bella recently asked me to establish an email account for her. i told her that i would under the condition that her first ever email be sent to me. she readily agreed.

here's the first ever email she received: and the first ever email she sent: it's hard to not appreciate a healthy dose of self-awareness and candor.

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.

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.

last week was high on troy week. at every turn it seemed i was being lavished with a body of compliments and kudos and appreciation for a variety of things, unrelated, from a variety of folks, also unrelated. some of the people i see weekly and some of the people i hadn't heard from in many months and in one case many years. the many years person rounded the week out, coming in on saturday evening. it came as such a surprise and carried such an unexpected remark, it is the only specific item from the week i'm going to share: the "pager site" mentioned would be the third website i ever made in my life, which justifies my friend's astonishment that it could have possibly withstood any test of time. regardless, if that isn't a puff of wind up a fella's skirt, i don't know what would be. thanks j. and thanks not for having the thought, but for having the consideration and going to the effort of letting me know you had the thought. i appreciate this doesn't always happen, or doesn't happen enough in today's frenzy-filled days at least.

and then monday morning as i walked anthony to school i took in my scene. my four year was energetically charging on his bike towards school, which he is still thankfully crazily excited about. i was appreciative of the early fall weather. i had a solid night of sleep. i had a good swim the day before. i thought of the previous week and how dear and giving my world had been to me. as i studied the blue sky i thought that perhaps this life of adulation may be my new standard and i could now routinely expect such generous feedback from the folks in my life. perhaps this was the universe making good on all of the karmic rewards surely due a soul as kind and gentle and needy as mine. then at work, before i had logged the first hour at my desk, a young co-worker told me that some of my behaviors were indicative of a high-functioning autistic and she wondered, aloud to me, and believe it or not, innocently, if i'd ever been tested. before her sentence was complete, i heard the magic bubble that had been following me around for the last seven days implode with a wispy simper behind me. and that quickly the universe i thought may have so recently changed in my favor, appeared to have righted itself.

a student of mine from last year forwarded me a link today. he said that after seeing this interview he felt it might be of interest to me and of possible use in future classes. i opened the link. this was the first thing i heard. after that line i paused the video, now fifteen seconds into a thirty one minute interview, readied a reply to my student and wrote, "that is possibly the single greatest line i've heard in regard to technology since i've begun working in technology."

i've never heard of stephen fry but after listening to thirty minutes of him free-styling here, i can assure you that three months from now i will be very familiar with his thoughts on technology and life's chase.

you can all thank luke, the most stylish student i've ever had the pleasure of working with for this juicy and marbled slab of greatness. and, send good thoughts and karma his way as he looks for a curious endeavor with a non-profit in the atlanta region.

STEPHEN FRY: WHAT I WISH I'D KNOWN WHEN I WAS 18 from Peter Samuelson on Vimeo.

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.

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.

excerpt from eric brende's Better Off

i was working on my computer one night during last month's sabbatical. the software updates notifier appeared. i'd been putting these off the last few weeks so decided to finally install the updates and restart my computer. i ran the updates and after the reboot continued to work for several more hours before going to bed. when i awoke in the morning, i went to my office, lifted the laptop screen...

two guys i used to work with ten years ago were recently exchanging emails.

after one guy typed:
... i got a tickling feeling in my colon each time i ran the command that was a bit disconcerting but now that you've explained it ...

the other guy responded to the comment by saying:
I see you stay in touch with Troy!

if you're going to be known for something, i guess there's worse things to be remembered for than colon-centric conversations.

and yes, sure, there are better things one could be known for and my mother would be the first to point this out, but there are also worse things to be remembered for. that's all i'm saying.

it's official. as of 12:20pm CST yesterday, i'm on the grid. one with mankind. connected. i now have a cellphone. well, that's not entirely right. it would be more accurate to say i now have the cellphone.

the first time i saw the iPhone i remember sitting back in my chair and thinking how i really wanted one. and, this is not to say i wanted a cellphone, what i wanted was an iPhone. and the art of selling something to someone who doesn't even want the core function of what you are selling is by my estimation an impressive piece of salesmanship. and like all apple technology, it only gets more and more impressive as you touch it, feel it, and use it. i'm certain the apple-effect is compounded by the fact that most other products in the marketplace suffer from an inverse reaction. that is, they suck. and they do so massively. typical devices look great on tv, in print, and via concept but when you touch it, feel it, and use it, they just plain suck the pipe. and seem to do so more with each day of use.

case in point. a few years ago i saw a superbowl ad for something called the motorolla pebble (although i don't think that's how they spelled it). in the commercial this thing looked spectacular. it looked most like a polished and shaped orb of marble, naturally forged in the bowels of the earth. days later i stepped into a store asked to see one and the salesman went to a display cabinet and then handed me a piece of molded plastic that had the same heft and substance of a common corded mouse. i corrected the gentleman saying i wanted to the see the phone that was advertised during the superbowl. he said that was it. wordlessly i handed it back to him and left the store. after several hours of poking and prodding the iPhone, i've yet to reach the bottom of the enchantment well. you can so easily tell the difference between people who do what they do because they are passionate about it and people who do what they do because they want to turn a profit.

and for as much as i've been dying to be able to say to people 'hit me on my burner', you probably have an equal chance at scoring jessica simpson's digits (or rob lowe for the ladies) as you do mine.

there is about to be one less cell-phone-free human walking around.

i tip my hat to all those who still hold the line. much respect.

