The Digital Pulse 06.18.07: You Know What Grinds My Gears?

Posted by Joshua Richey on 06.18.2007

Joshua Richey drank one too many bottles of Haterade in this weeks edition of The Digital Pulse.

What be happening, people? Hi, I'm Joshua Richey, and this right here is a little diddy that I like to call The Digital Pulse. I'd like to explain my recent dissappearence from this site, but I can't really talk about it yet. You see, I've got some big things lined up. I'd really, really, like to talk about them... but will restrain myself. I'll just say this... and I shouldn't even do that.... but it does involve me writing for a couple of really big time websites. I'm pretty stoked. Hopefully I'll be able to discuss it further next week.



I feel like hating tonight. It's been a little while since I've just gone on a few rants that resulted in pissing massive amounts of people off... so I'm going to do that this week. There are a lot of little tech things that piss me off; things that are so small that I wouldn't dedicate an entire column to just ripping one topic in particular. So what I've done is taken a list of things that really grinds my gears, and just said my peace on them. Enjoy.

DIGG

I log on to Digg.com at least a dozen times a day. I enjoy their website, I find their community fascinating, and I dig their podcast (pun may or may not be intended). But of all the things that I enjoy about Digg, there are also a few things that really bothers me about it.

For those that aren't familiar with how Digg works, it's basically a site that allows its users to vote on what stories they find important. It's a great idea, and Digg pulls it off very well. However, more and more here lately, there seems to be a theme as to what is always being "dug".

If a story is pro-Apple, pro-Atheism, or anti-Microsoft - that story is always going to find its way to main page, and finding itself on the Top 10 stories of the day.

IPOD VENDING MACHINES

Honestly, what is the point of these things? I've seen pictures of them on the Internet, but I just seen my first one in person about two weeks ago. Sure, it does catch your attention as you walk by it. It's a machine that dispenses $300 iPods instead of your standard $.65 Clark Bars. But the more and more that I began to think about it, the more and more that I think it's pompous.

Let's say that you're walking through the Airport (which is where you can usually find these machines) and you decide that you want to pick up one so that you'll have something to listen to on your flight. Well that $300 iPod isn't going to do you much good. It's not like iPods come pre-programmed with gigs of free music.

JAPANESE GAME DEVELOPERS

This is probably one of those things that'll result in me getting a dozen angry e-mails, but I don't care. As good as Japanese Developers are at making the games we play, they have no clue how to properly tell a story. Yeah, I said it. Most Japanese Developers have no idea how to translate their games so that they are at least somewhat enjoyable in places outside of Japan. None of the Final Fantasy games make a damn lick of sense; neither do any of those other crappy RPGs that they send our way. Now get your shit straight… I'm not saying that Japanese Games are bad. I'm just saying that their stories don't hold up. I happen to be a fan of many Japanese Developers… but it seems that they all have their flaws.

Take Metal Gear Solid for example. The Metal Gear franchise is my favorite of all time. Heck, I remember playing the original Metal Gear on the NES way back when I was 4-5 years old. Metal Gear Solid for the Playstation is the only game that I've beaten 5 times – and still played. I wasn't nearly as disappointed in Metal Gear Solid 2 as the general public was; and Snake Eater? Snake Eater kicked some mother-fucking ass. When people are asked why they like the Metal Gear Solid franchise so much – a lot of them say ‘it's story'. What? Are you kidding me? Like I've said, I love the game to death, but the games story is shit. In principle, the backbone of the games storyline is pretty cool. Hell, many people are clamoring for it to be made into a big budget Hollywood film. However, if they were to make a movie based on Solid Snake, chances are that they would leave out all of that ridiculous ‘foxdie', ‘nanomachines', and ‘Patriot' bullshit.

Really, again, I love the Metal Gear Solid franchise. But when they start going on about ‘destinies', and ‘lou-la-lai-li-lo', and all of that other crap… I just can't help but to roll my eyes and try and skip the scene.

I look at a game like Lost Planet, and I see the same exact thing. Japanese Developers seem to go all out orchaestrarting these huge plot lines… but it's a video game. Heck, a lot of Game Developers don't even believe that a storyline serves any purpose whatsoever. Actually, some have said that it brings the gaming experience down. Metal Gear's innovations, graphics, and dialog were good enough to overcome all that silliness; but a game like Lost Planet wasn't.


MICROSOFT VISTA

I've officially been ‘upgraded' to Vista for about 2 months now. Want my reaction to it? Well, I'm going to give it to you anyway. If you're smart, I wouldn't go out of my way to upgrade. Vista is basically a flashier XP, and it doesn't really have any unique abilities. The smoothness, and the sexiness wear off pretty quickly. My biggest complaint against Vista to this point is the infamous Black-Screen of Death.

What is this Black-Screen of Death? Well, I'll give you the complete virtual experience.

You're sitting at home one night on your PC or laptop – just browsing and going about business as usual. Maybe you've got iTunes opened up, maybe you're watching something on Windows Media Player… suddenly, for no damn reason at all… the screen goes black. They were nice enough to allow you to still move your cursor around, but that only increases your ‘WTF' battle-stance. Where did everything go? Is your Vista dead? Will it ever come back? These questions aren't answered easily.


iPhone

While I'm on the topic, I'm way passed the point of getting tired of seeing products with a lower case 'i' in front of them, and the word 'pod' behind them. At this pace I'm expecting to see an iTomato, or a DildoPod sometime before this holiday season.

Now onto the iPhone. When the iPhone was first unveiled, I was pretty stoked just like a lot of people (and Apple stockholders) were. We were talking about something we'd never seen before. But now the much anticipated phone is only a few weeks from 'not being able to get one'. But maybe it's for the best. Based off the news that is starting to come out about this thing, maybe it's best to let these Apple Fanboys grab their iPhones first. It's been reported in the last week that the iPhone will not be able to react with your Enterprise e-mail accounts. Which sucks for people that are wanting to check their business e-mail. Also, there's no instant messaging, no sharing of photos and videos, and some concerns about its battery life.

If you're smart, you'll wait until the second generation of this bad boy hits the store shelves. Chances are that they'll fix a few of these things afterwards.

In Closing...

Well, that'll be all for me this week. Check out the blog if you must. I've got a review of the new Fantastic Four movie on there, and I'll probably talk about my new exciting writing gigs on there first.