Actually Best Buy seem to not even know their own policy, or don’t enforce it on any levels unless it suits their own needs. CheapAssGamer.com were an affiliate with Best Buy, but were dumped with no explanation. The owner of CheapAssGamer.com contacted an Affiliate Program Manager (read: lowly press relations manager) and was told it was the word “ass” in the address. Further digging showed that Best Buy sells numerous products with the word “ass” in it. This is a classic case of a large company pushing out the little guy, wasting time and effort, all because they are after the bottomline: large piles of $$$. Look, if you’re a company, you support the grassroots effort, the people that support you, the ones that make your business a better place. Stepping on them will only earn you a bad name among the niche of people you’ve stepped on — in this case, gamers.

Infinium Labs has done the same thing, by trying to play hardball with HardOCP.com. Little did they know, HardOCP lives to play hardball and won’t take no crap from anybody, no matter how large you are. Now HardOCP is going after Infinium Labs, and there are a ton of gamers trash talking Infinium Labs. Why? Because Infinium Labs stepped on the very people that will likely buy their products. Gamers don’t forgive very easily - we’re a picky bunch, and if you don’t do things right, and treat us like dirt, we’re going to make you pay out of the ass. Sorry, couldn’t resist.

The beauty of the internet is that people can share their creative works with the world, and in some cases, they become immensely popular. For example, DJ Danger Mouse has put together two top albums of their times, The Beatles’ White Album and Jay-Z’s Black Album, and called it the Grey Album. It started as an underground success, but it was so good, that it became a bigger beast all its own. Unfortunately, the record companies didn’t take kindly to it, and EMI has gone after anyone hosting the Grey Album. A futile effort, if you ask me.

I’ve also discovered another creative work, this time infusing The Flaming Lips album, Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots, with hip-hop flavors, and calling it Yoshimi Battles The Hip Hop Robots. While I’m not too fond of hip hop/rap, I really enjoy both of these creative works, and it is what makes me enjoy the internet that much more. Whether it is wrong or right can be argued either way until everyone is blue in the face, but good music is good, no matter how you stab it with a fork.

Speaking of music, the soundtrack for the movie, Kill Bill Volume 1, is really fantastic. I’m thoroughly enjoying the music choices Quentin Tarantino has chosen for this movie. Which bears to mind that I feel all his movies has superb music selections for the soundtrack. He revives interest in old genres of music that should be shared with our current generation.

After years of dialup hell, AOL, and DirecPC satellite download limitations, I’ve finally graduated to the next level — broadband. Alltel has made DSL available in my area, and I’m absolutely loving it. The ability to download game demos, patches, programs, movie trailers, music, and so on without waiting forever or being limited daily, is a real treat. Why today, I was downloading the trailer to Starship Troopers 2, whilst listening to Groove Salad, uploading a movie I recorded, and playing Unreal Tournament 2004 online without a single hiccup. Speeds are pretty consistent and nice, usually hovering around 140kb/sec download, 15kb/sec upload; a 1mb download takes 7 seconds average.

If you’re a stupid basketball player and want to become famous, go to Georgia University. They’ll make you take an easy test, with questions like, “How many goals are on a basketball court?”, or, “How many points does a 3-point field goal account for in a Basketball Game?” The beauty of this test means that stupid basketball players won’t lose a single brain cell, I repeat, not a single brain cell. Go Bulldogs!

This message brought to you courtesy of a Florida Gators fan. The Gators beat the Bulldogs tonight in college basketball.

P.S. If you want free shoes, go to Florida State University (FSU), a.k.a. Free Shoes University.

My earphones which I’ve had for over 4 years has finally decided to give up the ghost. Amazing considering I bought it cheap at Walmart for $10, and have used it every single day for the past 4+ years. Music is really my life, I can’t go a day without listening to music; whether I’m working, playing, or relaxing.

I’ve always been a fan of those earphones that you plug in your ear canal, so today I ordered a new pair that should really blow the doors off my old earphones — the Shure E2c. At $100, it’s not cheap, but it has been known to deliver superb quality, isolation, and comfort. Three areas I’m particularly interested in, especially when you consider I listen to music everyday.

I just saw School of Rock on DVD tonight, and it has made my music tastes switch from ambient back to some good old rock. So right now on my iTunes playlist you will find AC/DC, Led Zeppelin, The Who, Kings of Leon, The Darkness, The Black Crowes, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Creedence Clearwater Revival, and Jethro Tull. I’ve been in a bit of a funk recently, so there’s nothing like some old school rock to bring you out of it. Oh yea, and the movie was fantastic. Jack Black was stellar in the movie.

I found out yesterday that DSL is now available for the town I’m living in. I’ve been waiting for over 5 years for a broadband solution to become available to me. I’ve been using DirecPC, a one-way satellite, for over 3 years and I absolutely hate it. It is, unfortunately, the only solution I had besides going back to dial-up, and that is even worse. DirecPC has this policy called Fair Access Policy (FAP) that limits downloads to around 250MB per 8 hours. Most PC game demos these days are equal or more than that limit. Then add on my love for listening to ambient internet radio station - Groove Salad (perfect when working), downloading movie trailers, songs I’ve purchased through iTunes, and surfing the internet, and that limit becomes too restricting. Once the limit has been hit, they throttle you to the exact same speeds as a 56k modem. It is absolutely outrageous.

With DSL, those limits will be gone, and so many doors will be open to me. I can finally play games online with no trouble, download game demos, movie trailers, music videos, MP3’s, and so on without any restrictions. The biggest boon is online gaming, which I miss a lot. I used to play Quake 2 online competitively, but then ISDN came around, then cable modems, and people with 15ms ping times had an unfair advantage over us with a 300ms ping time. The only online game I could play without being frustrated was MMORPG’s like Dark Age of Camelot or Asheron’s Call.

The only thing is that Alltel has to send out a technician to see if I fully qualify for DSL, and if I do, I’ll be dumping DirecPC without blinking an eyelash, and getting DSL. What a wonderful day that will be.