next please.

and speaking of apple, i almost forgot about a recent interaction i had with them. one of the imac's in my office flaked out so i took it to our local apple store for repair. i made an appointment with the genius bar, boxed the machine up (rookie move not to keep the original packaging!) and went to the appointment. it was a few weeks after christmas and at 10am on a friday, the sprawling store looked just as crazed as it did days before christmas (buy more stock!). a man standing at the door, took the heavy box i was carrying from me and led me to the check in spot. typical apple care thus far. i reported into the ipad-equipped angsty kid with bangs in his eyes, spandexy jeans, and an ill-advised lip piercing. the apple host(ess) informed me that due to a higher than expected volume of customers today they were asking patrons if they minded doubling up with technicians. not so typical. reading this as a "share your time with someone else or don't get helped" kind of option, i said that would be fine. i was then told they were running about fifteen minutes late. i nodded again in impotent compliance.

just as i stepped back to wait my go, a man approached the two employees managing the queue and brusquely began

CUSTOMER
you can take my name off the list. i'm going to go buy a pc.

TROY (laughing genuinely)
ha. that's a good one.

CUSTOMER (looking at me sideways then back to the apple-fanboys)
no, i'm serious. i'm tired of this. every time i do this, i go make an appointment in your over-designed website only to come here to be told that you're running behind.

APPLE KID
i'm sorry sir. it's just that a lot of people are needing help with their christmas purchases.

CUSTOMER
what's the point of an appointment system if you don't keep your appointments?! i've been waiting here thirty minutes. i have places to be and i don't have time to sit around waiting for help for a computer that's supposed to work in the first place. so i'm going back to a pc. at least then i know what i'm getting!

the man left. after he was out of the hipsters sightline, they spoke under their breath to one another, saying something along the lines of "yeah, enjoy your pc mister", a quip as inventive as each of the lad's fashion sense. i smiled at getting to take in the bit of impromptu drama. i then sat back and studied the varying levels of exasperation among the mixture of folks waiting for help.

very close to the fifteen minute mark i was approached. my machine was unwrapped and setup by the tech. i was sharing my time with a man a bit older than myself. he had a laptop which he was bringing in for his college age son. we both explained our problems and the tech began his diagnostics. in the quiet of our workspace, i asked the other customer if this kid was his oldest or if he had more. he lit up at getting to talk about his children. when done he asked about my brood. we exchanged brief technology-related stories about our kids only occasionally being interrupted by the apple tech with a question. enjoying this unexpected social encounter while getting my machine worked on turned out to be a pleasant addition to an otherwise irksome task and another inconvenience apple recently dealt me that in the end, proved more satisfying than i initially expected.

i believe unforeseen advantages to be one of the hopeful products of thoughtful and sophisticated design. granted had i been paired with a loud-phone talking, suv mom complaining about the brightness of her ipad screen, i may not be fawning so. but that is another by-product of design - they can all be improved upon, which is what keeps many of us getting out of bed each day.

like a more scintillating game of clue.

there's a wireless network within reach of my home called "the pussy machine".

it seems i have a much more interesting, or deluded, neighbor than i previously knew i had.

under-respected & under-appreciated no more!

my childhood home's first computer was one called a TRS-80. i was twelve or thirteen at the time. of the early home PCs this one made by radio shack was one of the lesser coveted models, but for someone who thought the nascent computer revolution would pass him by completely, i was seven kinds of thrilled to be part of the history. little did i know how much this foreword thinking purchase on my parents part would affect me then (and for unpredictable decades to come). much of my understanding of logic and process stemmed from the early poking and hacking and noodling i did on this unheralded footnote in the early PC landscape.

the computer, and the television it was connected to, sat on an old wooden card table in my home's basement. my dad expressed little curiosity in the contraption as he passed my hunched over frame while he moved to and from the garage. one time something on the screen stopped him. after a few minutes, he asked what i was doing. i told him playing a game. he asked what the point of the game was. i said to eat all of the dots without running into a bad guy. he asked if he could try. i said sure. i stood and he took the seat. i remember him looking uneasy and out of place at the helm of something that was so connected to me and so not connected to him. i handed him the joystick and showed him how to start a new game by pressing the space bar. his first-ever gaming experience lasted less than a minute. instead of handing the controller back to me for my turn, he reached forward and pressed the space bar starting another game. he died again in short order. this time he turned to me and commented how it wasn't as easy as it looked. i nodded in understanding. space bar again. death again. spacebar. death. spacebar. death. he became so rapt on the objective he didn't even notice when i walked away.

