Enron and why the fuck haven't people risen up

My wife and I went to see 'Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room' last night. Like 'the Corporation', this is another film that goes to the heart of the problem in the world today and doesn't just blame everything on Bush, like 'Fahrenheit 911' did.

In short, this film does a great job at showing how our culture's validation of greed and the capitalist system made a huge group of people accomplices in one of this century's greatest crimes. By mid movie I was so angry that I wanted to scream every time I saw Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling. These fuckers, along with many other cocksuckers, encouraged people who worked in the company to invest their retirement funds into Enron, while they sold their stock because they knew the shit was going down.

The film builds suspense, and the fact that we all know what happens in the end, I found myself at the edge of my seat for the second half of the film. One of the most memorable moments of the film was when Ken Lay is addressing the employees of Enron as the stock is plummeting, and CEO Skilling has jumped ship. Ken asked the crowd to ask questions and pass them to the front, and this dumb motherfucker (Lay) read this question in front of a packed room and rolling cameras. "Are you on crack? If you are that might explain a lot of things. If you aren't, maybe you should be." Holy shit! I nearly piss my pants!

On the downside, the film which remained rather impartial the whole way, when it should have taken a stand. 'Overthrow the corporate state!' LOL, if I had turrets syndrome that's what I would have yelled. Anywho, this is my point. We are seeing how these greedy fuckers manipulate the markets to rob us, their workers, take us to war, exploit children, so forth and so on. Their friends live in the White House and steal elections, so one of our only legal recourses is gone. And the courts, Skilling gave 23 million of what he stole to his attorneys as a retainer. Anyone, out there can match that?

To recap, don't fuck around and watch it.

Fuck Apple

Since the 80's I've been a hardcore Apple user. I admit I was attracted by the fact that they were and are the underdog. They also made and still make great computers. But all this loyalty to a company is a bunch of bullshit. They should be loyal to me. I'm the one who gives them all this money and defends them in heather Apple VS Windows debates.

So why all this rage. Well, it's been a long time coming so if you care to listen, read on. I owend a Lombard G3 Powerbook that I paid about $3K for at the time. About two years later I decided to upgrade it, so I bought a G4 processor upgrade, extra ram a MPG Decoder PC card and a fire wire PC Card. I wanted to edit video on it and run DVD studio pro on it. Well I just couldn't. The software wouldn't support the hardware. Now Apple charges so much for their shit that they should make the extra effort and support hardware upgrades. It's not like there's a ton of third parties making upgrades like in the PC world.

Anywho I gave up on the Lombard and a year later bought a G4 Titanium 17" Powerbook. I gotta admit it, best machine I've ever had. I edit video on it, make DVD's, mix live video, have a gazillion apps open at the same time and it hardly ever crashes. Then Apple comes out with Motion, the After Effects killer. As a video geek, I was salivating over this one only to find out that the video card that came with my $3,400 not even 18 months old machine does not support Motion!!

Do you see a pattern here, these motherfuckers charge you an arm and a leg for hardware that's not upgradable and then develop the apps that don't run and fairly recent hardware. So you are 'forced' to buy new gear every couple of years.

Next up: The Ipod. What a shitty piece of overpriced hardware. And hear the horror stories from people. A friend of mine is so thankful he bought the Apple Care extended warranty, because he has gone through 6 Ipods in 2 years. My wife bought me one as an engagement gift a year ago and the drive already went on it. The battery never lasted as long as they claimed. Yes, recently they lost a class action lawsuit but they want a receipt for items that are over a year old. My motherfucking IPOD is the receipt!

Last but not least, last week's announcement that Apple was going to suck Intel's dick. If you've been using Apple for a while or, just following their ad campaings, it always has been showing performance tests between Intel and Power PC. Apple claimed that even though the Megahertz on the PPC chip were lower than intel, it processed much faster than Intel. So what now, 'We were never at war with Eurasia'!, 'Ignorance is Strenght'!

Yeah, yeah, bitch, bitch, bitch, what the fuck am I going to do about it. I really can't believe it has taken me this long. I mean I switched my car for a vegetable oil car, withdrew from the corporate world, and try to live as far away from consumer culture as possible. You guessed it. I am going to make a slow but steady jump into Linux. Fuck you Apple.

Adium

For those of you on OSX and who have friends on multiple chat services, check out Adium. Comparable to Fire, but has more of the I-Chat prettyness to it. Thumbs up.

Netflix Killer?

I love the decentralized idea of Peer Flix. I don't like that I have to pay per trade, but I guess someone always wants to make some money. Check it out.

ET Phone Home

It's been a month and a day since we've been in Vancouver and we couldn't be happier. This city is a dream and I highly recommend for all of you to come visit to see what I am talking about. The weather has been lovely and the atmosphere inspiring.

I've been doing some 'work' for Good Company Communications, makers of the documentary 'The Corporation'. They are promoting a great cause while running a business successfully. WOW! Here's one of the projects I did for them.

I've also been talking with the folks from Adbusters and visited an artist run video collective called Video In. Their model is something that I would love to see implemented in Atlanta. They have 3 Final Cut Pro Edit Suites, a TV Studio, 1 Avid Suite and a Pro Tools Suite, plus a venue for screenings, and a distribution arm called Video Out. They rent out their studios and suites from $5 to $15 an hour or you can volunteer and earn video bucks which you can use towards renting the facilities. What a dream!

There is a nice ATL contingency here. Some of you might remember Eve and Motomasa. They have established themselves nicely in the DJ scene and also have a radio show.

Finally, I went surfing for the first time in my life last weekend. I gotta say I'm hooked. The water is fuckin cold, which explains the wet suit, but the scenery is spectacular.



Oh and before I forget, Big ups to UNDO Corp. the designers for subMediaTV.com for winning the Silver Seed Award for best lLash Website. Also big Ups To Alex Motlagh, whose video Bush Boys was selected for the Norwegian Short Film Festival.

That's all kids, stay tuned for more

love//the_stimulator