I downloaded Spore last night from thepiratebay.org due to the draconian DRM used by EA. First, a store bought copy of the game only allows you to install the game 3 times before having to call EA every time you wish to reinstall it. Fuck that, i'm not gonna pay $50 for a game I have to ask permission to play! So I got it downloaded and installed. The torrent I used went surprisingly fast! I had the 3.5GB download in about an hour. Yay Comcast and lots of seeders! Anyway, the install went pretty simple. The game came with a cracked .exe and a keygen. Used the Keygen (amazingly it wasn't infected with a virus!) and got the game installing. Apparently the SecuROM security had been removed as well as the install only too about 5 minutes as opposed to the 30 minute installs I had been hearing about on the internet. After the install though Spybot popped up and asked if it were ok if EA added a startup option called Core.exe, Normally i'd be ok with this as i'd check it out online and see what I could find out about it. This time however I was REALLY hesitant as it popped up like this: Core.exe -silent. I was immediately suspicious as to why EA wouldn't want you to know they had installed this startup option at the very end of the install process. So I checked it out online and didn't find much at all on the subject. So I thought to myself, fuck it, let it go. If it sent back any data to EA i'd just be letting them know I was one of the thousands already pirating the game. I replaced the stock .exe file with the cracked on and started up the game. Everything went fine. I experienced no problems. When you get to the title screen for the game EA asks you to login or create an EA account. I already had one so I tried logging in. This is where the game tries to tie the CD Key to the account you just logged in with. But the game obviously had a bogus cd key and wouldn't tie to the account. It said I wouldn't have access to the online options. I was fine with that. So I started up a game. You start as a single cell organism with some basic features like some cilia and a pokey thing to stab other creatures with so you can eat them and gain their DNA. DNA is the key to the gam as you can't improve/evolve your creature without it. Also there are little red things that resemble crunch berries to eat and gain DNA as well. They are part of the meteor that crashed into your planet and started life. So here is a basic breakdown of game play: Click on things to eat them until you have enough DNA to add a feature to your creature, continue to eat things to evolve your creature until you move onto the next major evolutionary milestone. Which is finally climbing out of the water onto land. I made it that far. Here the game changes and takes a serious nose dive as far as I was concerned. Now you have the option of making friends with the creatures or attacking them for the purpose of food. My creature was a carnivore so food was foremost in my thoughts when I was interacting with creatures. It didn't go over to well just trying to eat everything before I had a creature that had any evolutions in the direction of offense/defense. I was killed a number of times. That's ok though you just start back at your nest and are cast out into the world yet again looking to find a place. So I decided that since I had no flare for combat just yet i'd try to befriend some of the other species that were around. Here is where the game just became stupid. You have to basically have a little sing/dance off to impress any species you wish to befriend. So here I am clicking madly to out sing/dance a purple monkey with one eye and a spiked mace for a tail when I realize (out loud no less) "What the fuck am I doing here? This is fucking retarded!" I pictured playing until I had a space-faring species and what I would be doing when I encountered an alien race. In my head I pictured us, as a human race encountering an alien race for the first time and us going into some extravagant song and dance routine and then being vaporized by the alien death ray for being dumb. So anyway, I fell like  played far enough into the game to where I had a decent feel for the game and I didn't like it. So I quit and went to 7-11 to buy a Coke.

Death Magnetic is the title. Well, I have had the album for over a week now. Downloaded from the Internet of course (I don't pay for music.) And I am more than willing to say this is the best album they have put out since ...And Justice For All. I like it more than the Black Album. I like it more than Load and Reload. I like this one. ALOT. Not just because it's a lot faster than those previous albums, but I think it's because they got rid of Bob Rock as a producer. It's my honest belief that he was holding them back as a band. I came to that decision after hearing and really getting a feel for this new album. The producer is legendary producer Bruce Dickinson. Just kidding! No cowbell on this album... lol Anyway, the producer is Rick Rubin. He's been a producer for ALOT of metal bands in the past. In fact, he's been a producer on so many different genera's it's almost silly. The guy knows his shit. If you care to give it a listen, let me know and i'll burn you a copy if you like. I am half tempted to go buy this one myself though just to see what all comes in the packaging.

Here is a funny comic to read.

It's gonna suck life! Make them stop!! lol

I don't know why people are always down the throat of Microsoft over their monopolistic ways. In case you hadn't noticed, Google does the same thing. Maybe they are just more subtle about it, or maybe people just aren't willing to look past the "goodie goodie" image of Google. For example, this is in the EULA of the Chrom browser they just released yesterday:

11. Content licence from you
11.1 You retain copyright and any other rights that you already hold in Content that you submit, post or display on or through the Services. By submitting, posting or displaying the content, you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free and non-exclusive licence to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content that you submit, post or display on or through the Services. This licence is for the sole purpose of enabling Google to display, distribute and promote the Services and may be revoked for certain Services as defined in the Additional Terms of those Services.

In other words, they can do what they want with content you post through their browser, but you cannot profit in any way from their browser.

They have since retracted this from the EULA and replaced it with:

11. Content license from you
11.1 You retain copyright and any other rights you already hold in Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services.

But only after people noticed and made legal threats. Google knew they overstepped themselves with this and were just hoping no one read the EULA anyway (Honestly, who reads those??)

It seems there is another upgrade to the computer coming sooner than I had anticipated. That's always a good thing. I'm selling of most of my computer for about $400. Mobo/RAM, Video Card, case & PSU, and a SATA 80GB HDD. For the cost of $344.97 I will be getting:

1. MSI K9A2 Neo-F ATX AMD Motherboard
2. CORSAIR DOMINATOR 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 
3. AMD Phenom 9950 BLACK EDITION 2.6GHz Socket AM2+ 140W Quad-Core Processor
4. Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound

What about a hard drive you say? Well, I still have my 500GB SATA drive. That'll have to do until I pick up another 500GB SATA drive. I'm a bit late the 1TB party, but I plan on being first to the 1 Exobite party, lol!

Now here is the exciting part I think. The video card i'll be getting... Hopefully I can convince the wife that $600 isn't too much for a video card. I'm really in the realm of possibility for a Radeon 4870 X2. I just order one from Dell along with a 850W PSU and i'm good, right? I think so.