Sopranos: Over
Tony's dead. They didn't show it, but he's dead.
At the beginning of this season, Tony and Bobby were sitting on a boat out in the middle of a lake, wondering what it was like to die. They ultimately agreed that everything just goes black. The whole series was told from Tony's point of view, and everything just abruptly went black in the last few seconds of the show. Also: The guy who came in, sat down at the bar, looked at Tony a couple of times, and went into the restroom, while not named in the show, was given the last name Leotardo in the credits - a relative (presumably son) of recently-killed Phil Leotardo, boss of New York. It appeared to be a bit of a Godfather homage, like last week's shootings.
If you didn't know how popular the show was, though, everyone seems to be talking about it. They got a comment on WWE's Monday Night Raw this week, and the wwe.com website had a quick mention of the ending of the Sopranos while pushing an incredibly stupid storyline. I won't bore you with details.
Also, woot has a little fun with the final scene in today's blog entry/sales pitch.
Just saying.
Oh, yeah, why did I pick today to say that? Well, the story on my brain is the one that arose on the 29th of January, when those who bought Epic's "Gears of War" for the PC were suddenly unable to play their legally purchased game. As of this writing, 4 days later, the problem is still unsolved. The problem stems from a certificate installed with the game, that expired on the 28th.
Now why in blue hell did they install a certificate? Impossible to tell, but it's most likely part of a "phone-home" scheme to determine that the copy of the game you're playing is, in fact, legitimate. If so, though, I wonder: Did Epic believe no one would play the game 3 years later? Did Microsoft? And if not, if you MUST install a certificate, could you not put a 100-year expiration, or something equally ludicrous?
Wanna hear the fun part of all this?
You know those filthy pirates, the ones that this particular DRM is supposed to stop? Yeah, they're still able to play.
This should be a wake-up call to publishers, developers, and everyone else: Your methods of dealing with piracy are doomed to fail. They ONLY adversely affect your paying customers. The pirates are getting past these mechanisms within days of your software's release (and often days before your release) and enjoying a problem-free game.