Sony Karabiner Headphones MDR-KE30LW (black)

A couple years ago, I used to purchase Sony Headphones exclusively. I was very much a fan of the Sony MDR-E755
series of earbuds, they weren't too big as to fit poorly, and they were quite comfortable and produced a good sound. Unfortunately Sony phased them out and replaced them with
MDR-E818LP series Headphones in their place, which are bigger, clunkier, and not all black (They have a bit of grey on them). In any case, the point is I was righteously pissed with sony, and have been avoiding them altogether. Now though, they seem to have realised the errors of their ways, and have introduced what may be an original idea in terms of earbud headphones. They have combined a pair of headphones into a convenient karabiner that roll up when not in use and prevent entanglement.

Now, As you can see by the pictures I have provided, aside from being Karabiner style they are reminiscant of the MDR-E818LP series headphones I enjoyed so much back in the past. That plus the fact that they were in the handy karabiner and were on sale at circuit city:the source for $24.99 meant that even if I didn't like them, they were only $25.00 and were probably decent enough in quality that I would find some use out of them. The only real question for me was how the Karabiner was designed.

Unfortunately the Karabiner is poorly designed, the clip part is a cheap piece of plastic that doesn't clip very well. You can go to a dollar store and buy an actual metal carabiner for $1 and it will perform better. Which is what I ultimately ended up doing. the pulling mechanism for the earbuds is decent, but the length of the 3.5mm plug is woefully inadequate, and does not extend beyond what is shown in the above picture. I solved this again, by purchasing at circuit city:the source this $6 headphone extension cord, which had the added bonus of including a volume adjustment. I listen to
mp3's with my pda most of the time, and having the volume control is very useful. But I'm not going to bitch at sony for not including that, I'm just saying if you want to lengthen the jack cord, this is a reasonable solution, though the cord should still have been a few inches longer in my mind, and the fact that it does not roll up into the Karabiner is poor design. I have usb cords for my ipaq that do a far more effective job of rolling up into their casings, same with those rollup ethernet cables.

In any case, I managed to make up for the shortcomings of the Karabiner headphones, by purchasing the aforementioned volume control headphone extension and a cheap metal karabiner from the dollar store, which I attached to the cheap plastic karabiner that came with this product (as opposed to a pair of keys, which is what that karabiner was designed for) and all in all, it works for me, but Sony should hopefully realise the shortcomings of the karabiner casing, and any future versions could easily be improved with these suggestions.

Furthermore, the cord's could have been a bit longer, but my general dissapointment with the karabiner and casing should not be confused with the excellent sound quality sony gives us as usual. The earbuds are perfectly sized, everything is all black, (there is a pink version as well for some reason, surprised they didn't just go with black and white but went with pink and black) .. An amusing thing I noticed was that while circuit city: the source had them for $24.99 (and I still call them Radio Shack in my mind even though Circuit City changed the name to the source by circuit city here in Canada) it amused me to see the exact same headphones at the Sony store in the exact same mall for almost $50. Which is strange, as the sony style website has them for $24.99. So, all in all, a decent product with obvious shortcomings, but for something that at least to me seems an original idea, that's bound to happen and hopefully they can improve on their future revisions to this product in a way that makes my having to adjust for the shortcomings unneccessary.

NHL Playoffs in perspective

As a Winnipeger, I have spent the last decade without my NHL team.. That said, It's playoff time, and there are 4 teams left. I think and hope Ottawa wins the Stanley Cup this year. It would no doubt make millions of Torontonians' brains melt instantly from the shock. Furthermore, I hope Detroit manages to beat the Anaheim Ducks. I never really considered Detroit as a contender for the cup, but some crazy force is pushing them through, and there would be nothing better for ratings in the USA and Canada for Detroit to play Ottawa (except if Detroit played Buffalo maybe but that's not going to happen)

So tomorrow, Ottawa plays Buffalo in the middle of the day, which is a horrible time to watch a hockey game. Hockey games are an evening thing. 6 or so. It's all NBC's fault, but what do they care about tradition. CBC got jacked though, considering NBC doesn't pay a damn cent up front.

I have to qualify that I don't want the Ducks to win mostly because I don't believe they should exist as a team. I like the San Jose Sharks, and the L.A Kings, and find the ducks existence superfluous. I like Teemu Sellanne and coach Randy Carlyle well enough for being ex-Jets, but they're working for a team that I don't believe has any right playing for the Stanley Cup. Still, I can live with any of the other 3 teams winning the cup, for some strange reason, as Detroit, Buffao, and Ottawa winning would just be like a stake to the heart of Toronto Maple Leafs fans, and anything that shocks them into seing the reality and futility of their obsessive compulsion to root for a failure of a team is a good thing.

They Got Over It

I've been a Fark user for a while now, and a few weeks back, Fark.com did a web redesign. I personally found the redesign a bit jarring and unnecessary, but its their site, and what do I care. However, when one of their moderators, "Jeff", told paying members of that site to get over it, many swore off fark.com as a sellout (it may just be) and left. Meanwhile, Fark.com is trying to take over ownership of user submissions, banning people for idle chatter it finds unsuitable, deleting posts of images of hot chicks, and generally turning into something acting like it was owned by Rupert Murdoch.

I was actually a paid member of Totalfark for all of one month (figured I'd try it before I decided I liked it or not) and while it was interesting, it wasn't worth $5 a month to me, especially after the site change. Doesn't really matter, Drew Curtis is rumoured to make around $600,000 a month from his site, which I find astounding if true. Plus he's selling a book, so good for him.

