The Fun Size Twix

I am vehemently opposed to this "fun size" Twix. When you unwrap a normal-sized pack of Twix, you get two sticks of delicious chocolate, caramel, graham cracker and cardiotoxic bliss. When you unwrap the "fun size" Twix, you get one stick.

I was operating under the assumption that "Twix" was a clever, edgy way of naming "Twin Sticks" of choco-graham-ness. With only one stick in the pack, how does the name apply? "Twick?" "Tick?" "Single Portioned Chocolate Graham Caramel Crunchy Dessert For Obesity"?

This will not stand, and it really doesn't matter whether or not my assumption is correct, because as is customary on the internet, MY assumption is all that matters. Therefore, I dema- *bites into fun size Twix bar*... ...oh, I can't stay mad at you, Twick.

I withdraw my statement. More Twix please.

You and I

Blogging without editorial checks and balances has resulted in the internet's perpetual butchering of the English language. Sometimes, that heinous shit creeps into non-blog articles as well. It. Pisses. Me. Off. (Never mind instant messages and chats for a second, because I don't consider those as any manner of "published works" the same way I do high-profile blog entries.)

First of all, "You and I" is not always the correct way to phrase that concept. So your second grade teacher taught you that it was wrong to say, "Me and Jack went to sniff paint." Big friggin' whoop. How on Earth does that make, "Here's what happens when you interview Bob and I" a correct sentence? Blargh! Reading something like that from a high-profile blogger who HAPPENS to write for a newspaper -- someone who even happens to be someone I respect -- is even worse.

What's the strategy Ms. Smith taught you in second grade? Take away the other person and say the sentence as if you were the only subject. "Me went to sniff paint" sounds dickish, right? Right. So what about, "Here's what happens when you interview I"? Yeah. Run that through that brain of yours.

While I'm at it, "on accident" is shit. If you happen to be one of those people who are 100 times smarter than me (I think that's about 98.237% of Earth's population), but still say "on accident," well, I don't care how much smarter than me you are because at the very least you *sound* stupider than I do when you say it. I don't care that your editor let the error pass through the QA process. I don't care what Grammar Girl's "studies" show -- she's just humoring you. It's "by accident" and you're wrong. Deal.

I'm only freaking out because this is really easy shit. It's not like you need Diana Hacker's Pocket Style Manual (go buy it, writers) to know this.

Yeah. Word to yo mama. And stuff.

*turns down the snob dial before getting hit by a food coma*

"Judgement" is now a word in the dictionary.

Apparently, Merriam-Webster updated its dictionary to include "judgement" as an appropriate spelling of the word "judgment".

Fuck. My post is destroyed.

The Presidential Debate, In Reductive Fashion

McCain: "Yakity yak. We're Americans, and that's why we can get it done. It's also how we can get it done."

Obama: "Blibbidy blah. We need to do something. And that something is whatever it is we need to do."

Tom: "Dudes, please stop ignoring the minute-long time limit imposed at your behest."

I hope it was echo.

While I was packing / doing my rudimentary workout of curls, sit-ups and being in pain, my dad had the television set to the YES network where they were showing the ceremony for The Last Game At Yankee Stadium. After they trotted out all the big name historical Yankees, it was time for the game's starting lineup and the National Anthem.

Here's a tip: If you're in a band and you're playing the National Anthem on television for thousands of cheering fans at the last game in an historic stadium that housed perhaps the greatest team in baseball history (I'm not a fan of baseball, so I don't care for nor want to hear your arguments about them sucking; if they're not the greatest, fine by me, I don't care, now shut up), I cannot stress the following enough.

PLAY THE FUCK ON BEAT.

By the end of the song, you know, at, "The Land of the FreeEeEEEeeeEEEe" part, the half the horns were on "The Land" and the other half were already onto "the FreEee-". You know who that guy is in the front? The guy with the hat and the little skinny needle looking thing that he's waving around in the air to some obscure rhythm that you probably have no idea about? HE'S THE CONDUCTOR. HE CONDUCTS THE SONG. THUSFORTH, HE KEEPS THE BEAT. YOU *FOLLOW* HIM.

Tone deaf pricks.*

In sum, that was one of the WORST "normal" renditions of the National Anthem I've heard (not counting the crazy stunts and gimmicks that people have pulled off in the past; Roseanne Barr Pentland Barr Arnold Barr Thomas Barr, I'm pointing a finger in your direction since it hurts to look at you). I really, really just hope it was the echo in the stadium.

