Ticketek's EzyTicket

Just bought tickets for the Armin Van Buurin show on the June long weekend (w00t).
Ticketek now offer "EzyTickets," which are basically tickets in PDF form (for printing at home).
I'm blogging about it because I think it's a bloody good idea.
At first I was upset because it meant no ticket stubs to keep, but after mulling on it (and seeing the actual ticket), I'm all for it.
These are the reasons why:

1. Instant - no waiting for them to arrive (which would be a blessing when you've bought them close to the show date), as well as no worries about them getting lost in the mail (which has happened to me).
2. Safe - say I accidentally leave my tickets at work, and can't get to work before the show (not the first time), I can easily just open up my email and print of a new batch - no fucking around, no turning the house upside down looking for tickets that are actually 15km away.
3. Pretty - they are good lookin things, with all the concert promotional pictures up the top of the page, and are designed to be folded to close to normal ticket size. When folded they look just like the traditional ticket, which also adds much needed rigidity for the ticket machines at some venues.
4. (and the most important reason) They kick scalpers in the nuts, because there is no telling if a ticket is genuine or not. This means that noone in their right mind would buy an EzyTicket off of someone else (if it's one of many tickets printed from the PDF file, only the first ticket presented at the gates will be let in). And I think scalpers need to be stopped at every possible avenue.

However,

...what's wrong with Moshtix's approach where your credit card becomes the ticket? Isn't that much simpler? I suppose so, but as if often the case with events for minors, the tickets are purchased using a credit card owned by someone other than those attending the event (thus the invention of the moshcard... but still...).
And of course, with Moshtix, there is no shiny ticket to keep in your glorious little memento book (much to my chagrin).

The EzyTicket does mean that you're able to sell your ticket, but only to someone that trusts you - and I think untrustwrothy folk need to be punished somehow, so that's a good thing in my opinion. I'll just add here, in favour of the EzyTicket, that the moshtix transfer method has it's faults (which I've been burned by).

But, all of the anti-scalper attributes are moot while the original tickets are still able to be sold for any given event (and they still are).
So I suppose they'll only be truly advantages if at popular scalpable events (eg Splendour or BDO) they only sell the EzyTickets, or they eventually migrate to an EzyTicket only service (which would piss off all of those that don't have a printer).
And, while they do point out the fact that the tickets are easily reproducible on the actual tickets themselves, I think at first some people buying EzyTickets from scalpers will be burned by the multiple copies, so it is up to Ticketek to make widely aware that you really shouldn't buy EzyTickets from anywhere but the Ticketek website.
And that's my $1.50 (75x longer than any normal 2 cent rant).
See you in June!

Damn Producers

I'm currently listening to King Missile's Happy Hour and at least two songs have ended with a "fade out."
More often than not I hate ending a song with a fade out - it outwardly seems the un-thought-of way to end a song -but worse than that, it's often only done because the producer wants to cut the song short.
Now the songs that "fade out" on this album - as is the case with most songs that do - were just entering an awesome solo, when the fade out begins. The listener is blessed with a few bars of rockin, and then it moves off to the distance and disappears - before it even came to fruition. Lame.
It made me wonder how many awesome albums have been turned to merely mediocre because of some producer trying to make them more publicly palatable, so that songs fit into the neat <4 minute package, so that the album can clock in under the archaic (and nowadays, arbitrary) <45 minute length still lingering from the days of the LP.
It pisses me off. I wanna hear the fucking solo! Screw you for editing it out!
I suppose this is one of the advantages of the now prevalent home-recorded digital releases - no producers as well as unlimited length albums.
Of course the disadvantages of low-quality (both in sound and music quality) recordings flooding the "market" may just nullify that.

Bus Took Forever.

Am heading into the city to have lunch with Lilly (despite it now being incredibly late), to give Josh his guitar cable that Ben bought him, and has been sitting in my room since Black Sabbath, and to fix the bond cheque and deposit it into my account.
I arrived at the bus stop 4 minutes after the bus was due, and the next bus was 25 minutes away. I wasted that time using my phone's Internet connection. As is typical, the next bus was 10 minutes late. Why couldn't the first bus have been that late?
I've not heard from the Perth job yet (but didn't expect to). I'm still not 100% on the work roster though, so I'm applying for other jobs as I wait. There are some interesting ones going. I'll keep you all informed as things come up.
Meanwhile, I'm hungry.

