Well, my new neighbors just moved in and the woman of the house immediately gets to work on making things look presentable on the outside.   Having the husband lay down some mulch, plant flowers, mow the lawn, mulch the dead leaves, etc…  Needless to say, after taking a look, I became a bit shameful of my flower bed.   I mean, it looked nice in the spring time with the daffodils growing and showing off their yellowy goodness, but that didn’t last long, and it also didn’t take long for the leaves to start sagging.   I had also bought some knockout rose bushes earlier this spring, but they are still young and haven’t bloomed yet (if they’ll bloom at all this year) and so the flower bed just looks like crap.   Here’s a picture for show

So, umm, yea, this could use a bit of tidying up.   And while I had the camera out, I figured I would take some shots of the little flowers I had in there as well

So, I cut down the daffodil leaves, put them in the front yard, weed eat the rest of the bad crap, and mulch the leaves using the lawnmower and dump them back into the flower bed. I figured that since I’m laying some mulch on top, they’ll make for some good compost underneath.   I had originally bought two bags, thinking that would be enough.  Nope!! Ended up going back and getting 4 more bags of the stuff to cover the bed with.  And on top of that, I still have some of the cut up leaves showing, but they’ll rot/dry away so I’m not too worried.   Not to mention that this is rubber compost, so I shouldn’t have to worry about this for a while!  So without further ado, here are the results.  Not perfect, but not too bad for a first timer.  Should look a lot better once the rose bushes get a bit bigger.

Alright, so for those that know me, when it comes to gaming, I can get into it from time to time.  And when it comes to real time strategy, Supreme Commander is where it’s at.  I mean, I’ve been a fan of the series since Total Annihilation.  None of this Warcraft zerg rush crap.  Nope! Give me the real deal!  So I was pretty excited when the new supreme commander was announced.  So, I had to go pick up the game.

Little did I know that this was going to be one heck of a hassle, that ultimately, is not worth it!

So, here’s the first issue I run into.   I go to Gamestop and buy a copy after work on the way home.  Figured it would be a good way to waste some time when I got nothing else to do at home.  Yea, that’s how I justified it. But anyway, I get home, start to open up the case, and low and behold, I notice that there’s no plastic surrounding the dvd case when I slid it out of it’s box.  And worse, no game, no manual.  Not even a friggin sheet of paper!  Nothing!!  The result of some shoplifter who decided to just lift the cd, and the paperwork containing the registration code.  So, I’m pretty much out of luck until I let them know what happened, and have them set aside a replacement copy for the next day.  I love how this works.  They put in all sorts of copy protection, etc… so the people just steal it from the store.  If people are going to pirate a game, they are going to find a way.  Hell, just make it a little bit cheaper, and therefore more enticing to those who are cheap.  Yea, the deadbeats aren’t going to buy it even if it was friggin 5 dollars, but oh well!

Which leads me to my second problem, and  TON of frustration.  So, with the game finally in my hand, I start the process of installing it on my hard drive and then attempting to play the game for the first time.  But nope!! Even though I’ve bought the game, and put in a valid dvd key, I’m greeted with this

Are you freaking kidding me?  You mean to tell me that since your servers aren’t available, I can’t play the game that I’ve spent my well earned money on?  What if I don’t even have internet access?  I guess I’m screwed huh? So, around an hour later, I try again, and run into another problem.

So, for some reason, your software wants me to download it from the freaking internet for 4 HOURS?   The dang dvd is right in the drive, and you want me to download it off the net?  Fortunately, I started off from scratch and this time it wised up and decided to actually look in the cd-rom drive this time.

Alright, so the game is installed and I’m ready to rock. I click on the icon, and I’m greeted with this

Okay, so since your servers are having issues, I’m once again screwed over by not being allowed to use something that I’ve legitimately paid for.  Wow! At this point, I’m considering downloading a software crack just so I can use something that I’ve actually bought.  It’s like hotwiring my own car!

So anyway, I get past this eventually by just waiting and coming back and finally get to play the game.  Only to find out that my beloved series has been dumbed down in order to ‘appeal’ to the mass market.  The number of units drastically reduced, build times are insanely fast, and not near as complex as it once was.   This appealing to the mass market is simply giving in to the idiots who refuse to buy the product because it was too deep for them.   Once again, stupid, low IQ consumers define the market, and those looking for the full experience they were accustomed to are screwed over.  Yay!

Oh, but wait, it’s not over yet!   While back at my desktop, look what pops up!

You know, there is software out there that installs and runs in the background on consumer’s systems and pops up advertisements on their computer.  We call that malware, spyware, annoythepissoutofmeware, etc…  And it turns out that I actually PAID for something and despite the crap I’ve had to run into with the drm and sever issues, you guys want to have the nerve to throw advertisements in my face?  Screw you!

Looks like it’s back to the Xbox for me!  Pc gaming industry, see ya!  Rot in hell!!

Tags: computers, drm, Entertainment, Gaming, gas powered games, geek, server, spam, steam, supreme commander 2, Technology