my mom spotted me upstairs looking sullen. she asked what was wrong. i said nothing. she asked why i wasn't on the computer (it was still new enough that it was pretty much all i had done for weeks). i told her dad was using it. surprised she asked if she heard me right. i told her she had. i went to my room and read a book.

the next time i sat down at the computer, on a tablet of paper was written a number with an emphatic underline beneath it. it was in my father's handwriting and it took me a moment to realize it was a score, his high score, to the game. it was also higher than my highest score to date. i was duly impressed. i fired up the game and sat down convicted to best my father's mark. when i did, i enjoyably scratched his number out and wrote mine below it. several nights later when i sat down, i saw that my number was scratched out and replaced with one of his. and like that my father and i for several months engaged in a wordless form of togetherness that to this day stands as one of my warmer, more special childhood memories.

i was at a lunch the other day when the topic of early computer experiences came up. it made me remember the above story. i pulled my pen from my shirt pocket and wrote the words MEGA-BUG on my hand. later that night i set out in search of the game and as usual the interwebs delivered. should you like to experience the game that brought a young awkward boy and an old-school father closer, i invite you to do so. it also doesn't hurt that to this day i consider this to be one of the most quaint and thoughtful computer games ever devised.

to play:

1. go to this link (link will open in new window so you don't loose the instructions).
2. if prompted to trust the site, trust the site.
3. click the SETUP button.
4. click the MEGABUG button from the list (12th one down).
5. after returning to the green screen type CLOADM and hit enter.
6. wait a minute or so while the game loads.
7. when given an OK prompt, type EXEC and hit enter.
8. as the story says, press the space bar to play.
9. use the arrow keys to move.
10. as in the real world, you only get one life, so make it count.

i challenge you to clear a board in less than 100 attempts. surviving more than a minute is even a bit of a feat. if you clear two boards, both my father and i bow to you in great homage and respect.

iMaxiPad

there's a large contingent of folks who have me pegged as this apple zealot when in actuality among my circle of folks there are many more ravenous mac consumers than myself. fact is, i'm probably one of the most technology skeptical people around, although given my profession, it is a detail about myself i'm reasonable good at chesting. but this skepticism, ironically, also makes me reasonably good at what i do.

still, every time apple releases a new morsel, all sorts of folks i've known come out of the woodwork to pick fights, debate nuances, compare thoughts, and consider implications. this is a role i typically don't mind, even enjoy to a degree, but for some reason this last round about the iPad got me gassy by day's end. i think my angst comes from the fact that many people act like we've been wallowing in our own urine for centuries waiting for such groundbreaking technologies so we as a people can advance to some higher plane when in fact this iPad device and others like it will actually do much to undermine the act and art of reading.

my cumulative sentiment can probably be satisfactorily gleaned through this email excerpt from an exchange i had with bookguy yesterday (and in the name of full disclosure, i contacted him given a surprising post made on his web site)


why i haven't been invited to do technology reviews for numerous publications yet is well beyond me.

i was kicked off AOL 32 hours after opening the account

when my boss interviews technology people, there is a question he likes to ask towards the end of an interview. if the conversation is going well and he's liking the candidate, he will ask them, "what is the most fun you've ever had with a computer?" then after a pregnant pause and gauging their initial reaction to the question, he adds, "that you can talk about in a job interview."

one of my personal hobbies is collecting thoughtful thoughts. i don't care what the focus or the nature of the thought is, only that it was born out of thoughtfulness. this interview question is one of my collection favorites.

when you're married to your tech support, you're married to your tech support

how the apple switch campaign works in our home.

TROY
i'm replacing your computer.

MARTY
what!? why!? i just got this computer.

TROY
i don't like it.

MARTY
what!? why!? it's my computer, you don't have to like it.

TROY
as long as i'm the one expected to fix it when it has issues you're wrong, i do have to like it and i don't like it so i'm replacing it.

MARTY
why do i care? whatever!

and that's what i call another satisfied customer.

with dividends, 60 gigabytes of dividends

for the first time in my existence,
patience has paid off.

securing your windows machine is as easy as 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, ... 37, 38

i read the following over on kottke. i wanted to share it with people at work but given our company's policy against allowing us to access any sites of interest, kottke's a no-go. and since my site has surprisingly eluded their 'things people might like to read' index, i thought i'd share it up on my own unnoticed web site.

for those of us relegated to use the wonderfully porous windoze environment, what follows is a list of steps to help protect you from them.

