Oct
21

The Man and his stupid copywrite laws.

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OK, I know we have to protect the logos and hard creative work done by others, but I am faced with a situation currently on both my personal and business side that is making me wonder exactly what the logic is of these silly decisions.

First off the music industry.

I happen to love music, I am a big fan of all kinds of music and have a large CD collection of over 2000 CDs, as well as DVD videos of many of my favorite bands.

I used to be able to see all these bands on MTV and enjoy their videos and music, as well as listen to them in my car as I drove. This is my problem. I can’t hear the music of my favorite bands anymore, not legally anyhow. Radio stations back home have these programming directors that may or not play it. It seems at least in Canada these days we just don’t get the DJs that play whole albums anymore, it’s no longer up to them, I hear the US is the same way these days, not sure about the rest of the world.

The programing directors at the radio stations now decide based on the highest profitability of the radio station which songs will be played, instead of the music loving DJs of old, that just played what they wanted. The same thing has happened to MTV, its all about profit now, which is fine for them I guess, but I may not like what is popular and now I cant hear the music I like.

So what do I do? If I want to hear, or “try out” some music, I do what most people do,  search the Internet for what I want to her. Very recently I searched for some songs from Nickleback. Even though they are one of the biggest rock bands in the world today, and I happen to like them. I search and I search but I cant find the official video. Ones that were put up by fans yesterday are gone today due to copy write laws.

Why on earth do these big bands no longer want their videos to be played. OK I know Nickleback and most other large bands have official stations on YouTube, and on their official website, however they don’t display all the videos, and I cant hear all the songs. Often the Websites are not as easy to use as Google and YouTube . If the songs I want are there somewhere, I cant be bothered to find them, after five minutes I just give up forever.

Basically to make a long story short, I used to listen to the music and then buy it. Now I can no longer listen to the music, so of course I am not going to spend my $20 to see if they have any talent left.

Music Company, Epic Fail.

Second of all Mickey Mouse

OK do we all know who Mickey is? I would say yes but barely, Disney is so famous with their protecting of copy write laws, I swear I am afraid just mentioning them here will end me up in court.

Now I loved Disney as a kid, and loved going to their movies, I made sure I saw every one ever made until about 10 years ago. Then I just kind of forgot about them. Though I sill watch their films with my son from time to time.

Anyhow here I am in Asia, and people tend to ignore copy write laws here, everyone is free to print a mickey mouse shirt, and sell it on a street corner for 5 dollars, people buy them cheap and wear them. On my ninety minute walk today I was met with his cute little face no less that four times. They have little mickey logos on polo shirts, he is on bags and hats etc. People like him, he advertises Disney, and they are doing it for free.

Back home no one wears mickey, its not that he isn’t cute, but the local Disney store from where I lived was about a 45 minute drive, and the shirts are $30 each. Why bother ?

I forget all about Mickey back home, good job copy write lawyers.

Epic Fail Disney (wonder if I will get sued now)

Third of all beer t-shirts.

OK lots of people love beer, and lots of people travel and would love to have a beer shirt from places they have been. But beer companies want to be the only ones selling their shirts. The shirts on most of the official beer company sites are quite expensive, say about $30 plus shipping. So I would assume generally the people don’t buy them.

I used to sell a particular beer shirt on my website and was forced to take it down. I had outranked their official site on the Google Searches and I guess they didn’t like that. By the way I had surfed there official clothing site four times or so and had found it very difficult to find the actual shirts, it was painful to look for them through all the graphics, not to mention I had checked there Internet traffic numbers and they just didn’t get that many people. Basically a really bad site with lots of good graphics.

Why on earth don’t they want people to run around with their beer logos on their chest? I mean they spend millions if not billions on beer ads, billboards and event sponsorship. When did these guys decide that free advertising was a bad thing?

Beer Company, Epic Fail

This is a common pattern in current international big business, they so busy protecting their copy writes they have forgotten all about maximizing profits. They don’t even realize they are shooting themselves in the foot.

Way to go big business, when I go get my beer tonight I will forget to get one from your company, I wont have a new CD to listen to as I drink it, and my son wont be bugging me to watch a Disney film or go to Disneyland tomorrow. I hope you have somehow made enough profit elsewhere to make up for a world that is no longer craving your items, and that you somehow survive  in the future as more and more people forget you exist.

Oct
20

Believe Nothing You Hear and Only Halve of What You Read

I had a good friend say this statement to me once, a long time ago. I can’t remember exactly what we were talking about, but of course this applies to almost every situation of your life.

“Believe Nothing You Hear and Only Halve of What You Read”

We all know people lie, weather to save personal damage, or to try and get what they want. Some people actually lie so much they cant remember what the real story is anymore. This is the obvious nature of human beings.

Have you ever heard of Disinformation Campaigns? There are so many huge companies and governments, including our own that put lies in the media to try and shroud the truth of things. Why do they do this? Often they feel it is what is needed to prepare a country to battle against its enemies, or to keep the population peaceful and happy. Occasionally it is for a powerful person’s personal gain, or a group of individuals. I guess you could say there are White Lies and Black Lies, even from the highest levels of government.

For instance have you heard the one about trees causing global warming? What a ridiculous concept.

It is true a tree contains carbon, as do all carbon based lifeforms such as humans. And they may at times release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, like humans. But because they are made of a large amount of carbon, they are storing it, not creating it, it is the carbon they take from mother nature as they grow to create their mass. Therefore by cutting down the tree you have broken the storage container, and all the carbon it had accumulated through its life again will be released through burning or decomposition etc back into the atmosphere. This is like saying a water balloon creates water. So stupid and yet people eat it up when it comes from a “reputable” source such as their government or scientists.

