So if you’re into this whole video gaming thing you’ve probably heard about Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 not having dedicated servers on the PC. The basic concept behind dedicated servers is that unlike most console games, where one of the players hosts a network game and everyone else connects to that one player, a dedicated server acts as the host of a game and all the players connect to that server. Why would you want this?

Back in the late 90s, when broadband internet was still an emerging trend and nowhere near the relative norm it is today, PC games allowed you to play both peer-to-peer and on dedicated servers. Anyone who’s ever actually played a peer-to-peer game in those bad old days remembers why it’s a horrible idea: because the player who is the host has zero ping. That means everything the host player sees—where other players are and where they’re shooting—is exactly where everything is supposed to be, while for everyone else, there’s a certain amount of lag. The host player can aim right at a running person and hit them easily; other players in the game will shoot at where they think the player is, but will hit nothing.

Of course, it’s not the late 90s anymore; connections have improved, and so has the state of client prediction. But the same basic principles apply. Now add to that some of the other reasons why dedicated servers are so beloved—they often sit on fat network pipes, as opposed to the crappy cable modem or DSL pipe most individuals have; they can have custom maps, mods and rulesets; they serve as community focus points where everyone knows your name—and you might start to see why everyone is in an uproar over the sudden removal of dedicated servers.

Personally, I don’t have any major interest in custom mods or maps, and I’ve never played on a server so much that I got to know the regulars that frequented them. I don’t have any inherent issues with matchmaking. But the lag issue, ingrained in me after years of playing multiplayer games on a 56k modem, is still a big deal for me—especially when you consider that PC games tend to allow more players in a match than consoles do. Moreover, the way Infinity Ward has treated the issue has been nothing short of abysmal. They’ve mostly failed to address directly the various concerns the PC community have brought up, instead parroting the same flimsy reassurances over and over: we’re doing this to simplify the process, you won’t see any performance decrease, and you’ll have just as much control as you used to when you had dedicated servers.

Myself, I’m at a bit of a crossroads. Infinity Ward has shown that they’re not really interested in PC gaming anymore; despite claiming that they’ve invested a ton of time into the PC version of Modern Warfare 2, the fact remains that they almost slipped a major change past the PC community and have since remained unrepentant even as people cancel their pre-orders and explain in many different ways why this is a Bad Idea. So I’ve cancelled my pre-order of the PC version. But I’ve also taken the step of doing exactly what I suspect Infinity Ward and Activision would want me to do: I pre-ordered the 360 version instead, even though it cost $5 more than my PC pre-order.

Why on earth would I do this? Because I’m reasonably sure that Modern Warfare 2 will be worth the money, and if they’re so interested in pissing off PC gamers and pampering their console brethren, I may as well join the pack. After all, I have two consoles and a hefty PC for a reason—so I wouldn’t have to sit things out whenever a game came out for the console I didn’t own. If Modern Warfare 3 or whatever doesn’t come out on PC, that’s not a problem for me. And for PC gamers who don’t have that option, I feel as though there are still plenty of options for the PC shooter fan—between old chestnuts like the well-supported Team Fortress 2 and newer entries like Borderlands and Left 4 Dead 2, it certainly doesn’t seem like PC gaming is in its death throes. And with Battlefield developer DICE taking every opportunity to implictly and explicitly slamming Infinity Ward for their decision, I doubt the dedicated server will be disappearing from the PC landscape anytime soon, even if Activision and Infinity Ward wish it would.

Well, first, the chart is wrong, as the Joystiq post indicates. The Xbox 360 leads in all categories for total console minutes, the Wii comes in second in all categories, and the PS3 comes in last. The original chart showed the PS3 dominating in the over-27 category; this turned out to be, yes, a statistical foul-up. But there’s a second issue that’s more subtle but potentially more interesting.