8 steps to better windows security

1. Run Windows Update regularly.

2. Install ZoneAlarm (Firewall)

3. Buy and install NOD32 (Anti-Virus)

4. Install WinPatrol (Anti-Hijack)

5. Buy and install AdMuncher (Ad and Popup Blocker)

6. Install and run AdAware (Anti-Spyware)

7. Replace Internet Explorer and Outlook Express with Firefox & Thunderbird

8. Disable Autorun.

i haven't tried this yet, but am planning to in the very near future. and i also thank the guy who took the time to put this invaluable list together. anyone who makes me work less is top notch in my world.

hate the eLove and his sucky ePod

so not even 10 minutes after making yesterday's post about how i'm sick and it's because i haven't got my iPod yet, my FORMER friend e-love sends me the following email and picture.

So when Carrie's in town and buys an iBook, guess what $200 off promotion she decided to let her brother-in-law participate in? I'm so happy. :)



i was clear on the FORMER friend bit, right? and the sister-in-law ain't so high in my book either. granted, i'm five months delinquent in responding to an email from her, but still!

cough, hack, phlegm, fart and moan

i'm sick. i'm certain it's because i haven't been able to buy my new ipod yet. i told marty that my health will continue to slide until this need has been sated. you know what she said?

"you've got thirty two dollars in your savings account. if that's how much a shiny new ipod cost, then knock yourself out." (she said the words 'shiny new ipod' while flitting her hands around in the air mockingly)

you know what i said...
"why do YOU know how much money I have in MY checking account?"

you see this is what i call getting to the point while confusing the subject. but she's good, as can be seen in her response...
"cuz i'm smart"

i wasn't expecting that. now reeling, i have no choice but to revel in the suck that is my financial situation...
"thirty two dollars. that ain't very much!"

while having my loving wife rub my nose in the sad state of things...
"no it ain't."

looks like we may be seeing a new ipod fund on the horizon. and i got that one without selling blood or semen which means this time around should be a snap because if this latest illness has taught me anything, it's taught me that i'm all about the bodily fluid. just ask marty.

talk about a punch in the mouth

i almost bought one of these today which means if i don't own one by friday, i've been kidnapped and locked in a basement to serve as someone's gimp or hit by a cellphone talking motorist. and for those who have never met me, we're talking about the 40gb variety, not the child-size 20.

and, the sweetest part of this whole announcement is that it comes on the heels of sony's media player challenge to apple. even before apple released these new models it took me all of two seconds to see that what sony came to play with had no kind of prayer. sony seems to think people buy the ipod solely for disk space, size and the whatnot. how can the makers of the vaio be that clueless about the design and innovation factors behind apple's player. regardless, with a sexier, cheaper ipod up to bat, sony may as well cut their losses and donate the units they've produced to retirement communities or the like cuz theys about to get a very solid ass-whoopin.

and, let us not forget sony's last contribution to the computer-based music scene. not exactly who i want in charge of my digital media.

for any potential buyers of my first generation ipod, i think marty's got eyes for it.

and in closing, sony please bite me ... yet again.

coronary alley

while fighting a production fire on my work laptop, i accidentally hit some random keystroke combination. my windows installation now thinks i'm legally blind and partially deaf. at least i believe this to be the case because most of the fonts are set to 76 dpi and all the beeps are dinging at bloodletting decibels. two hours into this mysterious and seemingly irreversible setting i can now claim both of these ailments after facebutting the keyboard numerous times.

i'd like to know what was in the minds of the pr folks ... longhorn?

surprise! microsoft is launching YET ANOTHER operating system, longhorn. is it just me or didn't they just inundate the planet with a groundbreaking OS (XP) just days ago. i mean, i had just decided that enough time had passed to actually install the product and now it's obsolete before it has even had time to collect dust on the shelves.

excitedly though, the main focus of longhorn is to eradicate the often-required reboots. yeah, i wouldn't worry none about the porous security plaguing every OS you've ever released, i'd definitely go for less reboots. definitely much more import behind that.

dolts.

don't hate me b/c it's beautiful

the powerbook found a new home in chicago.

which means a 23 inch cinema display found a new home right here in saint lou last night.

man does it feel good to scratch a two year itch. i could go on about this latest step towards technological nirvana or i could simply share a conversation i had moments after buying the thing.