*I'm fully aware that pitch has nothing to do with the ability to count and follow a conductor. Bite my ass.

The Art of Urinal Usage

Dear members of the male gender, my fellow cohorts in life's pursuit to sit on the couch, get fat and watch football (well, this IS the United States):

I have a few requests. Now, don't be scared. They're nothing Earth-shattering. These should be easy for you to follow. Furthermore, they all involve that thing you base your life principles on -- you know, your dangle. Third leg. One-eyed snake. Whatever.

Today's topic? URINAL USAGE!

- When using the urinal, please ensure that Dangle's eye is looking straight into the center of the porcelain bowl.

- When using the urinal, please ensure that you're not standing more than four feet away from it.

- When using the urinal, please make sure to FACE the urinal.

This is all common sense, right? Right.

THEN WHY THE FUXORS DO I WALK INTO ANY GIVEN MEN'S RESTROOM ONLY TO SEE A FRIENDLY PATCH OF MOISTURE UNDERNEATH THE URINAL? Here's a tip: Bathroom tiles are not alive. They are inanimate, soulless, non-biological objects. That means they don't need watering. Stop spraying your lemonade all over the goddamn floor. They make lower urinals specifically for douchebags like you who can't aim. If you are not blind, handicapped, a small person, a four-year-old or a female, you have absolutely NO excuse whatsoever to not know how to keep your spray in the tray.

Oh, and if you want to feel worse about yourself, watch Step Brothers and fast forward to the scene where a girl uses the urinal. She does it better than you do. Asshole.

And may I close with a Haiku:

Went to the toilet.
Looks like you left gifts for me!
Flush next time, jerk-off.

Thank you very much for your time. Go run into a wall or something.

Signed,
Civilization

Zune's Virtual Trackball

I've had my 80GB Zune for just over a week now, and so far I'm pleased with my purchase. Not all is perfect, of course, but it's filling its role as a worthy successor to Gigabutt. One thing I like about it is what I personally call the "virtual trackball" that's used for navigation. The Zune uses a four-way directional click-pad that looks like a square with very, very rounded corners, almost to the point of it being a circle. To select a choice, you click down on the center of the pad. You can scroll through lists of songs by holding up or down on the pad, with the scroll-speed accelerating the longer you hold it down. Initially, there's nothing really extraordinary about this; it's the same mechanic used by many devices, including the Creative Zen and my old Gigabutt.

The fun comes in when you actually discover its touch-pad nature. The pad responds to the motion of your finger in the four cardinal directions. So, if you're navigating a list of songs and you slide your thumb down slightly, you'll scroll down a few songs. If you start your thumb at the top of the pad and briskly swipe it downwards, the list starts scrolling at a high velocity before grinding to a slow halt after a second or two. This feels remarkably like a trackball, so if you then start thinking about the pad as if it were a trackball (limited to four directions, of course), you'll begin to understand intuitively how to scroll through your lists.

For instance, if you roll a trackball downwards multiple times in succession, the ball will end up rolling for a good while without your assistance as a result of the momentum. These "physics" are applied to the touch-scrolling too: Swipe your thumb from top to bottom multiple times, and your song list will start scrolling incredibly fast -- with quick, subsequent swipes adding momentum -- before slowly stopping. So how do you keep yourself from overshooting where you want to be? Well, how would you stop a trackball? That's right -- put your hand on it. Likewise, as your songs are scrolling happily on their own, you can stop the scrolling just by laying your thumb on the pad. This is great, mostly "thumbs-off" approach for people scrolling through a small chunk who don't want to hold their thumb down or keep twirling it in a circle (a la the iPod's clickwheel) the entire time.

The flipside to this is that once in awhile, when you mean to click down on the center of the pad, your thumb ever-so-slightly moves in a direction. The pad could pick this up and inadvertently scroll to and select the item above or below the one you actually meant to click. It takes a little getting used to in order to over come this little snare.

It also would have been nice if the touch-pad registered diagonal directions for browsing photographs. When browsing by folder, the Zune spits out thumbnails of every picture in the folder in a grid format where you're free to navigate and choose. If you swipe in a diagonal direction, though, the cursor does this clumsy two-step -- "down, then right" -- instead of skipping diagonally to the picture. While this is functionally the same thing, it doesn't even always do that; it'll soemtimes stop after the first vertical or horizontal direction. Not a big deal by any means at all -- just a minor quibble, given how cool the "trackball" feel of the pad is.

