WINDOWS VISTA

THE "WHA?" STARTS NOW

have you ever seen that movie pearl harbor?

i hope not.

It is the most beautiful piece of sun-drenched crap that you've ever seen.

windows vista is the pearl harbor of operating systems.

it's absolutely beautiful to look at and definitely has some potential, but it's just a glorified beta and is obviously a triumph of marketing over actual functionality.

it's more of an advertising campaign than a working OS.

it (deliberately?) renders a large percentage of my software collection obsolete.

like the spate of psedo-celebrities that have ascended in american pop culture over the last couple years, it is both pretty and useless, all facade over a shoddy framework.

maybe in a few years it will actually be usable, and then microsoft will release another untested turd of an OS in an unveiled bid to cash in once again.

mark. my. words.

UPDATE:

i "downgraded" my new Toshiba A135-S2276 laptop from VISTA to XP with some help from my peeps over at hardware central and guess what? now it runs considerably faster, MUCH faster, and all of my old software works without complaint. now my (pentium dual core) laptop runs faster than my (pentium 4) home tower computer. i'm not sure quite what to make of it. i think that i may have to upgrade the RAM on my home computer just so it won't suffer so much in comparison.

so, in conclusion, why buy a souped-up new computer and then bog it down with a bloated OS? a computer has to be souped-up just to run normally under VISTA so why not stay with XP, which may not be as pretty, but runs blazingly fast on a VISTA-ready PC?

UPDATE 2:

if there was ever a good non-government target for a severe beating it would be a toshiba laptop pre-loaded with vista.

i've got an idea. let's take a really nice new computer with a fast processor and then severely bog it down so that the interface will look really pretty, because these days pretty trumps functional any day of the week. then, with the right marketing campaign (which probably cost more than development) and enough retro-fitting hurdles to prevent people from going back to an OS that, after years of updating and service packs, was finally getting to a point of stability, we'll totally cash in on our captive audience when they find out all of their old software no longer works.

i know! while we're at it, let's make all of the third-party people write all new drivers for their devices. get started boys!

this is how we will compete with apple and their snarky TV ads.

THE DRIVE-IN

WHERE ARE THOSE "PRESERVE THE HISTORICAL WHATEVER" PEOPLE NOW?

at last, weather permitting, drive-in season is upon us again and it is extremely important that everyone goes so as to preserve this fading piece of americana. just in case you're stuck in the wrong part of the past they are not nearly as seedy as you may imagine.

trust me, under the stars and on an enormous screen is the best way to see a movie. it's so good that even bad movies are fun to watch. a bunch of us watched alien vs. predator at the drive-in a couple years ago and had a great time making fun of it mercilessly. that's another advantage of the drive-in, it's much less likely that you'll disturb the other patrons with your witty and sarcastic remarks.

some pointers:

1. drive-in etiquette demands that you use only your running lights inside the theatre.
   
2. bring a boom-box, ghetto-blaster, or what-have-you.


3. also bring some folding camp chairs.


4. back into your parking space.


5. place the boom-box on the trunk of your car and tune it to the theatre's frequency.


6. place your chairs in front of the boom-box so it is aimed right at your head.


7. smoke 'em if you got 'em.

the dominant double features at the drive-in this weekend are:

• spiderman 3 & ghost rider
  
• condemned & 300


• i wouldn't even see wild hogs at the drive-in. what a waste of macy.
  
  [confession: i eventually saw wild hogs at the drive-in. my only excuse: it was on after pirates III - it was pretty bad, but was, as i predicted, almost saved by macy.]

SMOKING NOT A 'RIGHT'

all the anti-smoking politicians and legal types keep saying that "smoking is not a right."

this is a classic rhetorical dodge, a distraction, misdirection.

the right, or at least the implied right, is that private business owners should be able to run their busineses as they see fit.

why must everything be all or nothing in this country? where's the half-way?
why not issue smoking liscenses in the the same way that we issue alcohol liscenses?
why not put a big red X on the door of smoking establishments so non-smokers will know that they're not wanted there?
what ever happened to the market correcting itself?
if "nearly 80 percent of ohioans do not smoke" why weren't nearly 80% of the bars smoke-free already? the market demands it.
where will the hardcore, unrepentant smokers go now?

so here's my classic rhetorical dodge and i think it's slightly less lame: the slippery slope.
if things keep going like this, next they'll be telling veterans that they can't smoke in their own VFWs.

wait, they're already doing that.

fascist government bastards.