There are four columns in the chart: one for % of total console minutes, and ones measuring average number of sessions, length of sessions, and number of days per month the console is in use. Strangely, the average number of sessions, session length and days in use figures seem very similar across consoles—the 360 gets used about a week more often than the PS3 in the under-27 group and Wii sessions tend to be shorter, but otherwise the numbers don’t seem to work out. The most glaring example is the over-27 category, where the 360 and PS3 have very similar figures in all three columns, but then show a 30% gap in total console minutes. What gives?

Without seeing the raw numbers or an explanation of what exactly each column means, it’s hard to say, but I think the % of total console minutes represents a percentage out of the total amount of minutes spent playing on any console in the country. If the number of sessions, time per session, and days per month figures were exactly the same for all consoles, the % of total console minutes figure would correspond exactly to… the percentage of people owning that particular console compared to total console ownership. In other words, each console’s market share is built into that percentage of total console minutes figure.

What that means is the percentage of total console minutes is less an indicator of overall satisfaction or use of each console, and more a reflection of how well each one has done in the marketplace. The average sessions figures better reflect usage patterns: young 360 gamers are the most hardcore, while old Wii gamers are the least so. Somehow I don’t think that’s going to be news to anyone.

The past couple of months have been a bit strange for me and my usually peachy relationship with music. I don’t know why 2008’s been so troublesome, but never have I felt so old and just plain out-of-it as I have this year. I always expected that as I grew older, I’d eventually stop listening to new music and become one of Those People—you know, the ones convinced all the interesting music was made years ago, coincidentally around the time they were in high school or college—but never did I imagine the decline would be so steep or sudden.

It’s in that limbo that I went to Lee’s Palace on Thursday night to catch the Long Blondes, a band whose show last year made me beg for their return. “Couples,” however, is not the immediately satisfying listen that Someone to Drive You Home was, and evidence suggests a lot of people feel the same way I do. So I carried three levels of uncertainty into that concert. Would the new material sound better live? Was my infatuation with the Long Blondes necessarily a short-lived affair? And did any or all of this have anything to do with the fact that me and music appeared to be breaking up with one another?

This probably sounds like way too much introspection for a concert, but then I’ve been trying to figure out the Long Blondes all over again ever since “Couples” came out. First impressions were pretty dismal; aside from “Century,” “Guilt” and “Here Comes the Serious Bit,” there didn’t seem to be anything on the album to convince anyone the Long Blondes were here to stay. But since then, my feelings about the album reached a bizarre equilibrium: there’s still nothing on the new album that satisfies like the old, and yet I can’t quite imagine going back, nor can I get some of these songs out of my head. The chorus to “Erin O’Connor” lingers, even though I can’t bring myself to say I love the song; similarly “Round the Hairpin” and “Too Clever by Half” have gone from dismal failures to stealth favourites in the space of a month. And still I can’t say “Couples” is great; it’s like I can accept the album on an intellectual basis or a subconscious basis, but in the region of my brain that traditionally loves pop music to bits… nothing.

So let’s talk about the show, yeah? It wasn’t so dissimilar from last year’s epic show, but everything else seemed to have changed. The crowd didn’t seem as large or nearly as enthusiastic, for one: at the end of the show it looked seriously like there’d be no encore, so weak was the final applause. Maybe it had something to do with the new songs, only about half of which had the energy of old favourites like “Once and Never Again.” It probably didn’t help that Kate Jackson, the obvious focal point of the band’s stage presence, would occasionally retire to the back of the stage to bang on a snare drum or play keyboards. When Kate disappears from view, you’re left with Dorian, Emma and Reenie up front, and you realize that while the rest of the band may be charmers off stage (Screech and Emma seemed in high spirits after the show at the merch table), on stage they have a more standoff-ish stance. It’s as though they’re content to let Kate be the center of attention.