Finally, I know some people like scrolling with the iPod's wheel. For those who don't mind keeping their thumb in constant motion, it offers the best control over your scroll speed. You can scroll precisely as fast as you want, and stop exactly when you want to. Seeing as the touch-pad on the Zune is so rounded, wouldn't it be cool if it emulated the scroll wheel -- for those who wanted such an option -- by responding accordingly to thumb movement around the perimeter (or circumference, if you please) of the pad? That might make it the most versatile input device for an MP3 player yet. As it is, however, it's still a lot of fun to use.

The Dark Knight belongs to Aaron Eckhart [SPOILER-FILLED discussion]

READER BEWARE: THIS DARK KNIGHT DISCUSSION (NOT A REVIEW!!!) IS FILLED WITH SPOILERS.

The Dark Knight is Harvey Dent's movie.

We can ballyhoo about the magnificence of the late Heath Ledger's performance as the Joker. We can continue to heap praises on Christian Bale being the best Batman-slash-Bruce Wayne since Michael Keaton. Neither of these actions would be inappropriate. But in watching The Dark Knight to its conclusion, eyes glued to action, ass on edge of seat, mouth slightly agape, it became startlingly clear that Aaron Eckhart's Harvey Dent -- briefly known as Two Face -- was the the big message, the key idea, behind this film.

It all starts with what is actually the bottom of Gotham City's food chain. Joe Chill was part of the lowest of the low, a mere mugger partially created by Gotham's depression. In murdering Bruce Wayne's parents, he was partially responsible for the savage vigilante -- Batman -- that the young heir would soon become. In Batman's crusade to stamp out crime, however, he unwittingly unleashes the fury of the psychotic -- no -- bat-shit insane Joker who sneers, "[Gotham] deserves a better class of criminal." Alfred makes this clear as Wayne contends that the mob -- in enlisting The Joker's help -- crossed the line: "You crossed the line first, sir. You hammered them. And in their desperation they turned to a man they didn't fully understand." This is no less than the escalation -- the arms race -- that Jim Gordon spoke of at the conclusion of Batman Begins. "We start carrying semiautomatics, they buy automatics. We start wearing Kevlar, they buy armor-piercing rounds." And so it follows: Batman assails crime with destructive resolve, and crime turns to The Joker.

Enter the hero -- the "White Knight" -- whom Wayne, whom Batman, contends is the key to Gotham's ascension from its criminal rubble. Harvey Dent, District Attorney, is a bold figure who can put guilty men behind bars without breaking laws and disrupting order. He doesn't fear an assassin's bullet, and he's determined to bring the dawn -- "It's always darkest before the dawn" he implores his desperate, angry citizens to realize -- to a city that's been mired in darkness.

It's Dent, not the imposter Batmen who put on hockey pads and try to play vigilante along with their inspiration, who represents Bruce Wayne's original goal when he donned the mask. Wayne's father, Thomas Wayne, "believed his example could inspire the wealthy of Gotham to save their city." And yes, Wayne believes that as a man he can't do the same as his father did, hence his need for the Batman persona -- but in Dent, perhaps he has actually found the man to do this. We even see him contemplating the retirement of the bat suit. Such is his confidence in the D.A.

Dent foreshadows his own demise, however, when he claims that, "You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain." And in his own demise, we see how very little hope Gotham City has, and -- reminiscent of Jack Bauer's (of TV's 24) tragic existence -- how wretched Batman's life must continue to be in order for there to be some modicum of decency and order. Harvey Dent, after all, is only a man. He's not a symbol, and as such he is not, as Wayne put it in Batman Begins, "incorruptible."

The vile waste that is The Joker succeeds in corrupting Dent, taking away the love of his life (and coincidentally of Batman's life), indirectly burning the left half of his face (is it coincidence that the burnt flesh leans Lucifer's way?) and sending the once pure man, Gotham's only law-abiding hope, into a vengeful fit of rage. In becoming Two Face, in seeing his soul corrupted and destroyed, Harvey Dent represents the singular driving idea behind Gotham City and The Dark Knight (both the film and the character): the depressing thought that in light of the progress and the good that is being done, everything is destined to be hopelessly torn to absolute shit. (See what I mean by Jack Bauer?) From Chill to Batman to The Joker, the lowest of the low in Gotham City ultimately creates and destroys the monster that is Two Face -- in effect, Gotham City has just swallowed its own hope for a brighter future.