i received a shiny new apple laptop today so am slightly distracted. you should feel fortunate i looked away from it long enough to type even this paltry note.

for those who aren't part of the apple nation, this may help expose some of the zealotry. years back a friend, who i'll politely keep anonymous, likened his first experience opening an apple product to that of undressing a beautiful woman.

while i never voiced it so, i knew exactly what he meant. and few would argue that their offerings don't become all the more fetching every year. it's quite ridiculous really.

i have a large project deadline next week. given this i won't have a whole lot of time to squander with you all.

that said, i 've had some folks ask about my office at the new job (which is not so new anymore). admittedly these inquiries come on the heels of me bragging on it in one way or another. so since i'll be spending the majority of my days there and i've promised a few of you a glimpse into that part of my life, it seems fitting to use this week to settle that score.

i'll post a different picture each day of the week. enjoy the next seven days a little bit for me.

a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. three percenter

it is my personal goal to be the last information technology guy in america who doesn't own a cell phone. as it stands, it's between me and 18 other folks.

i still haven't even seen titantic. i cannot be beaten. this is a fact.

a detail i forgot to include in this month's gallery essay is that the day after getting the software, marty mocked me because i had stayed up all night working on my computer and was exhausted the next day. i told her to be nice to me and my new software because Apple's Tiger saved her marriage. she, like the gas-station clerk, indifferently shrugged her shoulders before turning away.

perhaps it's just that everyone but me knows that my seductress was really a prostitute trying to salvage a slow night.

it was almost eleven o'clock on a friday evening and i was driving to the apple store to pick up my copy of their new operating system, tiger. as for the late hour, they were open until midnight in honor of the software's release. i stopped on the way for gas and as i headed inside to pay, a youngish woman jumped out of a parked car and dashed in just before me, beating me to the counter. she purc...

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.

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

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.

i just met my second person who used to have a scanner that could pick up cell phone conversations. as i understand it, due to changes in cellular protocols, these devices can no longer receive the signals. too bad about that really, cuz there are about seven traits of my personality that would have made that activity and me real good friends.

interestingly each of these fellows had similar findings. they said that the dominant thread of conversation they heard dealt with infidelity. one of them went as far to put it at 70% of the conversations he listened to took place between affair goers.

the second most common discussion they spied; couples fighting.

now there's some math even i can add up.

a guy at work showed me the above ad which he found in a 1978 issue of national lampoon. if you own one of these shirts, bumper stickers or bags, you should email me right now because i'm paying a grotesque amount of money for one i can call my own. note: low-rent substitutions will not suffice.

spinning through this rag it's bizarre to see many domain-less advertisements. i can't help but wonder what i would be doing for a living if i was 35 in 1978 instead of 2004. the other noteworthy aspect of leafing through this is the commercial space is way funnier than the humor magazine's actual crafted content, by today's standards at least. allow me to expound:

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[click to enlarge]

is that jeff goldblum?
it seems an unfortunate side effect of this in dash sparkomatic is that it causes your head to begin morphing into that of a common housefly. that and dressing like an aspiring adult film star. on studying this scene i'm thinking mr. reams here may want to shag his ass out of dodge in that mag-heavy firebird because i don't see the natives being too warm and fuzzy to a guy with huge, white, compound eyes, especially one wearing that bombardier jacket.

---

[click to enlarge]

i'd like to join your hell's angel club ... please
i can't tell you how much i'd like one of these. but i also couldn't tell you about the black and blue beating i'd get if i showed up to work riding it. no worries though given my super-secret and uber-effective self-defense. although that might not save me from dodging the nickname CHAPPY.

---

[click to enlarge]

i kind of miss the big silver dials
so we all know i have one of these. and i recently added one of these. just last night i was trying to explain the ipod/henry kloss setup to my father and he just kind of stood there blinking, wanting to understand, trying to comprehend but because he came from such a different school we weren't really firing on all cylinders. but, you'll never find me to be too scathing on this front because as e-love points out i'm closer to 70 year's old than i am to my birth which means i'm just a few birthdays from the doddering phase of my own life.

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[click to enlarge]

they got everyone but gopher
now i bet you never knew that tom sellek, dana plato and jacques cousteau posed for an ad together. and if you think you're spying ron howard up on the gangplank, i would say you have a keen eye (this is obviously ron in one of his earlier directorial cameos). one would think with all this star power you could leave the cool-ass diving bell back in the shop but camel has never been one to pull a punch when it came to their advertising. i mean if it weren't for the diving bell, i wouldn't have a smoke dangling from my mouth as i type these words. to recap ... no diving bell ... no sale ... diving bell ... i got an opened carton on top of the fridge. and this is 25 years after the ad initially ran. i'm going to call that a well spent advertising dollar.

---

sorry i've been away so much. the olympics are on, like don't ya know, and i have tivo which means the olympics are actually watchable.

for instance, with tivo:

1. i can watch a 3 hour football game in 50 minutes.
2. i can watch a 30 minute episode of friends in 18 minutes.
3. thin when tan girl and i can watch an hour long episode of america's funniest home videos in 8 minutes.
4. and lastly, i can watch a six hour block of olympic coverage in 1 hour and 30 minutes.

if you're not up with the new technology and not really tracking my vibe, think of it this way, the networks are satan and tivo is the "kick satan in the nards" box.

viewing disclaimer: if you are watching tivo'd programming at e-love's house, cut all times in half.

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.