Guild Wars

I'm not too happy with Guild Wars. I expected to play it on my birthday, 4th December, but that didn't happen. Inside the box there should have been a bonus music CD, on the back of which would be the key to allow me to upgrade my trial account. But no, that was missing. After a few weeks of frankly pointless forum and email talks with the support, I decided to simply send this one back, and my brother, who had bought it as a birthday present in the first place, ordered a new better one. This one with all the expansion packs.

To be honest, I was now expecting something to go wrong. And it did. This edition went out of stock for another couple of weeks. So, last week, it finally came in stock, and my hopes of playing Guild Wars were rekindled.

Far be it from me to expect N.C.Soft to meet my expectations to provide a game that I can play, but last Friday evening, it got ridiculous. My brother texted me in school time, saying that Guild Wars had arrived, and asking whether he could install it for me and go on. I said yes, and he installed it, opened it, used the key to upgrade my trial account, made a character, and played. He told me when I got home that it was working fine. So I tried it that evening. With my brother present, I put in the same login details as him, and now it can't even recognise the account name. Not even the password, the account name. We went on the website, successfully changed my password, and tried again. No luck. Restarted the laptop, no luck. And now? Now I've once again entered into back and forth emails with N.C.Soft. I wonder if I'll ever get to play Guild Wars...

Thanks for reading, send suggestions to jazzphilosophybiscuits@googlemail.com, and feel free to comment below.

The Moon Is Low - Art Tatum

If I had to pick one pianist to listen to exclusively, it would have to be Art Tatum. The phrasing, the rhythms, the fast lines down the piano, the amazing use of chord movements, all contribute to why I would call this track, The Moon Is Low, my favourite piano piece.

You can find the version I refer to on the album The Art Tatum Solo Masterpieces, Vol. 5. Unfortunately, I cannot think of an accurate way to describe this song, but I can tell you that it is of the sub-genre of jazz called stride. Stride is, basically, the right hand of the piano playing a melody, while the left plays 'striding' basslines and chords. Sounds simple, no? Correct, no. When listening to Art Tatum, stride is anything but simple. As I listen to him now, I hear the left hand moving in a fast, steady rhythm, while always changing the chord it's based on. Even on its own, the left hand of stride would be enough for me.

But, coupled with the ever more complex right hand, it produces an effect, well, twice as good. The melody is played once, embellished, played again, embellished, up to the point where the main tune is barely distinguishable. And all this while being practically blind for his whole life.

Thanks for reading, please send suggestions and other comments to jazzphilosophybiscuits@googlemail.com and feel free to comment below.

Even small things make a difference

This is a story from Serve.com: http://www.serve.com/cmtan/buddhism/Stories/difference.html

I think that this story demonstrates well how doing even small things can impact people, animals, or anything in a meaningful way. If there was one starfish on the beach, then he would have allowed that one to live. Just because there are more does not mean that It is any less meaningful. He saves as many as he can, because he can.

Another way to think of this is to imagine people instead of starfish. If you walk through a village and find many people starving, do you leave them to die? If we strive to help anyone that needs help when they need it, good will be done.

Please send ideas and messages to jazzphilosophybiscuits.googlemail.com, or comment below.