The only White Knight Gotham had left was snuffed out without mercy, and Dent's apparent death came too late for him to avoid becoming the villain he foreshadowed. It's this rise and fall of a true hero -- this descent into madness -- that most powerfully symbolizes Gotham City's everlasting struggle, and it's his tragedy that simultaneously emphasizes Batman's own personal tragedy to us. Wayne's desire to hang up the mask was fueled by the possibility that Dent could lead the crusade, and subsequently the hope that Rachel Dawes would return to his loving arms. In one fell swoop, these two flickering lights are both eradicated, and Batman's only hope for a normal life is just... plain... gone. Worse, Batman must take the fall for Dent's crimes in order to keep any glimmer of hope alive; what would Gotham think if it found that its White Knight bowed to The Joker's level? From nadir to apogee and back to nadir: The stories of Dent, Wayne and Gotham City are perfect mirror images of each other, with Dent's metamorphosis into Two Face -- so poignant, so condensed -- the most tangible and evident tragedies of them all.

If you want to understand the misery and despair of the film The Dark Knight, all you need do is follow Harvey Dent. After all, it's his movie.

The Website Is Down.

Web Dude: [playing Halo] C'mon you little bitches, let's go... That's right. Oh snap.
[Skype phone rings]
Web Dude: Ulch, not now! [Halo: "Red team is winning."] Oh, you so suck. Ohhh... c'mon. Ohhh..... FUCK. [Picks up the call] Hello? [Alt-tabs back to Halo]
Chip: Web dude it's Chip in sales, what's up man?
Web Dude: Nothing, I'm working. What's... um. What's going on?
Chip: Hey are you ah, you here in Building 3?
Web Dude: Yeah I'm in Building 3.
Chip: Well why do I have to call an outside number to get to your desk?
Web Dude: Wha. Look uhhh, I don't want to get into an IP Telephony conversation with you right now.
Chip: You pee telephony? Haha. I pee *urine*. Heh heh... he totally fell for it.
Nancy and others giggle.
Web Dude: ...that's a... that's a good one.
Chip: Alright so web dude, we got a problem. The website's down.
Web Dude: ...I'm sorry what??
Chip: The Web Site Is Down. It's a black hole, can't get to anything.
Web Dude: [gets killed in Halo] FUCK.
Chip: Yeah.
Web Dude: Hold on. [alt-tabs out of Halo into web browser, showing monster.com, brings up the company website] Looks like it's up to me.
Chip: Wellp... I rebooted my PC and it's still that way.
Web Dude: [alt-tabbing back to Halo] How many times d'you reboot?
Chip: Three man, you always tell me to do three.
Web Dude: Well, uhmmm... hold on. [alt-tabs back to the site] It's up, I mean, I can check to see if Apache's running. [typing commands] Apache is running.
Chip: I don't know what this Patchie is, but ah, either way? I'm still not able to ge-
Web Dude: Oh look, I can telnet to the core, you can get HTML, like, it's running.
Chip: Ok well I'm st- I'm still not able to get what I'm looking for, uh... Nancy said that you guys rebooted last time- I dunno.
Web Dude: Do you want me to reboot... the web server? Even though it's running.
Chip: I'm just saying that's what Nancy said you did last time. Okay?
[long awkward pause]
Web Dude: Well... I can reboot it now? It doesn't make any sense to reboot something that's running-
Chip: Okay well I'm just, I'm just telling you what Nancy said, that y'guys just ah, you know, you guys rebooted last time.
Web Dude: Ummm...
Chip: Y'know I'm not saying anything about YOU guys, you know, I don't, I don't --
Web Dude: Sure. Why not...
Chip: -- I mean, you know, I dunno anything about ah...
Web Dude: ...let's reboot it I mean. It's fun to reboot a web server. I mean that'll take fifteen minutes [alt-tabs back to Halo] so I can get back to what I was d-
Chip: Wait... something just happened. Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. I - I can't get to the homepage.