whew! (wipes brow)

day one was pretty quiet. let us hope this serenity continues.

and, i'd say more but i'm still reading. i've got lots of catching up to do.

monday night, 12:17am

i've got about an hour before going to bed and in this time i can either think of something to say to you or crack open the book i haven't touched in two months.

you see, i've worked more in the last 6 weeks than i did in all of 2002, possibly 2001 as well. the intranet i've been building for my new employer sees it's first users tomorrow (tuesday) where they will poke and jab with their keystrokes and mouse clicks the 31 applications that were rewritten for their benefit.

so in these last few moments of anonymity i think i shall go sit on a futon and do what i haven't done in a long time; read my book.

introducing a new member to the cast

email excerpt from the way-with-words-girl

i think i'm in love

my friend, who i'll call bookguy, compared opening his newly purchased ipod to undressing a beautiful young woman. if we respect this assessment, it is safe to say that unwrapping the 17 inch powerbook could be likened to undressing 100 women who are all jennifer love hewitt.

i think i'm going to need a moment. you'll please excuse me.

please stay behind the red ropes.

it's shipped! it's shipped! my new powerbook o' sex has shipped! once received you may look, but under no circumstance touch. you may envy from afar or up close, you pick. but it has shipped and i will be living on the fed ex tracking page for the next several days. tragically it is sitting in some Taiwanese port en route to indianapolis so it will not be as immediate as i may like.

and i haven't gotten any takers on the current powerbook, not counting the guy who wanted to trade sexual favors for this morsel. while i respect the initiative, unless he signs his checks Brad Pitt, no deal. and for those who may not have taken me seriously in the first place (as i'm learning with the taos ski trip) it is a legitimate offer. although if i have to explain the merits of the hardware to you, perhaps you should be at dell's site instead.

here we go again.

anyone want to buy a laptop? i wanted to and did. i'm sure we've all, by now, heard of apple's latest offering. i won't disgust you with my gushings about my current powerbook which i bought just over a year ago. suffice it to say i didn't think i'd ever love a machine more, until i watched apple's state of the union on tuesday. when jobs introduced this new machine i sat in front of my computer and laughed hysterically, maniacally one might even say. i'm embarrassed to admit that i in no way cared how much this metallic piece of sex was, i knew it would be mine.

so that's the good news for me. the good news for some lucky and as of yet undetermined technophile is i will be selling my current laptop. i haven't yet decided on an exact price but they seem to do quite well on ebay, unsurprisingly. although, should you be someone i like you may find me to be a persuasive soul. and this being the machine that facilitated my switch from windows to the ever elegant mac os, before "the switch" was made vogue, i may be even more conciliatory to a potential switch candidate.

for any serious window-shoppers, the specs follow:
titanium powerbook G4
550mhz
40gb hard drive (upgraded)
756mb ram (upgraded)
brand new battery (purchased 12.02)
vga port
slot-loading cd/dvd player
and all the other published amenities
this machine is obviously in immaculate condition and comes with all original packing materials, documentation and software.

note that i won't be selling this until i receive the new one and get my life transitioned over. according to the order confirmation, they are already back ordered and the projected ship date is 7-10 weeks out (major suck!). so you'd have a little time to sell your blood, soul, sperm and body before having to make payment.

slow news day or not, i'm still reading

this article more than summarizes how sad and stagnating today's pc market has become. hp is greatly hyping a new line of machines that can also act like a tv. now let's put aside that fact that anyone can tv-enable their existing pc for under a hundred dollars, could have for the last 5 years. let's also put aside the fact that HP is #1 in computer sales. certainly they have only the best intentions with your hard-earned dollar and will settle for nothing less than the most talented and skilled innovators in crafting their technology. but, sadly in the end this is the best our greatest pc manufacturer can do. oh, but wait a minute, this just in, "The PC can also store digital photos and play DVDs." Now that changes things. i never thought a computer would be capable of such grandiose and robust functionality in my lifetime. i mean how do they reach such heights in this nubile year of 2002. man, the people at HP sure are on it.

meanwhile, on the microsoft front, their latest ad campaign was debunked earlier this week. it seems that they were going to use apple's own Switch movement against them and have ex-mac users talk about how windows has released them from the bonds that tied them. only problem was the picture of the woman claiming this epiphany was purchased from a stock photo site and she, a freelance writer, was hired by microsoft craft this sincere account. now while the pr machine that is microsoft doesn't fumble often, it sure is fun to watch the ball fly loose every now and again. because when it comes down to it, we all know that microsoft is simply an advertising company that dabbles in computers.

