Son of a Basketball

If you haven't noticed (then why am even writing this?) I haven't been posting. It's because my main computer is in the shop getting a new motherboard and processor because mine got fried, even though it's always plugged into a surge protector.

My computer won't be ready for another week or so. Cripes.

Freakin' Microsoft

Can we sue Microsoft now? Two days ago they forced a download on me that killed my access to the Great Big InterWeb. For TWO FREAKIN' DAYS I was trying to fix the damn thing, wondering if my wireless card had gone belly up or if I had inadvertently deleted important Great Big InterWeb access files. Through a fluke I changed a setting on my firewall and suddenly I had access again. Turns out that Microsoft's latest "security" update screwed up my firewall. So I went and deleted the "security" file and now I have access again.

TWO DAYS!! And if I hadn't (out of sheer frustration) started playing with my firewall settings I still wouldn't know what the [bleep] was wrong. Wow is that grossly negligent and just a shitty thing to do on their part.

And not one word about Apple from anyone, 'cause guess what? They're also a giant corporation out to make a buck anyway they can (DRM and iTunes, anyone?).

Jinkies.

ET Goes Commercial

Of course I'm talking about Entertainment Tonight. If you've ever seen the show it's a lot of "coming up next" and a lot of commercials. I decided to time the actual content (okay, content is a bit strong, but hopefully you get the idea). There were 16 minutes and 7 seconds of "content" in the half-hour show. That's it. All the rest of the show was telling us what was coming up in the next segment and then commercials.

Actually, I'm surprised. I really thought there'd only be about 10 or 12 minutes of content. Live and learn.

Easy Steps to Home Improvement

Step 1: A new home-improvement project dawns brilliant and joyful. There's an inner peace and an overall feeling of well-being. After all, I'm improving my home. I'm being the man of the house. It feels good. I go to the hardware store for my purchase. Almost giddy.

Step 2: Huh. I could have sworn I only needed four sprockets. I head back to the hardware store. No longer giddy, but it's all good. Just need one more sprocket.

Step 3: Did you know that they make the sprocket in different sizes? I didn't. Woulda thought I'd have noticed that before buying the fifth one. It's just one more trip to the hardware store.

Step 4: You're sold out of the size I need? Special order? No, thanks, I'll just drive to the next closest hardware store, which isn't very close at all. No, no, I'm not pissed. Just a bit frustrated. But they have the fifth sprocket I need. All is well, if only these morons on the road would drive!

Step 5: It broke. Not the sprocket, but the doohickey you attach it to. Just broke off right in my hand. I'm staring at it right now. Inert. But laughing its ass off at me. What is this doohickey? Can I replace just this part or, wait, it disappears into the wall. Where the hell do you disconnect it? Dammit, where's my drywall saw.

Step 6: Do they sell small bits of drywall or do I have to buy a four foot by eight foot sheet? And, no, the close hardware store doesn't sell drywall. It's back to the next-closest. I take in the doohickey that I disconnected from my house. I show it to the orange-vested worker man at the hardware store. "Hmm," he says and figuratively scratches his head. He calls in reinforcements. None of them have seen a part like that in years. Decades. I do live in an older house. It seemed so comforting when I moved in.

Step 7: "Honey? Don't use the yammick in the downstairs bathroom. I don't know when I can fix it. Yes, I'll fix the drywall, too. Do we have any beer?"

Step 8: Back in the car and headed to the liquor store.

O SuperLaurie

'Cause when love is gone, there's always justice
And when justice is gone, there's always force
And when force is gone, there's always Mom

Hi Mom!

-- "O Superman" by Laurie Anderson, 1981

Muggs Got Mad Skilz

Okay, this might be too cutesy, but I don't care. I think these are pretty cool. They retail for about $10, but if you go to Urban Outfitters, you can get them for $20 (you heard me). Minor side rant about Urban Outfitters. Cool stuff, but they charge DOUBLE the suggested retail price for their products. A t-shirt with a print on it, which should be no more than $15, goes for $28. Their pricing scheme is outrageous. So go there to get ideas for cool stuff, then find it online for half the cost.

Sorry. Now back to these adorable Muggs from Hasbro (click here to go to the Muggs page).

Stupid Flash Memory

Interesting. Part of the hype of solid-state drives (SSD - flash memory in a big enough quantity to replace a hard drive) was that it'd save power because there are no moving parts on the thing. And if they did save power that would be useful for laptops and other portable devices, of course. Turns out, however, that SSDs (not to be confused with STDs) consume MORE power than their backwoods cousins, the hard drives. Click here to go to Tom's Hardware to see some tests they did. Turns out that on paper, a hard drive should use more power, but that's only when it's running full throttle, which doesn't happen all the time (or all that often). But with SSDs, they're kinda ON the whole time, sucking at the power teat of your computer.

I remember the first hard drive I ever saw. It was in a clear case and was 8 or 10 inches in diameter (someone geekier than me could tell you (and me) just what diameter the hard drive would have really been). This was back in '84, I believe. And I'm pretty sure it was an astounding 20MB.