’t return that if you have already purchased the full version, don’t purchase the expansion because it won’t work.

So now the question is, what can I do about this open SPORE expansion game (Creature Creator) that isn’t compatible with SPORE, that I can’t return to the store for a refund.

• I can attempt to return it, and complain a lot to the store management and they might give me my $10 back.
• I can return it for the exchange, get that, open it, and return it a few hundred times until I’ve opened every copy Best Buy has in stock.
• I can complain to EA and/or the Better Business Bureau
• I can forget about the $10, because it’s only $10, but it’s a matter of principal.
• Any other ideas?

1. It’s OK (Fine Young Cannibals)
2. The Bottom Line (Depeche Mode)
3. One More Time (Cure)
4. Hit (Sugar Cubes)
5. Gorilla Girl (Dead Milkmen)
6. Chorus (Erasure)
7. They’re Red Hot (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
8. Bizarre Love Triangle (New Order)
9. IWE (Noisettes)
10. Honey Power (My Bloody Valentine)
11. Some Americans (Squeeze)

• via XKCD:
  
• The D&D gamer in me has to ask, what is the Challenge Rating on an unarmed old woman?  I’m thinking she couldn’t have been worth much XP.

The British  have a policy of not capturing pirates for fear of violating their human rights…

THE Royal Navy, once the scourge of brigands on the high seas, has been told by the Foreign Office not to detain pirates because doing so may breach their human rights.

Warships patrolling pirate-infested waters, such as those off Somalia, have been warned that there is also a risk that captured pirates could claim asylum in Britain.

The Foreign Office has advised that pirates sent back to Somalia could have their human rights breached because, under Islamic law, they face beheading for murder or having a hand chopped off for theft.

At the point where you have a firearm or worse pointed at a hostage etc., you have already exchanged your “human rights” for the “human rights” of another.  IF YOU break the social contract, don’t expect me to hold it in force when it benefits you…