get yourself something nice

i made my first impulse buy on ebay last night. i was simply doing some research on the original palm V and seeing if anyone was selling them. i'm convinced that these units have been cheaped up over the last few years and not made like they were back in the early days. i also haven't been right since mine broke seemingly forever ago and i've been using a museum ready palm III.

anyway, i hop onto ebay and what do i spy at the top of the search results but a like new palm V maturing in 20 minutes. not only is it a palm V but the auction includes a hard case (which i already have), a targus keyboard (for ultra dorkdom), a usb savvy docking cradle (for that macintosh at home) and a neoprene cover as an extra parting gift. and all this for an opening bid of $100. only one guy bid on it so it was sitting at a modest $110 and i mean what can you say, the guy is, and i'm sure we can chant this together, giving it away. last time i was in the accessories aisle this potpourri of items would gig your credit card a clean $500 plus. i honestly didn't think my bid of $112.50 would make it through but, well since i'm writing about this i reckon you can intuit the outcome.

as part of my rationalizing this bout of weakness i've concluded that since i don't routinely go to the mall and can't even tune into the home shopping network given my rabbit-ears cable situation, i guess it's only fitting i tank an occasional c-note on ebay.

now, i'm sure it goes without saying that there is no reason to tell marty about any of this. she's got a lot on her mind. agreed. good.

it's a gap store, but with computers

so friday was the grand opening of the new super mall for saint louis. wanna know how big a deal it was? vern from trading spaces was making an appearance.

saturday morning was the big unveiling our very own apple store in said mall. you know what there is a big difference between? soccer moms who make an event of going to the new super mall and geeks who go to pay homage to a particular brand of computer the day there first local store opens.

earlier in the week man who screams like woman (MWSLW) asked if i was going. sure. you want to go together? sure. ok, i'll meet you at 6. for those not reading the news, this would be four full hours before the doors were to be opened. but, if you wanted a shirt (to the first 1000) you best get their at 6.

since i could make my very own shirt in the same 4 hours, i elected to not join MWSLW. when i arrived shortly before they opened the doors there was a line. there was a line so long that it went down the mall and wrapped around multiple potted trees and lengths of glass handrails blocking the way of the hustling mall-goers. in trying to get through the mass they would anxiously ask what all the ruckus was about. new apple store. what's an apple store? apple is a computer company. hmm, what are they giving away. well, shirts, but that's not why everyone is standing in line. well why then. ... there's a reason these two groups of people don't mix by choice. by the end of my wait i was simply saying "if you gotta ask, i can't explain."

and, by the way, i did get a shirt. i'm wearing it right now. have been since i got it. the next time you see me, i'll still be wearing it. i shower in my new shirt. i mean, i did wait and line and talk to all those silly humans after all. i earned this shirt.

give me some palm

in the name of all that is holy (to me) if you are looking to purchase a pda (personal digital assistant), buy a unit, any unit, that runs the Palm OS. WinCE (or wince) devices represent microsoft's bloated and ill-considered attempt at breaking into the market. you know what they did? they shoehorned their desktop operating system into a handheld device. this was the extent of their innovation and in their speed and greed they did not see the shortsightedness of this decision. i won't bore anyone with the multitude of issues related to this improper application of technology, but will rave incessantly to any who may inquire.

so stop looking at the pretty colors and flashy pr and base your decision on an informed assessment of the technology and how you hope it improves your process.

and, if you've already made up your mind about what you're getting (and it's not a palm), stop wasting my time. i could be busy asking you things i want to know about.

let me just hit pause here long enough to say ...

i certainly hope i have demonstrated that when i see something i want, need, crave and covet i can whore up with the best of them. grail like in its majesty the shiny bauble now rests in my recently washed and thoroughly exfoliated hand. we've been unduly and unjustly kept from one another, but not again, never again, will i abandon you my sweet. i will carry you in your protective sheath near my heart, clipped at the waist or tucked in the man-purse but you will be on my person at all times. my living will is being adjusted as we speak and as of this moment i will never share my bed with another.

ok bookpimp, i'm done. i'm finally and exhaustively done.

you'll have to excuse me for a moment

  

i think i will keep on trucking

Last night Man Who Screams Like Woman (MWSLW) and myself went to our local apple users group to see what they had to offer. We were thoroughly excited and had largish expectations of what we would find. Upon arriving at the session and nabbing some seats, we quietly took in the scene with sullen faces. After several quiet minutes, MWSLW leaned over to me and whispered, "So what do you think?" I responded, "I think we somehow have landed on the set of Cocoon."