Web Dude: Whaddaya mean you can't get to the homepage? I just took it down.
Chip: I just -- I just tried to get to the homepage and I can't get in-
Web Dude: You could get to the homepage before?
Chip: Yeah I was gettin' to the homepage and now I can't get to the homepage.
Web Dude: You told me the website was down. ....gehhh FUCK. So the website WASN'T down.
Chip: Well... eh. Well maybe that's not what I meant okay, uh...
Web Dude: Well it's down *now*.
Chip: Well, what. Whatever it's called. Uh, the world wide web, was dow-
Web Dude: The *internet*????
Chip: It's slow, everything is just slow-
Web Dude: You don't know the difference between the internet and our web site?
Chip: Hey Nancy, is your, is your, is your web working?
Nancy: I told you it wasn-
Chip: Nonono, I know, I know. He rebooted the website.
Nancy: What!?
[incoming call]
Chip: He rebooted it.
Nancy: Waaaaaaaat.
Web Dude: Hold on. [transfers to Line 2] Hello?
Trevor: Uhh yeah, this is Trevor... I work for the city of Arvada, population ten thousand... and I was just looking at our website -- www.arvada.org/arvadaharvestfestival -- and. Ah. I get this error message, page cannot be displayed.
Web Dude: Well it's because the web site's down.
Trevor: Hunhhh?
Web Dude: Oh my god. Look, the sales guys upstairs took down the website so we're waiting for it to come back. [Shooting teammate in the balls in Halo]
Trevor: Whooo?
Web Dude: I guess it was Trevor.
Trevor: And then I tried Arvadaharvestfestival/pumpkinpatch and that wasn't on there and then I tried harvestfestival/beanbagrace and nothing's coming up and I LITERALLY... have the Mayor breathing down my neck right now so we need to get this back up, uh --
Web Dude: Well it should be up by now honestly -- [continues to shoot teammate in the elbow in Halo]
Trevor: They call it On Line. We gotta get this page online.
Web Dude: Uh, alright Trevor, well let me, you know, can I call you back when it's up? [Halo: "Blue team has the lead"]
Trevor: You know what, call me back, at this number... LITERALLY. Have the Mayor. Breathing down my neck. Arvadapumpkinpatch.org.
Web Dude: Mkay. Check.
Trevor: Hunhhh?
Web Dude: See you later. [Hangs up on Trevor, transfers back to Chip] Okay --
Chip: ...down because he rebooted it. I--
Nancy: What an idiot.
Chip: I dunno why he did it -- ahhmmm, say that again?
Web Dude: Listen -- oh. What was your name again? Chip?
Chip: Chip-hhh.
[incoming call]
Chip: I didn't ask for it to go down...
Web Dude: Can you hold on a second? [transfers to Line 2] Hello?
Boss: D'you take down the website?
web Dude: ...no...
Boss: Well Nancy says ya did.
[pause]
Web Dude: Oh I mean. Yeah!
Boss: Well why the hell didja do that???
Web Dude: Well the sales guys... were...
Boss: Didn't you get my email about not taking down the web server?
Web Dude: Uhhmm... nnn... [alt-tabs to Outlook, showing an email: DO NOT REBOOT THE WEB SERVER!!!!!!!!!!!] ...no?
Boss: Well I sent it to you.
Web Dude: ... ... ... ... [click, click, click] well... [click]... [removes all traces of the email from Exchange Server] Hold on. Cuz I don't see it.
Boss: Well... ahh, this is weird. I don't see it here. Okay. Well maybe I didn't send it to you.
Web Dude: Well yeah cuz uh seriously, you know, I didn't get it.
Boss: Well the email said don't take it down because it won't come back up without being powered off.
Web Dude: Oh. Crap.
Boss: Yeah. Thanks a lot.
Web Dude: Uhh -- [Boss hangs up] -- I'm sorry? *sigh* Fucking... look. [transfers back to Chip] Chip?
Chip: Yeap.
Web Dude: Look, okwebserversnotcomingupnowbecauseyoumademetakeitdowninthe- in the wrong way.
Chip: Ahh, okay?
Web Dude: I'm gonna have to get Lazlo to power it off. C- ...can you hold on a minute?
Chip: Alright.
[Puts chip on hold, dials Lazlo's cellphone... rings, rings, rings...]
Chip: Fuckin' Lazlo, c'mon.