Considering we continue to cut down trees that are hundreds, if not thousands of years old every day, that is a huge about of Carbon being released back into the atmosphere, and nothing to absorb it again.

Some countries replant seedlings, this is great, keep this up, but a thousand year old tree obviously stored more carbon than the fifteen centimeter seedling we replaced it with.

The idea of saying a tree causes carbon dioxide and global warming, was to help some of the huge clear cutting firms, and the businesses that cut, ship and sell the wood to the consumers stop looking like bad guys.

Yes these people want us to believe that they are saving the earth by killing all the trees. The sad thing is there are enough idiots out there that believe what they read, and then will argue with you that Trees are indeed the cause of global warming.

I found this interesting article by rolling stone recently – And “The Man” looks to have made them take it down … Here is a copy of it someone put on the Internet, there are several others that also made copies before it was taken down.

A Copy of the original

Of course again, how much are you going to believe, when do you know its the truth? Since everything we have learned from the media and school and talking to other people is full of lies you must learn to see the truth through the lies. You must first understand that what you actually really know is very little, you can only count on your personal observations and your abilities to see through the lies.

Does Carbon Dioxide even cause global warming? Most everyone says it does, some say it doesn’t, regardless, someone is obviously running a Disinformation Campaign.

I use the basic rule never to trust anyone that is trying to make money off of me. Though anyone that wants anything from me in general I am skeptical about. Approaching articles this way, will cut through most of the great media lies you are bombarded with in your life. As well as let you know when you can trust a stranger or not.

Please be aware all your media is influenced with propaganda, your own government is as we speak preparing you to fight wars for them. The most common reason for war is to make money.

You should definitely look at the sources of your information as you read, and then decide if you shouldn’t believe any of it, or if it is reputable enough to believe halve. If you believe everything you read, then read this.

If you don’t send me all your money tomorrow you will die and suffer forever in the afterlife.

Oct
19

Losing the Rat Race? Switch lanes.

I used to run pretty hard in the rat race. at the age of 18, back in 1992 I was making sixty thousand United States Dollars a year, and that went up a little bit over the next 4 years, but I never reached $70 000. I was working 70 hours a week, most of my friends at the time were in University, making nothing, or almost nothing.

I was making more money than the people I worked with, and all my friends. I had won the Rat Race that was in my lane (Place and Time).

I used to teach English privately in Japan back in 1999 for $120 US Dollars per hour, tax free. That was my highest hourly wage ever.

Now I am not sure what you have made before or are making now, that is irrelevant. I have a brother that would not be able to live on a measly $70 000 a year, he has friends that spend that in a month, believe it or not. He is not winning his current rat race and is still driven to make more money.

The Rat Race

Happiness Is Just Around The Corner

The rat race is all relative to the people around you and your surroundings. I am currently living in third world Asia, and my measly income of approximately $1000 US a month, puts me in good standings with my neighbors, and friends here. Most of them make similar or less.

With my thousand dollar a month income, I have enough money to rent a decent sized two bedroom, two bathroom house, pay for my son’s private school, run the air conditioners 24 hours a day if I wish, surf the Internet, watch satellite television, take air conditioned taxis to see movies in the cinema at least once a week, eat out 2 times a day and every second day get a two hour traditional massage.

Back home the massages alone would be over $1500 dollars a month in Canada, and I dare say they likely wouldn’t be as good.

Life is pretty good here on a thousand dollars a month. Wouldn’t you say?

Back home making $70 000 a year I was unable to do all that. So if you look at me back home making $70 000 a year or look at me now making just under $12 000 a year. I am actually living a much better life now on the $12 000.

Which would you choose, the making more than your friends scenario where you are still forced to budget to make ends meet? Or the lesser income in a country where you get a lot more for your money?

Basically, if you are sick of the rat race, consider switching lanes. What are you really after in life anyhow?

Oct
18

The Things I Do For Money Lyrics – Northern Pikes

This song from the eighties does a very decent job of summing up some of my current thoughts about money. It started going around in my head so I had to  look it up.

Here is the cheesy eighties video to go with the fantastic music and lyrics.

 

The things I do for money, I’ll never understand
I used to be quite critical, but now I find I’m cynical
A lady with a starving baby miles away from me
No problems they’re just life and death
And what the hell is wrong with me
And everybody else

No questions asked
Just get receipts and write them off
Expenses – taxes are a ***** these days
Yet the lady and the baby starve
While waiting for a contribution in a UNICEF box
In a drugstore in this ugly little town

The things I do for money
I’ll never understand
The world is just a marble
In the palm of my hand
The palm of my hand
The palm of my hand
The things I do for money
I’ll never understand
The world is just a marble
In the palm of my hand

The things I waste my time on, I’ll never understand
I used to be quite practical, but now I find I’m tactical
I scrape and scheme and struggle hard
To get myself ahead
Have no concern for anyone but me

Oct
17

Poem I wrote in Cambodia while under fire.

While watching a large battle in Cambodia, and hoping no bombing or gunfire would hit me, I wrote this poem.

Yes, I know it is very dark, but I was in a weird time and place.

The ticking is but all I hear,
it is our gauge till death appears.

Forever now I’ve watched the clock,
whenever will my glancing stop?

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