We both like being too hot...

Bingo of the night so far:

SALARIES (455 points) - against Angel L.

High-scoring words of the night so far:

TURNKEY (153 points) - against Vivian R. [two 3W]
MARANTA (115 points) - against Itamar R. [5W, 4L on M]
MYTH (430 points; two 5W, hook off ICY to make HI), FOOTIE (173 points; 3L on F, 4W, 2W) - against Cynthia P.
OMNIVORA (110 points) - against Jeff E. [4W]
SALARIES (455 points) - against Angel L. [5W, 4W, 2W, hook off HORN for a plural]

Interesting rack of the night so far: BASEPENS (against Karen C.), RAILSEAS (against Angel L.)


Henry picked me up for Awana, and we spent some time discussing being cold vs. being hot. At least he also would rather be too hot than too cold, and I mentioned my Regina experience to him - he thought I said "China" at first, heh. We settled into listening to the music he had on, after I learned that he would stay home for Chinese New Year and study with a dinner of canned soup. He's right: it's a holiday for our people, but not in general! We managed to take advantage of an open parkade, and strolled in on time. I got to interact with Joshua and Ian M., who waved at me when the Cubbies went to their own room upstairs - so cute! Tried one cola gummy, and one mango gummy - reminds me of the time I bought a LOT of mango gummies, and included a bunch for Corey's graduation in 2006. (it got there at the same time his friend Jane was in town from Taiwan, haha)

A few of us managed to confuse the brothers Heyman and Johnny, and Stanley told me that he was getting into HOUSE. Hey, I might well do that on Mondays too. Then when they were playing SIMON SAYS (renamed to SPARKY SAYS), he told me / Chris / Mike that it would be really funny if Emily said "Sparky says Do A Dance! *pause* Do A Dance!" Hahahaha! I was transported back to memories of Camp Sasamat when the kids sang The Lord Told Noah To Build An Arky-Arky. (we used to sing that on the bus!)

Later, I broke away from the debriefing because I saw Ian M. That meant I could FINALLY give him his way late birthday card, and got a prompted hug in return! Then Ian asked "What about her?" meaning his cousin Olivia, whose birthday is on 9/11 - I made a resolution on the way home to give her animal stickers tomorrow. I helped Sean L. with his jelly candy, for which I got a thank-you. His brother Ian (L., so not the same one as Olivia's cousin) said that I looked like a snowman... thanks, kid! Must have been my brown Regina ski jacket, haha. I'd get Rachel's grandma to fix the button issue, but she won't be there tomorrow. Ah well, maybe next week! I'll just wear the blue jacket instead. Saw Jon afterwards, who asked how I was getting home: Henry, most certainly! Noticed Richie, Pastor John, and Jonathan there too. Auntie Rebecca wished us all a Happy Chinese New Year, too!

Corey and I are talking about DRM, piracy, and stupid crackdowns:

[19:36:58] Flami: the hamsterette: so what have you been up to?!
[19:41:59] Corey: kablorngo
[19:54:25] Flami: well, I can do you one better!!!!!!! :P
[19:55:08] Corey: oh yeah? how's that?
[19:58:41] Flami: blorgy! Ka jorrgy! meep meep mwuhahahaa.
[20:00:02] Flami: now if that isn't better, I don't know what is! :D
[20:00:08] Corey: that's a bunch of nonsense!
[20:00:27] Flami: well, so was YOUR message!
[20:00:41] Corey: nope
[20:01:58] *** "Corey" signed off at Sat Jan 24 20:01:58 2009.
[20:02:01] *** "Corey" signed on at Sat Jan 24 20:02:01 2009.
[20:04:11] Flami: at least I get what Eric is generally talking about when he devolves into what (to me) is nonsense, but you don't play Warcraft, so...
[20:05:33] Corey: daboo!
[20:06:04] Corey: zug dug
[20:06:18] Corey: I played Warcraft II!
[20:07:35] Flami: 3?
[20:08:13] Corey: World of Warcraft looks so stupid, it's hard to describe... and Warcraft III just didn't seem the same... and Warcraft I is pretty primitive... Starcraft seemed cool, but I never got into that one for some reason even though I thought it looked awesome before it came out
[20:08:19] Corey: II! not III!
[20:08:26] Corey: 2!
[20:09:13] Flami: YES, I KNOW
[20:10:22] Corey: most of those games don't do it for me really.. I like the concept, and played a lot of Warcraft 2... these days I mainly play Red Alert 2 if I want something like that.. there's a new Red Alert 3, but it's all 3D... and in other 3D games like that, you can't tell what the hell is going on because everything is all tiny unless you zoom way in, which means you can't see what the enemy is doing :P
[20:10:33] Corey: plus RA3 is full of nasty DRM, same as Spore
[20:12:30] Corey: it might be good, I think I have it... I'll try it out sometime. it's probably similar to Command & Conquer 3 though, which is where I get the "3D can't see crap" idea from.. Red Alert is a Command & Conquer spin-off, set in an alternate reality where Einstein lives longer, and somehow the USSR invades everything with Tesla technology
[20:13:01] Flami: is DRM a virus?
[20:13:11] Corey: Red Alert 3 might be better since it's usually more bright and colorful and cartoony... I don't need realistic graphics, I want bigass tanks and stuff and it should be colorful and stand out from the background and be big enough to SEE :P
[20:13:33] Corey: how do you not know what DRM is in this day and age?? :P
[20:14:05] Corey: and yes, it's a virus (not really) that companies put in their own software to give you a hard time and screw you over
[20:15:12] Flami: hey. I am not Eric. I am not a computer geek.
[20:15:27] Corey: it's copy protection stuff. the new evil one in Spore only allows you to install the game three times, ever (it has to go online and validate your install to allow you to play), and only allows one person to play.. like if we lived together and you had a character going, I couldn't start up a new game with a new character without deleting yours or buying a new copy of the game
[20:15:42] Corey: it's in music and iTunes and games and everything!
[20:15:59] Corey: you don't need to be a computer geek to know what that is :P
[20:18:20] Corey: DRM in games usually completely sucks. there's some that even detects if you have a CD burner (and who doesn't these days), and bans you from playing because you own hardware capable of making a copy if it. others detect Daemon tools (virtual CD drive that lets you use a CD image (a file copy of a CD on your hard drive) like it was a real CD) and force you to uninstall that...
[20:18:37] Corey: pirates use that a lot to play copied games without having to burn to a real disc, but it also has a billion legit uses
[20:19:23] Corey: usually you can't remove the DRM software by uninstalling it, so it sticks around like a virus.. a lot of it wastes your system resources or even causes stuff to crash on you.... that type might as well be a virus
[20:20:18] Corey: Bioshock came out a while back, and nobody could play it because the DRM required an online activation.. so it comes out, huge hyped-up game.. now you have three million people or whatever trying to activate at the same time so they can play it, and the activation servers crash and nobody can play :P
[20:20:24] Flami: that does sound annoying.
[20:21:30] Corey: music DRM makes it so you can only listen to your music in iTunes (or whatever other program) and can't share files by copying it... in extreme cases, it can put a limit on how many times you can even listen to it or delete it after a period of time or whatever
[20:22:47] Corey: it's stupid as hell. it means that if you choose to buy the product and support the company, you have a ton of hoops to jump through, and for something like Spore, what if you upgrade from XP to Vista? that means you've installed it twice. then you delete it because you're not playing it much and need space, then you put it back on later.. that's three installs. now if you ever uninstall it, you're forever banned from playing your own game you paid for because they only let you install it three times.
[20:23:10] Corey: want to play it again? go buy another one
[20:23:55] Corey: guess what happens if you pirate it instead? well, that stuff is all gone and is removed even before the game comes out in stores in most cases, and everything works great and you're all set and can use it however you'd like forever :P
[20:24:04] Corey: that bullcrap only encourages piracy
[20:24:39] Corey: it does absolutely nothing to stop it... other than that, it's not really something you can just stick in your CD burner and copy for your friend, since the DRM has to be cracked.
[20:25:01] Corey: but the cracks are all online, and it's easier to download a torrent than to copy a disc anyway, most of the time :P
[20:25:04] Corey: so it stops nothing
[20:25:22] Corey: just punishes the paying customers, which is a pretty stupid thing to do
[20:25:42] Corey: so there you go. DRM = pure evil
[20:26:54] Corey: meanwhile, Monty Python released their entire library for free on YouTube, and their DVD sales went up 23,000% because of it :P
[20:27:33] Flami: what?! no way. how can music DRM be so stupid?
[20:28:38] Corey: well, there are services (or were, I don't know if they're around now) where you could download MP3s for a monthly fee... then if you stop paying, you lose the rights to listen to those MP3s
[20:29:23] Corey: sometimes they allow one copy so you can put it on your portable MP3 player or something, but usually those will expire after a certain amount of time or something
[20:30:38] Corey: and you should see the HD DRM bullcrap. it's called HDCP, and all devices you're using must be HDCP-compatible or nothing will work. for example, your TV needs to be HDCP-compatible, your player needs to be, and even the CABLE needs to be HDCP-compatible
[20:31:33] Corey: so a situation people are finding now is they have like a Bluray player and an Xbox 360, both using HDMI cables for an HD picture.. but... one HDMI port on the TV... so, get a little HDMI switchbox
[20:32:21] Corey: but uh oh, the switch doesn't tell everything it's HDCP-compatible, and your TV assumes you're a filthy pirate and downgrades the picture so you can't watch it in HD (or it just goes blank completely)
[20:32:56] Corey: or the switch works with HDCP... but if you flip it over to the Xbox and then back to your movie a while later, it gets confused about the HDCP stuff, and you have to turn everything off and start over