Lazlo: Hello Derek, you fucking idiot. [loud hiss of servers in the background] What rack is this in?
Web Dude: I'm sorry what?
Lazlo: What rack is the system in?
Web Dude: It's in Rack Five.
Lazlo: [distant, over the din] Five?
Web Dude: Yes.
Lazlo: Rack Five?
Web Dude: Rack Five.
Lazlo: ...told me that you took down the system.
Web Dude: Yes. It was an accident.
Lazlo: What'd he tell me?
Web Dude: Just reboot it.
Lazlo: You need the system rebooted?
Web Dude: Yes.
Lazlo: Which one is it?
Web Dude: It's gray, it's on the, it's like third down.
Lazlo: The one... they- they're all gray.
Web Dude: It's third down. You can see the gray on the bottom.
Lazlo: You mean which... from the top or the bottom?
Web Dude: From the top...
Lazlo: ...you tell me...
Web Dude: ...it's. Jesus-
Lazlo: You tell me. I can't...
Web Dude: It's gray.
Lazlo: I can't hear anything.
Web Dude: I know -- shut up! It's gray on the bottom!
Lazlo: From the bottom.
Web Dude: It's GRAY on the bottom. It's not in the bottom of the rack? [computer dings]
Lazlo: From the top?
Web Dude: YES!
Lazlo: Ah.
Web Dude: You just powered off the Exchange server!
Lazlo: I'll do the top one now.
Web Dude: Oh my fucking god. [computer dings]
Lazlo: 'Kay, yeah, I did both of them so you should be good.
Web Dude: No!
Lazlo: Mkay, later.
Web Dude: THANKS A LOT.
Lazlo: ...idiot...
[click, call ends]
Web Dude: *sigh*... [alt-tabs back to Halo] Wwwwaaaaaaaaaaau[proceeds to fire at teammate incessantly]uauuauuuuuuuggghhghhhhhhhh-
Msg from Halo: ATTENTION. The Server Operator has kicked you from this server.
Web Dude: Aagghh. [transfers to line 1]
Chip: Yeah I dunno, guess he didn't take it down right.
Web Dude: Chip.
Nancy: ...I swear...
Chip: Hey.
Web Dude: Well, ya managed to take the email system down as well.
Chip: R'heally? the email server?
Web Dude: Well it doesn't-
Chip: He just-
Web Dude: -have anything to do with the web server-
Chip: - shut off all our email.
Nancy: That's what he fucking did last time!
Web Dude: Look -- [reboots Halo]
Chip: Ahh, okay.
Web Dude: Lazlo at the data center rebooted it when he was trying to fix the web server that *you* asked me to take down, so...
Chip: How many times?
Web Dude: ............... how many times *what*?
Chip: How many times did he reboot it?
Web Dude: Once.
Chip: Well I think ya need to try a few more times.
Nancy chortles in the background
Web Dude: Lookit-
Chip: Web dude, we're having a quarterly sales call in two minutes, I need to get on the website, or the internet, or whatever, that's why I called you in the first place. Help a brother out.
Web Dude: What's your asset tag, Chip?
Chip: Ahh, the asset tag is 287jpc, and the number 2.
Web Dude: Is that P as in Paul?
Chip: That's P as in Paul.
Web Dude: Mkay. [Remote Desktops into Chip's computer, where an old Windows 95 screen saver is running] Where'd you get this wh...unnhhh... is this your desktop??? ...is the mouse mo-
Chip: WHHOOAAA my mouse just moved!!!!
Web Dude: Okay. Yeah why d-
Chip: Do that again! Oh my god you're moving my mouse...
Web Dude: It's remote desktop. What is your password?
Chip: It's just the letter A.
Web Dude: Just the letter A. Alright. [opens up a screen with a gajilliondy windows open]
Chip: Like Apple. ...are you looking at my desktop right now?
Web Dude: Dude, how many programs do you have running?
Chip: This is so awesome.
Web Dude: You g- you're totally overloading your box. That's probably part of the reason.
Chip: Well I use all these programs... but -- you know I gotta lotta work to do during the day.
Web Dude: Can I... can I close this [closing Explorer window]
Chip: Whoa whoa hey- [Web Dude closes email draft] -nonono!
Web Dude: ...save this? [Web Dude closes IE browser window showing "Utterpants -- sex with Vegetables"]
Chip: Wait wai-
Web Dude: Chip -
Chip: You cannot, no... I need to save this! This is all my work!
Web Dude: Look, you don't need this stuff.