That brings me to bannination.com, which I found out through subtle posts on Fark.com. It's a site where all of the dissafected former paying members of totalfark (and probably some others) created a (still work in progress) answer to fark.com. I think it shows promise, considering it is only 3 weeks old. Hopefully they give Fark.com some good competition. Unfortunately I'm user number 688, and not 666. Which will haunt me to the day I die. But, its my own fault for signing up too late. So, today is invite all of your enemies to bannination.com day, and since everyone who reads my blog is probably an enemy of mine in some way or another, go for it.

How do you know if you are my enemy? Do you like the Toronto Maple Leafs? Do you hate me? Then you are my enemy, and you are obligated to sign up now.

WB threatens mass muggle killings, no more preview screenings, unless Canada changes copyright laws to suit its whims.

Various news outlets a week ago reported on WB banning preview screenings in Canada, because they claim 70% of pirated movies come out of Canada.

So we here in Canada won't be able to attend preview screenings of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, or Oceans 13. (Not like we would have gotten tickets anyways, mostly well connected folks in the entertainment industry get those hookups)

Now, I'm not against stronger rules against piracy per se, but I don't like having a foreign company dictate to us about copyright laws. In fact, my first impulse upon hearing about WB doing this was to petition my MP to ban WB movies altogether, or some act of retribution in a similar vein. It's not like they won't make money on Harry Potter.or Oceans 13, nor is it likely that they are telling the truth about the percentage of movies that come out of Canada (They mostly come out of Asia, but are they doing anything about them? Nope not a damn thing)

Unfortunately, this has nothing to do with piracy, and everything to do with creating a mood in our country. American media intrests want us to change our copyright laws to conform to restrictive american copyright laws. They want things to remain copyright to business esentially forever. So if you want to sample something for a music track, well, tough luck.

Why do they want this? Well. look at youtube. Many beatles songs are coming out of copyright pretty soon, In 2013, copyright for the Beatles' first album expires, also recordings from Elvis Presley, Cliff Richard and other performers of the same era. That trickle will lead to a flood of music being public domain. Imagine being able to use this music and creating your own movie with some songs in the background without having to pay WB or whoever getting a cut. Imagine being able to sample this music in your rap songs without worrying about being sued. The major entertainment companies despise this notion, even though thats how copyright works. Copyright is a TEMPORARY right to a monopoly on an entertainment release, allowing it certain rights such as protection under the law from infringement, for a reasonable amount of time.

Media interests want this amount of time to be forever. They want to own the creative process, make money off of someones work they own in perpetuity. These copyright laws aren't about stopping camcording of a movie (who watches cams of movies? Nobody who would pay to see it in the first place) Media interests want you to watch their movies on their special magically encrypted box or in their theatres where they control how you watch it, along what previews you see.

If you are Canadian, please mail your MP that you are against rollin over and givin American media interests any extra provisions in OUR laws so that they can monopolize the public domain forever and ever and limit OUR creativity in the process.

Fact of the matter is, We owe WB nothing. The Trailer Park Boys movie never aired in American movie theatres. Why is that? Because American's have no problem restricting us from making money off our cultural exports. WB, Disney, all these conglomerates own all of the american distribution channels and lock Canadians out. We should do the same, and say screw off.

Spider-Man 3

So I saw Spider-Man 3. It would have been a good movie if:

1) Less of Kirsten Dunst "singing"
2) Less of Tobey Maguire dancing
3) Less of Emo Peter Parker (seriously is that the toughest they could make him?)
4) No Venom.

No Venom you say? Exactly. I'm not saying the alien costume shouldn't have been left in the movie, but it was wasted. The costume did nothing for peter except make him angry. It didn't form into other clothes. It may have made him stronger, but it didn't have the same effect. Eddie Brock should have become venom after the credits rolled, as a cliffhanger for Spider-Man 4. Plus not having venom would have changed the whole final fight in the film, and even moreso, Venom was not used correctly. Clearly Sam Raimi didn't want to use Venom, as can be deduced how totally he disposed of the character. I mean, Venom said "I like being bad"... that's not the character! It misses the point. It really felt like they wanted to wrap things up completely, which was a shame.

The previews before the movie were quite horrible, including one for some chick whose brother dies and then she says to herself "I'm going to become a butch lesbian soccer player on the boys team to live up to him" What? What a stupid idea for a movie. I don't see anybody paying to see it. Fact:Girls are not on the same level as Guys when it comes to sports. Ridiculous.

Blogging is hard work

It really is, I just have not had anything interesting to say in the last few months, that includes everything I've posted to this blog and what I'm about to post right now. I was perusing another website when a picture of the Provincial Legislature was posted, and I thought, that scene looks totally familiar, and it just cried out to be photoshopped.. so here it is. Hope you enjoy it. All apologies to the guy who took the original picture, but once you see the 'shop you'll see that I had no choice in the matter whatsoever, it had to be done. Click on it for a bigger view.


As you can see, I find the current election boring. I really don't want the NDP to win. I'm already not especially socially minded, but on top of it they're bribing us with our own money, misappropriating funds from government run corporations for NDP advertising.. they've been in power too long and they've become even more corrupt and unaccountable than any the federal Liberals in my opinion. Hopefully my riding votes Conservative, even though Hugh McFayden hasn't particularly done anything spectacular to win over the populace yet.