But they did the same sorts of things last year and everyone ate it up, which leads me to believe the real issue wasn’t so much the show itself as everything else. Standing about a foot away from the stage, and seeing a ragged front row another foot behind me, it almost felt like the rest of the audience had experienced the same musical fatigue I had over the past few months. Maybe the fun people had better things to do on a Thursday night, or maybe I was too busy taking photos half the night to notice (but I put down the camera halfway through the night and noticed no difference!), or maybe I’m just projecting. But last night’s show was not the lethargy antidote I’d hoped it would be, and I can’t even say whether that’s the Long Blondes’ fault, the crowd’s fault, or just my own.

Quick notes:

• “Century” sounds great with a faster tempo, but the laser-blast synths from the middle section were sorely missed. Nevertheless it still remains one of my favourite Long Blondes songs to date.
• “Lust In the Movies” is a great song, but “Swallow Tattoo” and “Separated By Motorways” still wins by a landslide for best. encore. ever.
• I missed most of Hunter Valentine but did catch the Drug Rug set. Their live show turns down the manicured back-country feel of the album and turns up the bluesiness a tad, and the female guitarist doesn’t sound nearly so much like Joanna Newsom in person, so I guess you can add Drug Rug to the list of bands that sound way better live than recorded. Also, BEARDS.

All of the above means sales should be dismal. No one plays complicated games on a PC that they can swipe without even using a crack. And yet Sins of a Solar Empire beat Call of Duty 4 to take top spot on the PC sales charts last week. The game has sold over 100,000 copies in 23 days, a not-insignificant sum for an indie publisher like Stardock and an indie developer like the Vancouver-based Ironclad. In addition to besting Call of Duty 4 last week, Sins has outperformed highly anticipated PC games like Crysis and Unreal Tournament 3.

I bought a copy for myself based solely on a Joystiq preview a couple of days before release, and it’s the best impulse game purchase I’ve made in a very long time. I just didn’t realize so many people agreed with me.

I’m not alone in asking the question; shortly after the first Stewart and Colbert episodes on Monday, TVSquad wondered about the same thing. Who does the graphics? Who ties jokes to those graphics? Who picks out clips and decides they should be the target of ridicule? And in the case of all the talk shows returning without writers, not just Stewart and Colbert, who does the research and plans the questions for the guests? Some of these tasks seem distinctly writer-ish.

Some more insights into TheA Daily Show during the writers’ strike comes from an audience member who saw the taping of Monday’s episode. On the one hand, the description of how the first segment played out originally makes it clear Stewart’s ad-libbing. But then there was the question from the audience of how the show came together, and Stewart’s statement that “thoughts didn’t go through the fingertips”—in other words, an outline of the show but no script. Does writing cease to be writing if you make it sufficiently vague or don’t actually put it down on paper? When you’re not coming up with specific jokes, but you are sketching out topics to cover, is that planning or writing?

One thing’s for sure—by the time the writers’ strike is over, the average television viewer will probably have a much better idea of just what a writer does on a talk show, if only because these sorts of questions are going to keep coming up.

According to a Visa Canada survey, more than five million Canadians planned to hit the shops on Boxing Day. After electronics, the most sought after item was clothing.

(…)

However, the Visa survey also found the number of Canadians planning to make purchase on Wednesday was 17 per cent less than in 2006, and the lowest number since 2002. Those who do decide to hit the stores are expected to spend less too.

Prowling the RedFlagDeals forums this year reveals much the same story—disappointment at lacklustre sale prices, unstable online shopping experiences, and a growing distaste for huge lines and mob rule at store opening in order to claim hot items available in extremely limited quantities. When 500 people line up outside a store hoping for a crack at 20 HD DVD players, a lot of people are bound to go home disappointed. With the diehard bargain hunters realizing that many of the Boxing Day deals aren’t much better than sale prices from the rest of the year, it looks like for the person in the know there’s really not too much point to braving the crowds and the traffic.

That said, I did pounce on one Boxing Day deal, though it’s actually been available for a couple of days now and involved no lineups, limited quantities or even leaving the house. And assuming I never need to contact Dell’s horrific warranty service for repair, I imagine it really will feel like Christmas when I get my shiny new PS3 in the mail. RedFlagDeals strikes again!

