Okay, maybe it's time...

I know last post (what, a month ago?!) I said that there's no reason to hate Vista. Now I've been using Vista on my desktop since I replaced it in February last, and after a while, it started feeling a little sluggish. But then I added two more gigabytes of RAM and it was a speed demon again.

Then my wife bought me a laptop for our anniversary. I love it. It's got 1 gig of RAM, and a dual core processor. And it takes about 6 minutes to boot from cold to usable, excluding the time it takes me to type in my name and password.

Then one day, my desktop started blue-screening. Regularly. Twice in an afternoon. Worried for the health of my computer, I downloaded Ubuntu Feisty Fawn Live CD and ran the memtest86+ utility. The screen went from blue (okay) to bright red (not okay) in less time than it took me to press Enter. So I started testing each stick separately, and it was my new sticks of RAM. Crap. So I sent them back to the place I bought them. They're replacing them, very nicely and very quickly.

But now I am back to 1gb of RAM in my desktop. And I've got to be honest, I'm a little spoiled after that time spent as sir speedy. It's freaking molasses. So, I installed Feisty Fawn, then updated to Gutsy Gibbon.

You know what? I liked it so much, I installed it on my laptop.

You know what else? It's set as the default for both machines now. When you've got a 160GB laptop hard drive and you keep most of your important stuff on the desktop computer, you can dual boot a laptop easily.

I still like MS products. I'm hoping to get a copy of XP to replace Vista on my laptop. But when I can boot in to Ubuntu in a matter of less than 2 minutes, still access all the same files and formats on my Windows partitions - hell, I save all my data into the Windows partition and if I have to I can still boot into Vista and have that data available.

But it's clean, it's secure, and damn, it's pretty. And that sells a lot of people over.

I am just sick (and tired!)

One fine day, I sat and read about 120 talkback posts on ZDNet, most of them from people who will NEVER use Vista, whether because they use Linux (which is fine) or because they use Macs (which is *gasp* also fine). I've come to believe that the truth of the matter is that the vast majority of run of the mill computer users will buy a Vista box, turn it on, and have no, if any, issues.

My XP box terminally fried (Motherboard issue) on Vista release day. I had to buy a new box that day because of deadlines for a graphic design commission (Yes, Adobe CS2 on a Vista box) and, truthfully, I was dreadfully afraid of what kind of experience I was going to have. Now it's August, and I just bought a new Vista laptop, and in the whole time that I've had my two machines, I've had NO blue screens of death, Adobe suites run great, the two boxes network over a hybrid wired/wireless network just fine...

I am a geek. There. I've said it. I've got MCSA, A+, Net+ certifications. Both of my boxes are dual boot with Ubuntu because I want to keep my skills alive on Linux/Unix, and it's fun. I've built many boxes in my time, but marriage and a new baby make for less money to spend on the fun builds, so my last two desktops were HP's.

Did I mention, I've had few, to no, issues?

HP, Dell, Acer, Gateway - all those guys did just what the author of the post in question did, they just did it from a different stand point - make it work right, for a reasonable price, rather than necessarily the best functionality and "Windows Experience Scores".

Linux is clean, fast and free. As in free speech, people, not free beer. Okay, kinda. That comes with a feeling of freedom that's indescribable, but on the other hand, if you have an issue, you better hope there's someone out there who can fix it, 'cause there's not a 'manufacturer' who will do it for you. To some people, myself included, that's a small price to pay.

Apple, in my opinion, is a small monopoly. One company manufactures, codes, produces... At least Microsoft doesn't make the hardware (okay, there's the Xbox and 360, but c'mon...) I don't build anymore, but that's not because I can't. Oh, did I mention I can afford to have a machine that still runs CS2 happily - and well enough for a freelance designer to do WORK on?

Bottom line, every box has its strengths and its weaknesses. Linux, Mac, Windows, who cares. 75% (I would hazard a guess) of the people with computers out there are using them for 3, maybe 4 purposes - Email, Web, Music, and word processing et al. - that are truly platform non specific.

Can't we all just get along?

