News broke a few hours ago that Michael Jackson has passed away. So far the cause of death has been given as Cardiac Arrest, the official report is expected some time tomorrow.

Was watching TV, Waj was over he left and I went and woke my computer, took a quick glance at Facebook and people were posting RIP MJ status messages. Naturally I thought it was some internet hoax. So I immediately fired up Google News, and there it was as the top story.

I have been in a state of shock since. I headed back to the telly and watched the Sky News live coverage, till the point that the interviews and coverage was looping. So I was flicking through the channels, naturally I ended up at the music channels. MTV decided to run their Top 40 MJ Tracks program – hosted by David Guest, on all their channels. This was obviously recorded some years ago. David Guest has been Jackson’s friend since childhood, and had some really cool stories about the various songs and videos. As I write this it is still on just got to ‘15′ which is ‘Leave Me Alone’, amazingly Thriller went by ages ago charting at 30.

When Thriller came out I must have been seven or eight years old, I remember it especially since me and my friend were rushing home to watch Top of the Pops which was premiering the video that evening. My friend had a VCR so it got recorded, in those days TotPs was on thursdays, so friday evening, most of saturday and sunday we must have watched Thriller back to back at least 50 times. We were leaving marks on the carpet trying to moonwalk or moving the furniture so we could dance like zombies.

Still sitting here watching the program for the last few of hours has reminded me how truly great Michael Jackson was. I haven’t heard some of these songs in years, yet I know the words. Even the lesser songs from the Dangerous and History albums. Yet it’s strange if someone asked me to name 30 MJ tracks I don’t think I could do it.

Mati and me tried to get MJ tickets for the London comeback tour. However 02’s advanced ticket option failed us, since the majority of tickets went in a flash. When they added more dates we had realised it was not meant to be and did not even try again to get tickets. Our reasoning was that Jackson had not toured in years, the majority of dates were probably going to get cancelled or moved. (I hate being right!)

There had been lots of mixed press about the dates set to start next month, some stories indicating problems with Jackson’s health, that 50 nights was going to be very tough for him. When the promoters announced a few weeks ago that they were delaying the tour by a few days. All sorts of rumors started coming out, firstly MJ never wanted to do 50 dates, only 5. Then it came out he only agreed to 50 since he would be allowed to lip sync as opposed to actually perform. For some night he could even use doubles. After my previous bad experiences of seeing acts that I hold in high regard, do comeback tours, and turn out to be crap, is heartbreaking. So in many ways I was happy I did not get tickets. I figured if the tour worked out well, there would be new material resulting in more tour dates in the future, how wrong I was.

The news had a segment were they had the editor of NME at Glastonbury give a quick interview, he was clearly shaken up from the news. He must be in his mid-30’s so I guess being in the same age group I agree with the sentiment of what he said. Which was basically everyone should put away all the negative things we have heard about Jackson in the last 10 years, and that he should be remembered for most his music and his contribution to pop culture. To my generation he was and always will be the King of Pop.

The commute into work is going to be an interesting one, for some the cover of Metro will be the first they hear of the news, so obviously there will be some shocked looks on the tube in the morning. It will also be interesting to see how the organisers of the Michael Jackson concerts handle ticket refunds.

This is clearly the best iPod Accessory Ever!

I just dinged 80, at last. Not amazing feat by any means, especially since I was turned off from playing for about 2 weeks thanks to computer issues. Going to go finish off the remaining instances, then do the heroics. Need gear for PvP also. Should also get my epic flying mount soon.

I just installed the new power supply and started Warcraft in Windows and it hasn’t crashed.
Yipee! At last, it has only taken 3 weeks to get the upgraded system working properly. Going to let it burn in for 24 hours, then switch back to Linux. I think it is probably safe to delete Windows again, though of course I have a Virtual Machine for work VPN access etc.

Watched the new comedy Role Models last night, and it was very enjoyable. It was Imran’s birthday last night so after a late dinner we decided on getting in on the late show.

The film is about a pair of anti-drugs spokespeople, played by Paul Rudd and Sean William Scott. After a performance at a local school, they find their truck being towed and in a fit of crazyness they cause havoc.

As their punishment the pair are sentenced to 150 hours community services. Which they end up serving at a big brother like programme, where they are paired up with two equally troubled kids, resulting in some more antics.
You get the setups for the jokes at the end, right from the begining – so don’t miss any of it! Not quite ‘Pineapple Express’ funny but great fun. Besides any film that has Elizabeth Banks is going to be fine as far as I’m concerned.

Well I have decided to take the Sapphire card back. Even under windows is crashes after 30 minutes. It is possible it is just a hardware fault, but my confidence in an ATI card has totally deminished. I’m going to get an Nvidia 9800 based card. It might cost me another £20 but it will at least be stable under Linux, and Windows games should fly, should I decide to keep an install.

I have tried a clean Windows install, tried older drivers. But things get worse, a totally corrupted screen to BSOD under Windows. Linux is worse even a 2D desktop without any effects crashes after 10 minutes. Can’t install an older driver since, the older releases don’t support the hardware past Catalyst 8.10. With the current release being 8.12.

This card has had amazing reviews on the web, so it could be hardware. Why can’t PCs be like Mac and just work dammit.

Well I got myself a new XBox Elite today. Admittedly the black case is vastly better than the usual white one. However I’m begining to wonder what the extra £70 has got me. The HDMI cable is a nice extra, and the bigger hard disk is great. But £70 does seem like a lot, especially since John Lewis don’t bundle any games. John Lewis didn’t have any regular 60GB units left. Plus £200 worth John Lewis vouchers have been laying around for over a year so I thought what the hell, and just got the Elite. I know I could have ordered online, but I’m impatient what else can I say. Plus with the added downess of having to take my graphics card back today did not help, and I needed to buy something.

I just hooked it up, and ran the updater. Now I just have to renew my Live account, then migrate old Live profile over. Don’t want to screw up my acheivements and save game info.

I’m actually not going to keep this unit any way. Warranties being what they are Mati and me have decided to actually swap units, though I’m keeping the 120GB drive. Our main Xbox360 is like 2+ years old, so it has the hackable kernel and Hitachi DVD-ROM. I can then take that apart and modify the hell out of it.

Just downloaded the Google Contact Sync for Blackberry to my Curve, I think the last niggle I had, has just been solved. Since I don’t use my Mac much these days I don’t have a desktop for syncing all of my contacts, calendars and notes. Now that Google support over-the-air syncing I don’t have to maintain a desktop set of contacts I can just use GMail which is what I have been doing. But now I don’t need to try and sync GMail to Apple Address Book, then to Blackberry.