Listening to: Opeth - Still Life (album)
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...and stay out!

Wow.
I mentioned earlier that I entered into an argument with my manager about hours being worked up.
Well, I called my recruitment agency Monday morning complaining, and asking if I had any legal standing to demand pay for the hours I worked. I also asked them to remain discreet.
Come 4pm, my manager walks over and asks if he can talk to me outside.
He tells me that my recruitment agency called, and that he has decided it is in our best interests for me to not come to work anymore.
Officially fucking fired.
What a fucking child. I dob on him and he retaliates by firing me.
What a fucking cock.
I guess I shall recall the full story here.
So.
We are contracted for 80 hour fortnights. Last fortnight I had to stay back and extra 5 hours because of meetings running overtime and having to get stuff prepared for meetings.
These extra hours were able to be "saved up" to go toward the APEC summit compulsory day off in September. Not really a problem.
Except on the Monday I was sick, so I figured that these extra hours should go toward that day instead. I figure it's within my rights to get paid for hours that I have worked.
So I hand in my timesheet last Friday, and my manager says that he won't sign the timesheet with 77 hours on it - that I have to resubmit it with only 72 hours on it.
He tells me this during morning tea. I say that it's illegal, and that I will call the recruitment agency about my rights.
He leaves shortly after to go back to his desk.
I decide to go tell him that I didn't want to butt heads over it, and find him emailing the recruitment agency telling them that I will be calling soon. Fucker.
I decide that it wasn't worth arguing with him about the timesheet and yield; I resubmit the 72 hour timesheet.
After leaving work, I decide that I have a fucking right to get paid for what I have worked, and call my recruitment agency and tell them about his bullying and illegal policy.
Unfortunately, Maria (she who is in charge of TC) wasn't in, so I talked to Amy about it. She agreed, and even said that she knows what my manager is like. She left a note for Maria to call me on Monday morning.
Come Monday, she hadn't yet called. I called her. She was like "Oh, I was meant to call you!" Yes you were, Maria. Why didn't you?
So I talked with her about it, and she was fucking useless. She asked if I wanted to jeopardise my job over it. This shouldn't jeopardise my job, but I said yes - that I was sick of the mis-management.
She said she'd have to talk to her manager about it, and would call me back.
Come 4pm, my manager walks over and asks if he can talk to me outside...
Fuckwit.
So I pack up my stuff, send a goodbye, fuck you email, and head over to the pub with Josh and Leanne for a pint of Old.
So, there you go.
I'm going to visit my recruitment agent, find out what exactly happened. I'm also going to call workplace relations to find out if it was legal a) to pay like that or b) to fire me like that.
Fuckers.
So. I'm now a free man... restricted only by what meagre money I have paid off of my credit card and by what money I have coming to me.
I am applying for jobs this week, although I didn't today because I was down at Newport, and won't tomorrow, as I'm heading up to Newcastle for the Black Sabbath concert.
Wish me luck.

Facebook

You may or may not have noticed that I started a Facebook account on Friday.
I did this out of boredom. I thought it would give me something to do while I wait for work at TC. I'm not sure I should have.
I don't use MySpace anymore, and I'm probably not going to use Facebook - certainly not to the degree to which it is meant to be used.
It's a great website, full of really good, techy features, so why won't I use it?
I just can't be fucked checking it.
I like my Blog. I write, people read. I get all the personalisation that I want, and I don't have to respond to anything but the occasional comment.
But with Social Networks I have to check it all the time, I have to respond to messages, pokes, invitations, comments, wall markings, and friend requests, and I've been accused of ignoring people when I don't (I might add that if you're reading this, relax; I'm not talking about you).
Facebook is clearly better than MySpace - in terms of features, interface, bandwidth consumption, cleanliness, open API (and the subsequent applications it spawns), ability to use feeds, no friend ranking, the list goes on and on. It's a great product and a great idea.
But I just don't sit online anymore.
I'm not going to sit in front of Facebook and browse. I'm not going to trawl through profile pages and send a virtual puppy to someone whose status reads "feeling down."
I'm not going to spend hours customising my page, deciding what song best describes how I feel at the moment, or what text colour reflects me as a person (I already did that on my blog, haha). I'm not going to create lists of my favourite things, so people can decide if they want to be my friend or not. I'm not going to spend hours uploading and tagging photos for yet another site (I already have Flickr for that, thank you), and I'm not going to spend the time looking at your profiles, either.
I just don't do that anymore.
My virtual life has shrunk to a lone Blog (ok, ok, there's Flickr and Jaiku, too...). I really don't use the Internet like I used to.
So I'm considering deleting both my MySpace and my Facebook account - I will save you all the trouble of poking me, writing something on my wall, or tagging my/your photos. If you need to contact me; email is good, phone is better.
If you needed to resort to a social networking site to contact me (because you don't have my phone number or email address), chances are that I probably don't miss you, and won't want to catch up with you for coffee.
If you want to find me on a social network, how about the pub? I like the pub, and I don't have to worry about typos there.
That is all.