Everyone was over sixty but us and this kid in the back row whose speaking voice greatly resembled the synthesized computer guy from War Games (Do you want to play a game?). I almost asked the facilitator to just point me to the shuffleboard lanes so I could get my stick on before the rheumatism set in and I'd have to settle for pinochle on the veranda with professor plum, floyd the barber and one of the gabor girls.

But, as karma would have it, during our dejected departure from the meeting and in the middle of our mutterings, we found a gay magazine, the adult variety, in the street that seemed to have been specially crafted for that lonely trucker away from home. And, as luck would have it, that's me. I mean that's us. I mean that's the most surreal evening I've had in some time. Come to think of it, the only thing that would have made the evening more surreal is if said magazine had catered to elderly gay truckers.

it's a collaborative effort with the george foreman grill folks

just in case you call a cave your home, computers changed again yesterday thanks to our friends at apple.

get yours now here.

and i actually listened to a geek slap fight yesterday regarding this product. i personally felt the death blow came when the guy defending the new model said the following to the guy who wanted to keep his beige rectangle because it looked normal.

As far as the design, well, I understand. Some people just can't let go of their Members Only jackets neither.

i so love verbal warfare.

yeah, he's not possessed

i was going to get one of these for marty this christmas until i read this help desk posting. freaky as that is, it's not as bad as the tickle me elmo doll i had that would grope and diddle himself whenever he got dropped.

i give...uncle...you can have my lunch already.

someone once told me that you know you're fluent in a language when you dream in it. last night i was up unitl 5am, or roughly 4 hours ago, working on my java lab final. when marty tried to wake me up this morning, she said i was muttering in some sort of "dork nonsense."

if i was able to successfully figure my lab out, i may think that i'm fluent, but since my Frequency Analysis pretty much never got out of the blocks, i think such mutterings are simply a sign of jello-head, akin to the shivering, pale guy who came a little too close to the supernatural.

i'm glad i get to 'go' to college but equally glad that i don't 'have' to go to college anymore. i feel as though i'm competing about as well as i would in a game of one on one with a college athlete, and if you're wondering, I wouldn't have stood much a chance even when i was supposed to be in college.

some administratia

first, a retraction
i'm just going to come up for air long enough to tell you that i may have spoke to impetuously the other day (11.06.01). as life surely emulates, i tried to fight the good fight in reference to sticking to my tried and true mac os, but only lasted two days before leaving the reliable and steady woman (os 9.2) for that young and lithe hellion (os 10.1). she kept whispering in my ear, telling me of the exotic life we could share. shut up, i would say, audibly might i add, but in the end i found myself gazing into her eyes. her dazzling, binder-blue and feature filled eyes until i did not have the internal wherewithal to fend her advances any longer. sorry 9.2, marry another, my heart has been stilled by this young and fresh damsel i have named desiree.

second, another retraction
multiple people have requested that i raise the allowable entries in the everyman contest from one to more. i initially had it set to three but changed it right before i published because in the event only one person entered the contest, it didn't seem fair to pay them all the jack (for one entry), even though i said i would. bookguy suggested that i raise the number of entries one can make, but say that each person is only eligible to win one award. couple that with my newfound confidence that i should receive at least three separate contestants, i'm ok with raising the number of potential entries. so i'm returning it to three photos per entrant. please feel free to dig deeper and better your chances of selection.

lastly, yet another retraction
while i may not be a photoshop guru, i have used it enough to spot an obvious fabrication. such was the case with the first photo entry received in this years contest. granted a strong clue was left in that i've been in the house where this photo was taken and am pretty sure don knotts has not holiday'd there. while i do not want to stifle any creative ambitions here, blatantly doctored photos may not be the strongest of candidates ... i hope.

i'm sorry, were you talking

It's here! It's here. It's finally here. After missing an incredibly early morning delivery attempt which forced a late night run to the inconveniently located fed-ex office I cracked the impressive packaging to my new titanium powerbook. Marty put it best when she saw the box and said, "I'll see you in a week, have fun." Did I score or what with her?