Chip: I've got some research that I'm doing, okay, you-
Web Dude: [closing a game of Hearts] I mean all these things take up memor-
Chip: You can't close all of my windows! Okay!?!?
Web Dude: [closes a game of Solitaire] Closin' that.
Chip: Web dude, web dude, ya gotta slow down-
Web Dude: [comes to a window of AOL before 3.0] Dude, AOL???? Don't use AOL! It's dial-up networking.
Chip: Well how am I going to get to the internet without AOL?
Web Dude: I... It's... it's broadband.
Chip: But I got like 4000 hours for free.
Web Dude: It's -- ughh. We have a corporate OC3 -- it costs like $1000 a month, so don't use AOL. [closes AOL, only to find...] Whoa.
Chip: Can you carry over my hours?
Web Dude: What -- what is *this*??? [mousing over desktop] "Fuk u..."
Chip: It's... my desktop?
Web Dude: What... there're icons, they spell "Fuk u!" and there's a picture of a penis.
Chip: Ahh, Patricia did that when I took over her computer. She wasn't very happy.
Web Dude: Holy crap. ...how long's it been like that?
Chip: Eight or nine years.
Web Dude: Oh my god.
Chip: You know I just got so used to it. I didn't want to change it.
Web Dude: That's fuckin' awesome... hold on. Alright, I'm taking a picture of this, hold on just a sec.
Chip: Ok, just so you know I got a meeting in like five minutes, so whatever we gotta do to get my PC back.
Web Dude: This is going right onto BoingBoing.
Chip: Uh what's BoingBoing?
Web Dude: Here's the thing. This? Is a problem. You can't have people looking at this, okay? Arrange your icons -- [sorts desktop by Name] -- by Name or something...
Chip: Whoa nonono! I can't find anything!
Web Dude: Whaddaya mean? It's alphabetical!
Chip: Aww man. I -- ugh -- I had everything exactly where I knew where it was. I knew th- that th- that our website? Our website? Wasattheverytipofthe penis!
[pause]
Chip: And now I don't know where anything is! How am I go- no, it's not that one, it's not that one anymore!
Web Dude: Well... ulch...
Chip: MySalesForce.com was on the right testicle -- I'm not gonna be able to find anything. I gotta meeting in two minutes and I need the icons back the way they were.
Web Dude: Well I can't go back. There's no way to go back. You can't arrange 'em by penis.
Chip: Omigod... I tell ya, every time I've called you tech support people, every fucking time, you guys do something entirely different you know? You don't fix the problem that I call about! You know all I wanted was to get the website back! That's all that, that's all I needed! Can you restore it -- you said you took a picture of it. Restore it.
Web Dude: Well.... yeah, I guess. I mean I can just make that the background for your desktop.
Chip: I don't care what you have to do, whatever you gotta do to get this thing back.
Web Dude: ...honestly that probably won't, won't solve the problem completely but...
Chip: Well if the icons're in the same spot I'll be able to get to them. [Web dude restores penis background; meshing in with the grid of arranged icons, it creates a jumbled mess] ...alright, so this is worse. [Web Dude Selects All icons, drags them completely off the screen, leaving the penis background on display crystal clear] Oh wait-
Web Dude: I mean this is just a picture on the desktop...
Chip: That's great, this is perfect, this is perfect. Hey I gotta get into my meeting, so, you know, I'm, I yeah, this is great.
Web Dude: You good with it? [dragging selection box around, not able to select any actual icons since it's only a background] Because...
Chip: No no, this is, this is fine, I can find everything! I can find everything, this is fine.
Web Dude: Mkay.
Chip: Ok so, I gotta go to the meeting, ahhhhh you know, thanks a lot web dude, I'm outta here!
Web Dude: Mkay.
Chip: Alright, bye.
Web Dude: Jesus. What a fuckin' day. [alt-tabs to Halo, plasma grenades a dude and melee's him out, with the grenade exploding a second after.] Hehehehe...