Stupid TC

What the hell!?
I get into work this morning, and there is an error report on my desk.
Now, every fucking time I complete a round of editing, there is an error report. No matter how many times I tell people not to change certain things they change.
But you know why? People don't change them. They change because the system changes them. The design of the system is so retarded that it will change the data, and not notify anyone.
This project is fucking doomed. It's fucked and retarded and will never fucking work.
And I'm fucking sick of it.

Ready to Quit

I am so fucking over the shit that is TCrud.
I am ready to quit.
I am looking for new jobs this week; TCrud can suck my arse.
I'm sick of the shit, I'm sick of the policy changes, I'm sick of the arrogance, I'm sick of the condescension, I'm sick of the old software and I'm sick of it's feeble implementation.
Fuck you, TCrud, I didn't go to Uni for this shit.

Heating

I don't understand why in winter heaters heat places (in this case, my bus) to Summer temperatures, while in Summer the air conditioning drops the temperature to Winter temperatures. Are people just contrary?
Yags, this bus is warm.
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You Motherfucker!

The bus driver just pulled away with me running after the bus. People had barely alighted by the time he pulled away, motherfucker didn't even wait 10 seconds.
No real reason to complain though, the next bus is due to arrive in <5 min anyway - it's just that it's cold here, waiting.

Listening to: Traffic noise, as my beanie is getting preference over my headphones.

I might add, that by the time I'd finished typing this up, another bus had arrived. Yay! I'm defrosting now!
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The Grudge 2

I just finished watching The Grudge 2.
I am at a loss for words.
Terrible comes to mind.
Lousy.
Shithouse.
Nonsensical.
Inconsistent.
Baffling.
Stupid.
Horrible.
Lame.
Fucking fucking fucking fucking shit.
Honestly, it is one of the worst movies I have seen in a long, long, long time. Honestly.
And The Grudge was awesome. Creepy, cool, generally awesome.
The Grudge 2 ruined it by changing the story. Suddenly the curse wasn't created because of a violent murder, but because she was possessed as a child.
Stupid.
And to make matters worse, the Grudge 2 actually consists of two stories, set 2 years apart, that don't overlap at all (the only characters that overlapped were the dead woman and her son). Honestly. It seems that they wrote both The Grudge 2 and 3, and then turned them into one movie, running on top of each other. It was fucking terrible.
Fucking terrible.
Fucking terrible.
I wish the person who wrote it was here so I could hit them. Didn't they listen to their teachers at school when they told them that they wrote unoriginal trash?
It was horrible. Terrible. Trash. Shit. Fucking stupid and crap and shit and horrible and I can't express just how bad.
I haven't seen a movie this bad since, since, Click the Calendar Girl Killer. Honestly. It was that fucking bad. It was even worse to watch than Smokin Stogies. Because this cost maybe ten times as much to make.
Who approved this? Why, along the way of bringing this from script to film didn't someone say something? Something? Anything?
Why? WHY? WHY!?
Terrible.
Argh.
Don't ever see this movie.

del.icio.us bookmark editing

I can't find a good way to edit my bookmarks on del.icio.us. I have to do it one by one. I have to delete/rename/add tags one by one, too. This is a pain. I wish it had an interface like Firefox Bookmark Manager, at least that way I can select multiple entries.
Pain.
By default, the imported bookmarks aren't shared either, so I have to go through and share all the ones that should be shared (which is all but my banking bookmarks, really).
So yes. This is a little annoying... but it now means that I will have a single copy of my bookmarks across my computers, so that's handy.
Of course it also means that I no longer use the bookmarks built into Firefox, which isn't handy at all. At least it seems that way at the moment.
I'm not sure del.icio.us is for me.