Pre-loaded with two operating systems, os 9.2 and os X (aka aqua), I knew my work was cut out for me. I will admit that I have adored mac's classic os so much I had problems envisioning what sort of obscene things os X would do to me. I shouldn't have worried. Like most brand new operating systems, this doesn't seem quite baked just yet. After my initial glimpse into it, I can honestly say that it seems as though I'd be leaving an intelligent, centered and reliable spouse of twenty years for some buxom and randy coed whose conversation would smack of Tori Spelling high on juice boxes (it's the straw, it's the tiny straw). So for the moment, I think I will stick to the classic version, using the newer one situationally. You got to leave something on your plate for tomorrow. Regardless of the os drama, this machine is exquisite, simply exquisite.

Microsoft in the head

I'm done with microsoft. One too many virus alerts, unrecoverable windows errors and misleading (outright untruthful) marketing campaigns. Few people recognize that this company has not made any significant changes to their suite of applications, outside of tweaking the interfaces, since the release of Windows 95.

My exodus began after acquiring a dated apple computer about six months ago. The machine is 10 years old and with $300 worth of upgrades the box outperforms my greatly beefed up intel machine running bill's latest and greatest os. Since this not modest discovery I began eyeing apple's line of products. Obviously, I drifted towards their high end laptops but they were simply too costly to justify as a third computer. Until a few weeks ago when they released their new line of chips and the $3500 model plummeted to a more respectable $2100. As I like to say in regard to such matters, they're giving them away.

Since ordering my titanium badboy nine days ago, I've visited their order status page about 4 times a day only to be met with a Being Assembled notice. Apple, I need my machine and I need it now. Please complete me.

i've had about enough

This device accomplished in 15 minutes what I could not in two weeks; share a single ip address among all of my home computers (win2000, win95, mac) to grant web access across the board. Sometimes you just have to pony up to get the job done right. And, not only did it fulfill my need but my visiting brother-in-law was able to wirelessly use my web connection while hanging out downstairs in the dining room with about two mouse clicks from his apple iBook. Now how sexy is that?

now what?

In order to keep your geek card, one must engage in some overly nerdish act at least annually. To fulfill my obligation this year I took a PowerMac 7100/66 (circa 1993) and brought it into the modern age. After upgrading it to a 300 mhz G3 processor, adding 64 megs of ram and tossing a 4 gig hard drive into it, I suddenly have a mac on my desk that outperforms my primary windows workstation. Not bad for a couple of hundred bucks and a weekend. So until next year when I?m asked to again converse in geekenese I bid you good day.

Oh, and by the way, does anyone know how to use one of these things?

we will never stop!

if you lived in my world you would know that i just don't post enough geek humor on this site.

gut rehab

Gave my palm and email environments an overhaul tonight. Blew everything out and started from scratch, upgrading all the way. PalmOS 3.50, Palm Desktop 4.0, Eudora 5.1, HackMaster v09, MiddleCaps Hack, PadLock Hack, Select Hack, Big Clock, Space Invaders, Pocket Chess and best of all Showtimes. Man do I love having a clean palm in my palm.

What's this I spy...Customer Service?

You never know how much you love something until it?s gone. I experienced said angst when the DVD in my computer went south on me. I soon discovered that 95% of the work I did was conducted with American Beauty, The Matrix or Aliens running up in the top right corner of my monitor. A friend suggested I call Creative Labs to complain about the short lifespan of their device. I reluctantly did only to hear, ?shoot it to us and we?ll get a new one out to you.? A few short days later I was greeted in my mailbox with a brand new and functioning replacement. Anyone who facilitates my 97th viewing of Lester Burnham and Ricky Fitz scores mega-points in my book. Kudos Creative.

Did you ask for this?

Below are two files that I've had several people ask for which I've delivered to approximately none of them. Since I cannot remember who asked for what, I'll just post both of them and anyone who wants them can have them. NOTE: Right click on the file to download.

The first is a home-made CD jacket sleeve (25kb) for any who may have heard of Napster and make their own cds. This is a word doc and has information for a bloodhound gang cd which you would, of course, modify and print. I'm not sure if non-laster printers can handle the lyrics side of the document. If not, just delete them.

This second file is a shopping list (131kb) that Marty and I use to track our food needs for our next trip to the market. Again, you would modify this as needed according to your own dietary habits. and if your half as anal as myself, you would set it up to correspond to your route through the store. This is also a word doc, and any printer should be able to handle it.

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