I guess that firstly, I should inform you that this "article" is not all that it appears to be. In fact, it is not an article at all, it's just a collective embodiment of my biggest complaints at this point in time. It's not intended to be funny at all, but if you wanna laugh at/with me, go nuts. If you do read it, at the end you'll probably think "Man, this guy has it easy" becasue most of this stuff is rather trivial, but it plays a large part in my life, so I'm gonna rant about it. Got it? Good. Also, a lot of it might not make sense to you, but don't worry, it makes sense in my head, and that's all that really matters.

The first thing I wanna complain about is file-sharing. Specifically music. Now all was well and good back in the days of Napster supremacy, but it's gone steadily downhill. I know that technically it's wrong to do, but everyone who has a computer, internet access, and the ability to hear does it. Hell, I'm sure even deaf people do it just to smite whoever the Hell they might wanna smite. Now there's seventy-billion-and-one file sharing programs out there, and 98.7% of them are virtually (and I use that in the literal sense) drenched in Spyware. Now I'm not sure exactly what the purpose of this Spyware is, but I do know that it decreases the performance of my PC by 200%, and that's not including the lag that's caused by legitimate programs. And then it's impossible to properly clean out of the system without permanetly screwing it over. Then you've gotta reformat the whole damn thing. And for waht? A couple songs from a slutty popstar or ass-stupid(I stand by my phrasing) rapper. And the people who make these things are probably "rotfltao" because they know they've killed the computers of everyone else in the world. Like I said, everyone and his grandma are in on this thing. Computers aren't just for us geeks anymore. But that's another rant. My second problem with these "P2Ps" is the actual probability of getting what you want. Fisrt off, we have idiots who rename files to something completely different. Say you want the new Saliva song. You wait however long your connection feels necessary and then you discover that your time has been wasted on "The Ketchup Song". Which, while I'm here, is probably the worst song that I've ever heard, and I've been exposed to a lot of crappy music. Then there's the people who take the chorus of a song and repeat it over and over for ten minutes. It wouldn't be so bad, but the morons who eventually come into posession of these things actually keep them and then they spread even further and the real file become rarer than some really rare thing. I mean come on people! Why the Hell would you keep a song that is so clearly a ruse meant to appease the fad-followers instead of deleting it and trying to find the real one? Just more proof that humanity's collective intelligence had dropped dangerously low.

Finally we've got the problem of horrible waits. Depending on which program you're using, D/Ling one 2-minute song could take weeks. WinMX, for example very rarely has any content available, you're always in a queue. Then once you do start downloading, the connection is lost or the user from whom you're taking the file logs out. It only gets worse when you want video files. They're huge, and coupled with the problems above, they can literally take forever to finish. Sure you could get lucky and find a file which doesn't have 2000 people waiting in line to get it, but I'll fly before that ever happens. Lastly, I'm tackling porn. It's everywhere. You can't search for a single item without at least 5 results related to porn. Sure, if it's what you're looking for that's all well and good, but 7 year-olds are using these things for God's sake. Kids are already slutting themselves out at the grade 5 level, all we need is for the elementary kids to start. It doesn't help that most of the popular music is strongly encouraging that kind of behaviour. Seriously, people like Eminem and Christina Ag-whatever should really think about what they're teaching their largest audiences. I don't know about you, but I don't ever want to see a world led by the youth of today.

Now, I've gotta do some complaining about technology, but mosly about computers and computer-related things. Wait... that is technology. And the P2Ps fall into that catgory too... Whatever. The biggest thing right now is the one thing that is least complained about. The mouse. No, not the rodent, stupid. That little thing attached to your computer that makes things happen when you push on it. Now in a normal scenario, I have nothing to complain about, but my scenario isn't normal. I have a battery-operated mouse. I wanna slap the idiot who came up with this idea. But then again, I wanna slap everyone. It's a huge problem in my household, becasue we never, ever, buy batteries until we need them. My mom thought it was a gesture of kindness to buy this for us, and I don't blame her, she's not all up to speed on these kind of things. And besides, we really needed a new mouse. Now I'm fine if it dies. I can navigate everything I need to without the help of the mouse, but everyone else is pretty much cut off from the PC until someone goes out and gets new batteries. Which alone, can take weeks. And think of all the other non-geeks who get one of these babies. Totally screwed. What are they to do? Sure they could use the batteries from the TV remote, but then they can't surf the music video channels and use the computer at the same time.