The Dumbing Down of America, Part 37

Blows me away on a daily basis, the things that are done for the people who ... society? ... considers to be not worth caring about.

I went to the store on the way home from work tonight and as I was waiting in line to pay for my gallon of milk, I looked over at the lane next to me. I was directly behind the check out girl, and I saw as she punched in that the customer paid for a $8.16 purchase with a $10.00 bill, the screen on her register showed a picture of the cash tray, with a picture of each denomination and coin she needed to pull, with a quantity above it. (1) $1, (3) $.25, (1) $.05, (4) $.01.

What truly made me sad was to see her looking up again and again to make sure she got it right.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes...

So I finally feel like it's about time that I explain my -lengthy- absence.

I spent about 3 weeks at the end of June where I was beginning to wonder whether I was going to be fired, for God knows what, and then one day I get a call from my boss. Immediately, I was worried, as I'd not heard hide nor hair from this man in weeks, aside from the various quick memos that go out daily.

"Can you talk?"

"Sure."

"Are you in private?"

"Give me 3 minutes."

So I went to the most private place I know about in the entire building (a completely unfinished floor - you can see someone coming from miles away) and I let him know, "Okay, I'm here. What's up?"

"The General Manager has requested that you be replaced. Truth be told, no one down at home office is really happy about this, but we've got to keep her happy. So, we've got a new account for you and you'll start there in a week, and we've got Bill coming in from your old account to take over. His account will be taken by Phil, and Phil used to be the account supervisor for your new account. Is that clear?"

"Well," I say, a bit befuddled and ... quite a bit angry, "I thought Bill said he'd never leave the account he's at... Matter of fact, I thought I'd heard that the client had threatened to drop our company if he left."

"We dealt with it," He says with authority, but I can hear a bit of hesitancy floating in there.

"So what's the deal?" I say. "Why does she want me out? I was under the impression that everything was kosher?"

"She decided that she wanted to have someone in the supervisory position who had more experience. I'm sorry you didn't know that this was coming, and I'm sorry I didn't let you know earlier, but I didn't want to say anything before I had good news to give you."

"Fine, I suppose."

So one week later, I am taking over a new account. I've got Ryan, who's going through a divorce, Val, who's a single mother, and Walter, who's a member of a cult - and proud of it. The first two are pains in my ass because they both don't want to work anything but the schedule they've got, and Walter doesn't want to work weekends because he has "religious obligations"... I'm the supervisor, damnit, I say when you work.

Matter of fact, Walter writes me a ... I hate to say it, but 'note' gives this little chit a little too much credit. Through a weird course of events, I end up with both the original handwritten version as well as the 'final' typed version. I hesitate to even call that final, as the thing starts out 'Deer Dan jones' - no, there was no comma... and the last name was not capitalized.

It all went downhill from there.

I'm talking, misspellings, random punctuation, random capitAlization, demands (no, not requests) ... I will never publish anything whether to my wife, my parents, my boss, or a prospective employer until I've had a chance to look it over, proofread it, and spell check it.

Blame my mother.

Ryan tells me that the schedule won't work because he has to go pick up his kids from the sitter an hour into his shift. Fine, I say, you'll just come in two hours later and I'll work those two hours instead. Yippee.

Three weeks later, I've got the account running just about as smoothly as I can, and I get another call from my boss.

"You've got to go interview for another account. It's up between you and another supervisor, but both your buildings have been sold and the new owners want to pay less for the security. And you get paid too much."

What? I get paid too much?!

"Okay. I'll go Friday."

I get a call Monday to inform me that I'm the new supervisor at building number 3. and 4. and 5. It's a complex of buildings - which I'd had no idea until day one, and encompassed 2 accounts. Well, crap. More work, same pay.

So I guess, all in all, it worked out for the best. I'm in a pretty good building, with a client who respects me enough to let me do my work and leave me to my devices. My officers now are by and large pretty respectable, and I'm getting some overtime.

Oh, wait, that's not 100% a good thing...

Is It Still Paranoia When They Really Are After You?

Further proof...

I get a call from the General Manager on my day off. "I need you to come in at 10:00 tomorrow."

"Um, okay, but why?"