One TV spot features an exploding gas canister that blows a construction worker off the side of a building. Another shows a young chef slipping on grease and dumping a vat of boiling water on herself, leaving her writhing on the kitchen floor while her skin peels off in bloody ribbons. The Workplace Safety and Insurance Board says they toned down the actress’s screams in editing because they worried they were too upsetting.

Metafilter has a thread on the subject, and I can’t even bring myself to read the whole thing, let alone actually watch the YouTube videos. Thanks, Ontario government, for giving me ample reason to avoid Canadian television altogether for about four months!

Unfortunately, the Zune doesn’t lock you into iTunes because it locks you into a Zune ecosystem instead: the new Zune desktop software, which you must use in order to sync all your music with your Zune. Worse, the third-party software situation is even worse than the already abysmal iPod situation, in that there is none. It’s Zune software or nothing.

This might’ve been okay if the Zune software was powerful and flexible enough to basically allow you to do whatever you liked with your music, the way you could if you could just dump music files on your Zune via the filesystem. Unfortunately, it appears the Zune software is even more crippled than iTunes. This, along with Microsoft’s continuing hatred of any country that isn’t the United States (any attempt to even purchase a Zune via the new Zune Originals site, for example, is met with a lovely ACCESS DENIED message in Canada—I guess Microsoft really doesn’t want Canadian money), means the Zune 80 is off my list of MP3 players to purchase as well.

Which leaves exactly ZERO MP3 players I’d be willing to buy. There has been a shocking lack of development in the hard drive MP3 player world; it’s as if every company has suddenly decided there’s no market for people who want to carry around their entire music collection—or at least a significant subset thereof—in their pockets any more. The only companies that even offer 80/160GB variants are Apple, Microsoft, and Archos, and the Archos 605 Wifi is out because its touchscreen interface fails an extremely basic test: how do I play all my songs in Shuffle Mode? I couldn’t figure this out after ten minutes of poking around in the music interface. No. No. No.

Just as bad is the general tendency to lock people into software ecosystems that don’t meet people’s needs. The Zune software issue isn’t great, but it’s a hundred times worse because without substantial third-party or open source efforts to make software that can crack the Zune’s lockout, the Zune software is the only game in town. In other words, the deficiencies of the desktop software effectively become the deficiencies of the device itself. iTunes is more functional, but because of the nanny state it practically imposes on your music library, it’s equally untenable. And with Apple’s recent move to include a device hash specifically designed to lock the iPod to iTunes, third-party software suffered a setback. Though OSS projects like gtkpod cracked the new hash in a matter of days, the symbolic gesture isn’t lost on them. The makers of Amarok, another Linux iPod manager, basically said the only way to keep your device free of lockouts is to stop buying iPods.

I can see why you’d want to include your own software with your music player. From a new user standpoint it makes perfect sense; why tell people to move all their files using Explorer when having an all-in-one solution makes it easier for the novice to get started on moving music to their shiny new toy? What I don’t understand is why the major DAP manufacturers then take the extra step of locking out other software, so that the novice-user solution becomes the only solution. I’m not afraid of modifying my own ID3 tags; indeed, I prefer to do it that way so I don’t have to screw around with my computer’s music library just so all my singles are marked properly on my MP3 player as having no album. I’m not afraid of moving files by myself via Explorer. And even if you aren’t like me and you are afraid of doing all that on your lonesome, it’s not hard to look at software like Amarok and Sharepod and wonder if third-party developers can’t come up with solutions more palatable than iTunes of the Zune software.

To make an analogy to the web, it’d be as though Bill Gates or Steve Jobs said, “we’ve included this great web browser for you in Windows/OS X, and you cannot use any others.” Legions of Firefox users would then be stuck with Safari—or even worse, Internet Explorer 6. I rather like Firefox, thanks. I’d like to be able to manage my music the way I like as well, and the first company that makes an 80GB player that lets me do so will get my hard-earned money.