[20:33:06] Corey: all so nobody can watch pirated movies
[20:33:22] Corey: and if you want the pirated movie, you can just download it and watch it without dealing with any of that bullcrap :P
[20:34:10] Corey: again, not stopping piracy and just punishing everyone that pays for everything
[20:34:12] Flami: that's crazy
[20:35:41] Corey: video cards on computers now have to be HDCP-compatible (and so does your monitor), or it'll ban you from hooking your computer up to an HDTV and using HD resolutions
[20:35:51] Corey: and various other crap
[20:36:36] Corey: so people get a fancy laptop with a Blu-Ray player in it.. want to hook it up to the TV to watch movies... oh no, your video card doesn't give the magic signal so you can't watch it in HD even though it's perfectly capable of it
[20:37:24] Corey: it'll be cracked so you don't have to deal with it, but then new Blu-Ray movies will give it HDCP updates that undo the cracks and update all your stuff :P
[20:38:21] Corey: so far, 99% of the problems I've seen are just with people that want to watch the stuff they've paid for, not anyone trying to copy or pirate anything
[20:38:56] Corey: there's so many things that have to line up right for it to say "okay, you're not a criminal bastard, you can watch your movie" that stuff is bound to go wrong with most setups...
[20:39:50] Corey: companies are really stupid and think that more and more stuff like that will eventually clamp everything down hard enough to end piracy and copying, but that'll never happen...
[20:41:05] Corey: Spore (the most anticipated awesome looking game, with major widespread appeal for all types of people) was / is rated one-star overall on Amazon with thousands of reviews about the DRM (which isn't mentioned on the box even) being a bunch of crap, so, at least people aren't putting up with it.
[20:41:44] Corey: of course, they then responded by giving people what they wanted... Red Alert 3 came out with the same restrictions, you just get 10 installs instead of 3 or some bullcrap :P
[20:42:13] Corey: I've installed Red Alert 2 like ten times by now, easily.... (and I own TWO legit copies of that one :P)
[20:43:11] Flami: oh dear.
[20:43:30] Corey: oh, and I was going to tell you about iTunes too.. they dropped the DRM just recently..... BUT.... if you already have songs, you have to "upgrade" them to be DRM-free, for like 40 cents a song. for a lot of people that amounts to paying hundreds of dollars on the songs they already bought
[20:44:03] Corey: 40 cents a song adds up when you have a bunch of full albums of songs from iTunes
[20:46:44] Corey: so anyway, all it does is piss everyone off and make things hard on you.. and you're supposed to give them money for that privilege. there's a bunch of Youtube videos around where people rant about the DRM not even letting them play their game, so they had to resort to downloading a crack file from the internet, and they're never buying games from that company again
[20:47:13] Corey: but the trend, with a few exceptions, is to just make bigger and more restrictive DRM
[20:47:31] Corey: they think if they get fancy enough, people won't crack it, which just isn't going to happen...
[20:47:55] Corey: SO... now you should know something about DRM!!!!!
[20:48:01] Corey: (probably a lot more than you wanted :P)
[20:49:49] Corey: ah! one more example! a lady was at my house working on photo album stuff (my mom's customer), and she wanted help putting a song on as background music on a photo CD slideshow she was making... but... the song had DRM in it and that counted as an illegal copy and wouldn't let her do it.. so I had to explain why that was to her.
[20:49:51] Flami: what?! That is crazy
[20:50:22] Corey: so there you go. if she pirated it, it'd be great. but since she wasted her money by BUYING it, she's treated like a criminal when she wants to add music to some photos to show her family :P
[20:51:24] Corey: so DRM is great. that would have been a major loss to the recording industry if her family heard a song she already paid for :P
[20:53:53] Corey: unless companies get a clue, what's going to happen is it's going to be like that in everything until people get so pissed off that everyone turns to piracy, and the music and movie and game industries totally collapse because nobody is buying their broken crap anymore. then maybe, MAYBE they'll change their mind, but so far the solution is to try to sue and jail anyone they can instead
[20:54:28] Corey: it'll probably be a big problem in the near future (it already is really) if nothing changes
[20:58:06] Corey: There's Spore. Scroll down and look at the reviews to see how much people like that stuff :P And there must have been a push of positive reviews (and companies are being caught paying people to post positive reviews on Amazon and other places these days) since it's all the way up to 1.5 stars
[21:20:41] Flami: oh yay... most of the reviews I've seen are bad.
[21:32:53] Corey: well, they also screwed up the game itself... it looked AWESOME in this huge demo / preview thing Will Wright (he's the guy that made SimCity, The Sims, and lots of other games millions of people have played) did a couple years ago, but they totally simplified it and pretty much ruined the whole idea in the end
[21:33:08] Corey: but, the primary complaint there is the DRM rather than the game :P
[21:34:24] Corey: look up Red Alert 3 instead... it seems like more people like the game, but still complain about the DRM a LOT, especially since it's the same DRM as Spore.. and apparently they give you five installs on that one. that's their response to all the Spore hate and protest.. they put the same thing on their next game, but loosened it to five installs from three.
[21:34:37] Corey: if you buy a game, you should have installs until the CD wears out :P
[21:36:00] Corey: that also means nobody in their right mind would buy it used, since it probably wouldn't work anymore... so you don't really own anything for your money. you have a CD that puts it on your computer, and you play it if and when they let you play it. it has no real value anymore, and might even not work for you, much less someone that you sell it to
[21:44:01] Flami: yup, that sounds bad to me
[21:44:54] Corey: $50 rental :P
[21:46:08] Corey: and what happens when the company goes out of business and doesn't exist to grant you extra installs? usually they say if you call them, which isn't free, they'll work with you and give you more installs... so you get to beg to play if you run out of your few installs
[21:48:07] Corey: or like a lot of online games, they just drop support of that game entirely? a lot of online games become worthless fast because they drop the servers for it and put them on a newer game.. without servers they don't work online, and a lot of games now ONLY work online.. those are rentals too
[21:48:14] Corey: so why won't they decide customer support on old games doesn't matter anymore, and never grant installs on games a few years old?
[21:51:02] Flami: bad
[21:51:12] Corey: geez, the installs are worse than I thought.. it even counts if you add a new video card (which as far as programs are concerned is meaningless)
[21:51:24] Corey: check this one out:
"This may well be one of the best games of the year. For that matter, it may well be one of the best FPS games to date! But I'll never get to experience its full glory due to the crippling DRM.