"I need you to be there when I confront Arthur."

"Okay, what's going on?"

"Well, I'd rather talk about it tomorrow. You might tell him what I say."

Deep breath. It's okay. "Give me an idea."

"No," she says in a stage whisper, "we'll talk tomorrow morning."

So I get things straightened out with my wife, and promptly at 9:50 I walk in to the office to talk to her. "What's up?"

"Arthur's been talking about me behind my back."

"How so?"

"Well, he was overheard the other day talking with the secretary about how I'm such a hard person to work for and he just can't stand me."

"That doesn't sound like him, but we'll talk to him to be sure."

So, I'm sent out to get him and bring him to the conference room.

"Arthur, it's come to my attention that you don't like me and don't like working with me. Don't deny it, I have it on good authority that you have been gossiping."

Arthur looks at me, bewildered, and says, "What are you talking about?!"

I know this guy. If it's possible, he's more professional at work than even I am. I give him the "Duh, wha'?" look and promise a discussion later.

"You're gossiping behind my back," she insists again. "I know you are."

"Where are you getting this? I'd never do this and, frankly, I'm insulted that you'd even think it."

"It came from Helen." She's the head cleaner. Oh, did I mention that she's also a HUGE gossip?

Arthur looks at me. I can see his mental Rolodex flipping through. "You know, I saw her talking to your secretary yesterday afternoon. I heard bits of the conversation, but I steered clear when I heard it. I didn't want any part."

"She says you started the discussion and she just overheard it!"

"Well, that's patently untrue. I'd never join in gossip at work, especially with people I have to work with."

Arthur's allowed to leave, and I follow, talking about what else is going on, leaving the embarrassment of the last hour behind us.

The next day, I come in for my shift, and She's there again. Waiting for me.

"Arthur lied to us."

"Really? How?"

"Helen came to my office after she came in and said that he'd come to her and asked her not to drag his name through her issues."

"I don't see how he's lying, really..."

"He's trying to cover! It's all a cover! He hates me!"

Maybe they should come. Just wearing clean white coats, and carrying one with really long sleeves. Just for you!

No Respect

(With all apologies to Mr. Dangerfield.)

I've been supervisor at my current job now for a little over 3 months. In that time, I've learned of a new level of egotism that I'd never even dreamed existed.

It's a beautiful spring morning, and I'm sitting at the guard desk, greeting visitors, BSing with tenants and regulars, when I look up from some paperwork and see none other than the chief of police standing at my desk.

"Good morning, sir, how can I help you?" I say.

"Well," he says with a slightly befuddled look on his face, "I was sent here by the guard at the building across the way - they said they don't have a bathroom, but you do."

Truth be told, we don't have a public bathroom. No office buildings in the downtown area - of a certain calibre - do. But he's the chief of police. "Sir," I explain, we don't have a public bathroom, but I respect law enforcement and I'll let you use our bathroom. Come this way, please?"

I let him in the bathroom, and as I am walking away, the general manager of the management company stops me and says, "What was that?"

"That was Chief -------," I respond with a shake of my head. "Can you believe they wouldn't let him use their restroom across the way?"

"Yes," she says. "And I don't want to see you ever let anyone use our restroom again! We don't have a public restroom, and I will not have you letting just anyone use it!"

I look at her, expecting to see a twinkle of "just kidding" in her eye, but, damn, she's serious. "I'm sorry," I say, "I respect law enforcement."

"I don't care if the president of the country asked for the bathroom, you don't let anyone use it!" she says, with the most imperious look in her eye, and then she stalks off down the hall to her office.

Small people.

Car Sales

What an aggravation.

We were considering a new car. Not that we needed one, we just have a two wheel drive sedan and nobody in our little family is what you would call ... versed ... in driving in the snow. So we saw a possible replacement in the paper and called.

"Hello, Ripoff Car Sales, how can I help you?"

"Hi, we were looking through the paper and saw that you have this car available right now. We have been thinking about upgrading to a 4x4 and this looks like a good unit."

"Oh, definitely, Sir, a great vehicle. Why don't you come down and we'll take a look at your car and tell you what we can get you for the trade in."

