Cav's Place

The 2011 Formula One season has finally started, with the first official practice sessions taking place earlier today, but this year this unfortunately means yet another reason for me to be unhappy. That’s because a certain TV station from here, the one that’s buying just about any sports event that anybody might be interested in except those few that are required by law to be made available to all, got the rights to broadcast this too. As a result, for the first time since 1993, which was a season that wasn’t broadcast here, I will be missing an entire Formula One season. In fact, the last race I missed was, I believe, the 2004 United States Grand Prix, because it was before getting the TV tuner and, being in the evening for us, Andra and her mom wanted to watch a TV series that was on at the same time, so I had to give in and just follow the timing and commentary on-line, only asking them to switch to it for a couple of minutes to see what happened to Ralf Schumacher.
What this all means is that, due to the awful laws of capitalism, I’ll be stuck just following the live timing and what little commentary is available on-line for the entire season now. Of course, if I’ll find a trustworthy site live streaming the races, whether legally or, most likely, “pirating” the broadcast, regardless of the country that broadcast would be meant for, I’ll watch it all there. But sites that “pirate” TV broadcasts never seemed trustworthy to me, or at least all those I found required you to install things that immediately raised red flags for me. Then again, I never particularly searched for something like this, so it may just be the time to do so.

Speaking of “piracy”, I just want to add here that a piece of shit I stumbled upon a few days ago means I’m planning yet another rant on the topic soon. Then again, considering how my planned posts have been faring recently, you shouldn’t hold your breath for it.
Thing is that it is very relevant now because just this sports channel proves my point when it comes to the “losses” claimed due to “piracy”. I was following pretty much every match in the Romanian football championship when they were broadcast on channels that were available to all. When channels offered by just one cable provider, which isn’t the one I’m on, started offering them, I simply stopped watching. And you can’t say that the decision was entirely out of my hands because dad was considering switching back then, if at all possible, and I was firmly against it. Granted that there were other reasons for avoiding the switch as well, mainly the fact that it’d mean a switch to digital and needing to get a separate control set for each TV, since over here they don’t even give you the option to only get the smart card, if you have TVs or TV tuners that can use them to decode a digital signal, but my first argument was simply that I won’t give in.
The rule is simple: If they require me to do something I don’t care to do in order to gain access to some content I want, I’ll simply look for other options and, if none are available, instead of giving in I’ll just learn to do without it. As a result, if I “pirate” something you can be pretty sure that I wouldn’t buy it even if that’d be the only way to obtain it. I’ll simply learn to do without, so my “piracy” doesn’t cause them any losses whatsoever. But I’ll leave it at that for now, because this rant is not the purpose of this post.

To move on, the final versions of both Internet Explorer 9 and Firefox 4 have been released, so I should make those minor changes to this site that I had planned to make right after these releases. Nothing to do with the blog, which still uses this very old theme and would be too much trouble to change right now, but just with the games played list and fantasy art gallery. Speaking of which, I really should make some additions to those sections as well, because they’ve been neglected pretty much ever since I created them. But good luck with that, seeing as I’m hardly even writing here anymore, much less coding…
Keep in mind that these changes, whenever they’ll be made, are meant to take advantage of some very basic but useful HTML5 tags and will not have any noticeable effects whatsoever for anyone using a browser that supports HTML5, only making it simpler for me to set some things up. As a result, they are likely to cause those sections of the site to display oddly for those who use older or different browsers. As usual, my only advice to you if you have problems viewing this site is to upgrade or change your browser.

As for the personal updates part mentioned in the title… Nothing I haven’t said countless times before. As worried, sad, frightened and frustrated as usual. Still dreading to wake up; still starting to whimper whenever I go to the kitchen to eat… Still missing her just as much; still needing a best friend, or at least a very close friend, just as much; still not finding anyone even remotely close to what could really make a close friend… People keep living in the “real world”, which has nothing to do with me and I want nothing to do with it, so a gap between me and them automatically appears and then keeps widening, seeing as our paths can have next to nothing in common.
Otherwise, the usual health concerns keep piling up, as expected. For example, since I woke up today I keep experiencing some pain that’s worrying due to its location and troubling due to its intensity. In this case, I may know the cause and, if I’m right, it’s nothing to worry about, but otherwise it’s not like any such issues are going to go away on their own if they’re not somehow fixed, or at least checked out. Such things either stay the same or, much more commonly, only get worse if left alone, so that’s just what happens. And since nobody’s picking me up, dragging me to where I’d need to go and doing all the talking for me when all I’ll be able to do will be kick and scream, I’ll only end up there when it’ll really feel like an emergency, as always.