As I mentioned earlier, all the cool and socially accepted people are getting into computers now. It's not just a geek hobby anymore. But what do they use them for? Instant messenging and downloading music. Gone are the days of actually going to see your friends, now you just see their font. Now you may call me a hypocrite because I myself use MSN Messenger to do most of my conversing. Be that as it may, but I'm a one of the poeple who has other computer needs, such as webmastering, gaming, and that tiny bit of programming I used to do so badly. That and I'm very introverted, so it's a lot easier for me to talk to people when it's not face-to-face. My brother always begs to get on the computer "just so he can see who's online". Yup, I live with a veritable IM-man-slut. If you need proof, I'll send some of the chat logs he so willingly keeps. I just think that internet chatting on a whole is a stupid thing. I'm the last person to say it, but we're gonna get very, very distant from one another someday. And it's not gonna be too long before verbal communication all but disappears. Back to the topic at hand though, we've got everyone on the internet now. Actually, besides the whole IM thing and all-around slowing down the net, that's about all I can pull from it.

I really want to rag on PC's now. It's a very thin line between love and hate with 'em. Yes, I spend most of my time with my computer, but it's also the source of 80% of my anger and frustration. If the damn thing woudln't be such a pile of crap, maybe I could get some real use out of it. As you may or may not know, I'm first and foremost a gamer. Everything else comes second. Unfortunately, my PC was optimized for gaming 5 years ago, if not more. Even then, optimized is being nice. Really nice. Nowadays, I can't even install most of the games that I'd like to play because my PC is so damn outdated. And it's not like it's cheap to get a new PC either. Luckily, I can fall back on my precious consoles, which don't need to be updated every week so that they can play the newest game. It makes no sense to increase the system requirements every damn time they make a game. There should be options for those like me who can't afford to drop several grand on new computer parts every month. The other thing that really saves me here is that for the most part, I love old games and would choose a bunch of NES ROMS over some repeated first-person shooter anyday. But there's still the strategy games that I love so much. All of them have made this huge leap from fake 3D to real 3D, effectively disabling me from playing them. I'm talking mainly about Command & Conquer here. SimCity 4 probably doesn't have that much on 3000, but C&C Generals makes me salivate and I can't do a damn thing but watch the intro scene play at 60 frames per hour.

The last thing I have to complain about here is the overall terribleness of Windows. It just can't do anything right. I know that anyone who knows a lick about computers will be laughing their asses of when they read this, but all I want is a computer that can just work 100%. No "System errors" or "Your registy is screwed. I'll have to restart fifty times now"; just smooth workage. It's hard when you can't do anything without being afraid of a freeze attack or haphazard closing of your current project. It's bound to happen at least once every time you try to type something important. I can't even run some of my older games because Windows is having it's period and won't respond to anything I do and makes a horrible buzzing noise after locking up the installation program. Not to mention that it's extremely prone to buggage and other assorted virii. And it's always hard for me to solve the constant problems, because in the art of computers, I'm still what my peers might call a padawan. I'm just lucky that my friends don't charge for their services, or I'd have abandoned this thing altogether years ago.

Well, that's all I really had to get off my chest today. After looking back at it, I was right, some of it might not make as much sense as it did while I was typing it, but it's a rant, so it doesn't necessarily have to make sense. It's not like I thought it out like an article or review, I just let if flow into my fingers and let them do their work. Kinda subconsciously. I think I was actually paying more attention to the music I was listening to than what I was typing. I have some more things to complain about, but I'll save them for the next rant, if I ever get around to doing another one. If I do, here are some things to look forward to, and to make sure I remember to mention them:
-crappiness of new games
-crappiness of new movies
-why waiting sucks
-more!

~Ryan