"Well, actually," I said, "we've got a small child, and from experience, she doesn't do the waiting around bit too well, so why don't we just run the financing from here, and we'll see if you can get it to a monthly we can work with."

"Fair enough sir, give me the information about your car, and the payoff you've got for it."

So, information exchanged, we hanged up.

First thing next morning, I get a phone call from the dealership.

"Sir, we have run the numbers, and we think we can get this done for you."

"Excellent," I say, thinking it's in the bag, "but I want you to know, before I come down, if you're not in the ballpark we discussed, this is not going to go down."

"Oh, Sir," he slimes, "we're definitely in the ball park. Come on down, and we'll work the numbers and look at your car."

"Tell me specifics. I need to know before I make the trip, bundle baby in..."

"Oh, I don't have the numbers here in front of me, but they're doable."

Alright. Fine, I should have said no and waited for him to get the numbers. But I'm a trusting fool, and I figured, what ever, it'll work.

So I put my baby in her car seat, move it from the usual car into the car we'll trade in, and strap it in... after about 20 minutes of aggravating stuff, we're on our way. Singing, trying to keep the baby happy...

So we roll into the parking lot about 30 minutes later. I walk through the door with 'monster' on my hip and to the desk, and I ask for the salesman.

"Sure, hold on, he'll be right out."

To his credit, he's there in mere moments. Shake hands, pinch cheeks, (baby's, not his) and we go back to his office where he promises he'll be right back with the info.

5 minutes later, "Okay, so here's what we've got," he says as he lays out a stack of papers. "Trade in, we've agreed is this much, the new SUV is this much, and with the interest rate we got for you, this will be the monthly payment."

"..." I say, trying to get my breath. He's $200 over what I said was the maximum. "This is no where near what we talked about. This isn't a ballpark!" I say.

"Well, this is what we can do. So, you ready to sign?"

I swear, he was surprised when I got up and walked out.

The Nightmare

I have a recurring nightmare.

I'm sitting in my wood paneled library, amongst my vast collection of first edition science fiction and fantasy books (I said it was a dream, okay?) when this beautiful young lady walks into the room.

I look up over the Wall Street Journal and wonder to myself - Who is this girl? Why is she in my house? -

She looks me straight in the eye and says, "Daddy?"

At which point I pass straight out cold.

When I come to, she's standing over me with a concerned look on her face. I stammer out, "Yes?"

"Well," she says, "I met this boy..." is all I hear before I jolt straight up, in a cold sweat. It takes a couple of seconds, but I remember - she's only two.

But she'll get there. And that's enough to ruin the rest of my night of sleep.

Ain't parenthood a walk in the park?!

Going Postal

I went to the post office the other day. I guess I'd forgotten the fondness I have for the drones... I mean public servants who slave there day after day, but sometimes things just have to get somewhere else.

I walked in, went to the Priority Mail stand where ... usually ... you can find a couple different sizes of envelopes and a few different sizes of boxes in which to put your items. Envelopes? Only the smallest size. Boxes? What stinking boxes?

I turned to the counter, got the attention of one of the two people manning the 7 station counter and asked, “Where can I find a shoe box sized box?”

After a pause of about thirty seconds where he looked at me as if having difficulty with my question, the guy says, “Oh, we don't keep them out there, they're back here. Give me just a minute.”

So back to the counter where I finally found a label, and a ball-chain pen that didn't work. So I went to the Express mail side and found a finicky ball-chain pen. So I got smart and pulled the Sharpie out of my pocket. I filled out the mail label, turned and watched the guy finish with the customer he was “helping.”

Two and a half minutes later, he looks at me, says, “Oh,” and reaches below his counter to pull out... yep, a shoe box Priority Mailer. “Here you go.”

So I fill it up, put my label on it, and get back in line.

Finally, about six minutes later, I got up to the counter. I encountered a woman. Hoping she'd be
more ... intelligent? ... I handed her my box, and requested a sheet of stamps. Everything was going swimmingly until it came time to pay.