"Single Today, Thanks"

So it seems that Hillsbus not only offer weekly tickets with no discount, but also return tickets are discount free. Now I understand buying a rail ticket return for the same price as two single journeys - it's a pain in the arse lining up for rail tickets, and you can miss your train by doing so - but bus tickets? What the hell advantage does it give? Especially when there is the risk of losing the ticket during the day.
This is annoying.
Anyway. Why did I buy a single today? Coz I'm meeting Leanne at West Ryde tonight to finish the cleaning. Fun.
After such, we are going to the shops to pick out a pair of glasses for her (and so I can spend that $100 David Jones gift voucher burning a hole in my pocket... as well as some of my pay).
But will we have time for both? Leanne's Mum (Jenny) wants to go early, so we'll see what happens. It's not like I wasted any money buying a single today, anyway.
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Rental Inspection

We heard from the Real Estate today that we didn't do a good enough job cleaning for the final the inspection. Fair enough, we need to wipe down the cornices and skirting boards etc, get a pest exterminator in (coz of Oz...), and a few other minor things.
But some things are stupid.
They complained about the grime in the bath-tub... the grime that is caused by the enamel not being present, the grime that Leanne says was present when we moved in... so I believe that is unfair.
But they also say we have to mow the lawns again... we mowed them last week! How fucking long can they be? They're lawns, they grow! It's not our fucking fault! They said that the quote for someone else to mow them is $360! Wankers! Bollocks! Bullshit!
So I guess we have to do it.
Motherfuckers.

Premier Illawarra's Jingle

Is terrible. Painful. Horrible.
And it's in my head.
I've had to call them so often that now, whenever I see the name of their company, the jingle gets stuck in my head.
It's grating. Annoying. Cheesy.
And it's driving me mad.

Fuck you, 131500

Fucken missed my train because 131500 told me it arrived at 4:21pm. Leanne just checked the city rail website and it says it arrived at 4:17pm, and the next was 4:30pm. Of course, I arrived on the platform at like 4:18pm or 4:19pm, too.
Thanks a fucking bunch, as if I wasn't in a shit enough mood.
Is it ironic that I work for 131500, and that my work was what was depressing me, and now it is work that kicked me in the pants one more time? No, not ironic; expected.
I don't think we manage the train timetables though, so I guess it isn't like that in the end anyway.
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MySpace is annoying

God damn piece of shit!
I've been trying to update my MySpace name and profile for 2 weeks now, and every time I try and update it, their server is down, or it times out, or whatever.
Fuck you MySpace, you are the most unreliable website in the fucking world and you annoy me.

I am apoplectic with rage!!!

Web comics

Web comics aren't funny. Stop trying to be.
Just because your friends think you're funny, doesn't mean everyone else will.
For example:
http://www.notcomplete.com/
http://www.tweep.com/
http://www.shd-wk.com/

This guy is funny, I don't know if he's original, but he is funny... and he's not a web comic anyway:
http://sedatedape.com/

Ok, ok... so this is a funny comic:
http://irregularwebcomic.net/

Ok, ok, ok... so I did a Google search to find lame comics as examples, and I came across this one which is pretty funny, too:
http://myextralife.com/


So I think I'm going to give up, and just say that web comics are lame when you want entertainment, but Murphy prescribes that when you're looking for lame, you can never find it.
Your Momma.

Christian blogs

How many Christian blogs are there?!
Too many!
Clicking on the "recently updated blogs" link on the main page kept linking me to Christian blogs... maybe it's just that time of day when Christians turn to blogger to make there own sermon. Lilly points out to me that it is a Sunday in most parts of the world. So maybe they're all inspired.
Anyway.
Christians bore me.