The "security" feature built into the game supposedly allows you to install the game on 3 computers.
[21:51:34] Corey: What they don't tell you is installing any new hardware, or even upgrading a video video driver will cause an new license to be used. Even if they told you, there is no way to de-authorize the computer because that feature has not yet been developed... Wow. That's pretty important to the entire DRM system, right? Leave the honest customer an out? Well, EA doesn't care about you. Here's how I spent my 3 install activations:
[21:51:43] Corey: 1: Install the game and run it one time. Game activates.
2: Buy new video card, install it, run game. Game reactivates again!
3: Loan video card out to friend, use old video card, run game, Game reactivates again!
?: Put my new video card back in, run game, no more activations left.
[21:51:54] Corey: Thanks, EA! You just stole $30 from me! That's what I get for being honest. So from now on, I will be forced to either pirate games using this DRM, or just boycott those games all together. Either way, not another penny of my money will go toward anything with "activations"-based DRM. It only seems fair to steal a game from EA now that they have stolen $30 from me for a game I cannot play.
[21:52:00] Corey: So what was the game like? Well, the menus looked nice, and the first 20 minutes of the game was fun. Very nice-looking, but I can't really say much. I didn't get to experience much of it. I recommend EVERYONE STAY AWAY FROM THIS TITLE at least until a patch is released to remove the DRM, if that ever happens."
[21:52:19] Corey: now that is crap :P I upgrade at least something on my computer fairly regularly, and would at least use those up in a year or so... but I don't keep games installed if I'm not actively playing them anyway, so I'd use even more reinstalling it...
[21:53:32] Corey: games are like 6+ gigs now, each... you can't keep everything installed all the time.. wastes too much space
[22:02:34] Flami: even on the huge hard drives? yeah, I'd imagine that to be the case... yikes.
[22:04:24] Corey: I barely keep any games installed, and I'm always out of room :P my game drive is 250GB
[22:05:47] Corey: it has 16GB free at the moment. and maybe 5-6 big games, if that, installed?
[22:06:05] Corey: there's other stuff taking up room on my hard drive too
[22:07:55] Corey: Oblivion with all the add-ons, and some things to give it better graphics is about 10GB... Command & Conquer 3, 6GB... 7GB of Portal.. like 4GB of Red Alert 2... Knights of the Old Republic is like 5GB... Knights of the Old Republic 2... same... adds up pretty fast :P
[22:12:10] Flami: I should go bug Eric about that and see how much hard drive space WOW takes up