I don't know about you, but I never sign my credit cards, or my debit cards. I feel that if I were to sign it, it just gives the thief who steals it from me a template to copy when it comes time to sign for his purchases. - Hmm, and a little swoop there, and a curlicue here, detach there, cross that T dot that I, looks good. - “Okay, go ahead, compare the signatures!” I use a Sharpie, and write in big letters across the signature bar, SEE ID!

So I hand the girl my AmEx and my MN Drivers License. She starts to swipe it, sees the signature box, and says to me, “We don't accept these unless they're signed.”

Oh boy.

“Okay, so what do you want to do to rectify this?” I asked in the politest tone I could muster.

“Well, you can sign it now!” miss peppy informed me.

“In front of you?”

“Well, yes, of course!”

“So you can compare the signature on the back of it to the signature I will put on the receipt?”

“Yep!”

“Do you not see the inherent lack of safety in that request?”

“...”

“I don't sign credit cards, because that just gives the thief who steals it from me a template to
copy when it comes time to sign for his purchases. Instead, I show my photo ID which is a much better form of identification than a signature on a card without a picture. Do you ask for identification along with the signature on the back of the card?”

“No, because when you sign it it becomes a form of identification!”

“No... credit cards are a secondary form.”

“Well, if you don't sign it, a thief could take it across the street and use it in the pump card reader at the gas station!”

“What?!”

“Or they could use it on-line!”

“And having a signature on the back of the card will stop that from happening?”

“Yes, of course!”

I was getting ... upset. No, incredulous. “Where does it say that you can't accept it without a signature?”

She points at a sign to the side of the counter. Vague, nebulous post-office-governmental-speak. “And, Visa has requested that we not accept cards that aren't signed,” she says pointing at another sign, this one from Visa. “And,” she continues, “it says on the back of the card, not valid unless signed.”

I flip my AmEx over and show her. “Nope, not there. Besides, this isn't a Visa.”

“Doesn't matter,” she chippers at me. “Gotta sign it or you can go across the street and take out money from the ATM or you could write a check.”

So... “Okay, so if I write you a check, you're going to ask for ID, right?”

“Yes! A drivers license.”

“Which isn't a good enough substitution for a signature on the back of a piece of plastic with my name on it?”

“Nope!”

At this point, I'm getting frustrated. So I pull out a pencil from my pocket, and sign the back of my card. Now, I don't know if you've ever seen the back of an American Express, but the signature line is less than a quarter of an inch high and fully 5/6 of it is covered in an embossed re-etch of the card number from the front. On my card, in the remaining space, I have written in bold Sharpie – you guessed it – SEE ID! So my penciled in signature is ... completely unintelligible.

She looks at it, swipes it and says, “Now that wasn't hard, was it?”

I signed the receipt, took my stamps, my receipt, my keys, turned my AmEx over and erased the “signature,” and walked out – muttering under my breath like a madman – thinking to myself, no wonder they call it going postal.

Door to Door

I'm taking a nap 'cause I've got to work 16 hours straight tonight. The doorbell rings. You guessed it, door to door sales.

So I go to the door, hoping against hope that it's something better than sales. Maybe, just maybe, the cable company has come to fix the cable that they didn't attach correctly to the back of the house that's now hanging less than three feet from the ground.

It's the cable company alright, but it ain't to fix anything.

I open the door, and I see the guy's clipboard. On the top it says in huge, bold type, the cable company Direct Marketing. So I say, "Can I help you?"

"Are you familiar with the cable company?"

"Are you here to sell something or to fix the issue I called about two months ago?"

"What makes you think I'm here to sell?" he asks me.

"Doesn't matter," I say. "Unless you're here to fix the problem, let's not waste your time. I'm not interested in switching."

"Well, are you a current the cable company customer?"

"No, and until you carry the channel for my 1 year old, I won't be switching. Good bye."

"But we've got some great opt-"

Is the last thing I hear as I firmly but politely close the door. He stands outside the door, looking incredulously through the glass as though amazed that I would not be interested in his sales spiel. Then I go out to check the mail, and there in the door is the flier he was going to use to sell to me.

I guess at the very least, you have to admire the tenacity.