Broken Tech Sucks

So, almost exactly a week ago, my 60GB Toshiba MP3 player -- a Toshiba Gigabeat S60, to be exact, a great device with a great interface and nearly-effortless Windows Media Player compatibility -- died on me.

Last Friday, the day after I landed back in New York City from my weekly Pittsburgh commute, I went looking for my digital camera only to find out that I couldn't find it. I likely left it at my friend Scott's house the week before, where I had gone to enjoy burgers on the Fourth of July, but I couldn't be sure. Text-message inquiries resulted in no responses.

Well, on the same Friday, I went to Circuit City. The night before, I won the Guitar Hero tournament that my friends and I participate in weekly and Triggy (the grand puba of the McAleer's Pub GH Tournament and all-around awesome hostess) was giving away a $50 gift certificate. I put this $50 to a new 80GB Zune. Problem 1 solved.

On Sunday, I was cleaning up my room -- which was long overdue for a good "put your crap away" session. Among the rubble I found my digital camera, safe and intact. Scott then called me literally minutes after to apologize for not getting back to me sooner -- he had been stricken with a nasty case of the E. Coli that was spreading around, and he had trewn upz on the subway. But he was better now, and even though I had already found my camera I thanked him for getting back to me. Problem 2 solved.

There exists, sadly, a problem 3: The laptop I was given by the company I work for is now brain-dead. The issue began Thursday, when I was waiting for my flight back to New York City in the Pittsburgh airport. Somehow, I got a BAD_POOL_HEADER blue screen of death. A reboot solved it, but then it happened again. Putting the laptop on the floor -- instead of my lap, where it wasn't completely lying flat -- seemed to do the trick for a moment, and I had noticed that whenever the laptop tilted more than slightly due to my very fast and very harsh typing, it would blip. The tilt was in the direction of where the hard drive sits in the laptop, and BAD_POOL_HEADER is -- I think -- a symptom of a few hard-drive or otherwise memory-related issues.

Getting home, the thing seemed to run fine and on Saturday, it withstood over 90 minutes of podcast recording.

Problem was, the podcast was longer than 90 minutes. That's right -- our backup 100th Episode recording was cut due to a Blue Screen of Death. That damned BAD_POOL_HEADER issue again.

Thankfully, as I hinted above, the laptop is ONLY used as backup: All participants record their own voice files on their own computer. In the event that one or more of our voice files gets corrupted somehow, the laptop is there recording a stream of every participant coming in through Skype. It's not as flexible, of course -- I don't get to tweak out someone farting or coughing or saying something to their pets -- but it's a sufficient backup, and this weekend, the backup is all that was lost. IF everyone's voice file is stable, which it usually is, then I should be fine to edit.

Except I can't edit it. That laptop that's used to record our backup recording; that laptop that I use courtesy of my firm; that laptop that blue-screened constantly -- is the laptop I also used to edit our podcasts when I was on the road at work. So why don't I just edit a little, save, edit a little, save, edit a little, save?

BECAUSE THE BLASTED THING WON'T EVEN BOOT INTO WINDOWS ANYMORE. Right after I enter my password and it starts loading up stuff, and yes I've tried it in Safe Mode both with and without Networking, it BSOD's -- only this time only with a STOP error code and no descriptive (but still ultimately useless) words like BAD_POOL_HEADER. Just STOP ERROR X0000B3 (9823498234 2398423984792834789 239842973569729625). Those numbers were made up, of course, but it might as well have been those.

But wait -- that's not the final state it's in. After multiple tries of rebooting, and getting kicked out again, and then trying to run the Hard Disk Drive test from the BIOS (it passed the first "quick test"), it froze. Now, when I press the power button, the fan turns on. But the hard drive activity light stays dormant, and the screen stays pitch black. It's done this 10 times in a row now, and I've given up. It's dead. I have to go into the office on Friday and turn it in for repairs. Along with it MIGHT disappear ALL of my files -- work-related files.

Not only that, but it was my window to the outside world. The client site I work at does not allow access to personal webmail and blocks 90% of the sites I visit on a daily basis (thank god ESPN and Ars Technica are still allowed). So that laptop was my only recourse. You know where I'm friggin' typing this post from? The PC that sits at the bell stand in the hotel I'm staying at. Soon some rotten little kids will want to come by -- and yes I know it's 11:15PM, but it's summer vacation for them -- and look up Sponge Bob or the latest Digimon or maybe even some terrible pornography that no kid their age should be looking at.

So I just left this rant to you, gentle readers and those who don't give a ratt's butt about me but find my ranting halfway-semi-quasi-entertaining, so that you know how annoying dead laptops are. For those who listen to the podcast, well, it'll probably be coming sometime next week or this weekend. For those who don't, well, if I don't answer your emails until I'm just about due for sleep (like right now), this is why. Because I have to play bellhop in order to communicate with the outside world.

Oh yeah -- and Wii MotionPlus: w00t ... that is, of course, until it's revealed that they'll sell it to us for $34.99 apiece and don't standardize it into the Wii's technology as they did the Dual Shock and Dual Shock 3, leaving developers to wonder whether or not it'll be worth their time to actually put the effort into it if no one's going to use it because it's not standardized. (Oh hey Xbox 360 hard drive! Do you think people are learning yet about how not standardizing things can bite you in the left buttock? No? Me neither.) /cynical (I actually love the idea, but I'll be pissed if they -- as I facetiously suggested -- don't standardize it. They HAVE to... even though you know Nintendo will make buttloads of $ even if they don't. Ok, they HAVE to for MY sake. :P)