Vermyndax’s Lair

Fuck this hot drought bullshit. The only good thing about this heat wave is that your mozzarella sticks do not get cold. They just get stale. There’s nothing worse than cold AND stale mozzarella sticks. That’s when they become like, crusty cheese-flavored dried pudding. The kind of shit only astronauts would dare to eat.

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I love the ‘net. Only on the net can you say things and expect them to haunt you months, or even years later. Hell, I may be eating crow in a matter of minutes for calling Mary Jo Foley an idiot for claiming Apple licensed Exchange ActiveSync - and I’ll be proud to do it.

Somehow though, I get the feeling that Steve Ballmer will not be so proud of this 2:20 clip when Friday rolls around.

I have to make a very clear observation at this point.

This is a man who is absolutely proud of the Motorola Q. He’s proud of how much it costs and even goes so far as to call it innovative. This was January of this year (2007, in case this blog is around that long). As a person who carries a Motorola Q every day but barely uses it…

…BECAUSE THE IDIOTS THAT SHIPPED A BATTERY WITH THAT PIECE OF DOGSHIT DIDN’T REALIZE I MIGHT WANT TO SPEND MORE THAN 10 GODDAMN MINUTES ON THE PHONE, OR THAT I MIGHT BE ANNOYED BY THE FACT THAT IT FEELS SO INCLINED TO RETURN TO THE HOME SCREEN EVERY 10 SECONDS NO MATTER WHAT THE HELL I TELL IT TO DO… NOT TO MENTION THE FACT THAT WINDOWS MOBILE IS MORE CRASH HAPPY THAN WINDOWS VISTA EXCUSE ME… WINDOWS MILLENNIUM 2007…

Oh… my… God. Truly, this is a CEO out of touch with the world. Folks… run… run from Microsoft. They are killing you. You sad people pods are nothing but coccoons for your brains to swell up and burst from the terrible reality known as a Microsoft universe… those games that you so proud drown in… they are nothing but a hook sent there to make you swallow the wrong pill (sorry, I don’t remember the colors)… run… please run…

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I’ve gotten through the long, arduous trip from LAX to my home town. This day has been pretty much a flash before my eyes - not entirely sure I remember much of it, but here’s what I do remember about the trip:

• I got to climb around inside a B52 bomber. What a sardine can!
• I got to see SOFIA (Stratospheric Observatory For Infrared Astronomy) - which is basically a 747 with the aft end cut out so it can open up at 45,000 feet and view the heavens with an infared telescope. Cool stuff. We not only got to see SOFIA fly in to Dryden with fighter escorts, we got to go on board and take a tour and meet the crew.
• I got to see F-18’s!
• I got to see chaser aircraft for the space shuttle!
• I got to land an F-18 in the simulator… oh yeah, and I flew it around a while too. Neat stuff.

Next list… of other activities:

• Got to eat at a wonderful place on Manhattan Beach by the name of Cafe Pierre… ate a silky smooth filet mignon and drank far too much.
• Was hung over on morning telecon from the Hilton LAX.
• Goddess bless my GPS for saving my bacon - it found the Avis rental car return!
• The TSA agents at LAX are far, far too concerned with the “not my job” concept and going on break than serving customers. I waited in line for my baggage to get checked in while the agents squabbled about who was relieving someone so he could go on break. The agent’s name is Art. Art, thank you for wasting 45 minutes of my precious fucking time so I barely made it to my flight. I hope your break was useless.
• Other elements of LAX are a nightmare as well. I’ve flown into it once… never again if I can help it. If I go back to DFRC, I will fly into Bakersfield!
• Rebecca, who works on the NWA ground crew at my local airport, was there on the jet bridge for my aircraft when we unloaded. I said hi to her, we spoke briefly. She said her mom had been thinking about me. Weird. Not sure why on that one.
• I didn’t get to listen to many podcasts because we were so busy - but this week’s TWiT and Macbreak Weekly were hilarious as usual… but the Scott Bourne/Merlin Mann rivalry just started getting nasty this week.

Okie, that’s a brain dump of the trip… woo! Home for a week, then it’s back off to California for WWDC. Now THAT one will be fun!

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Alright, in an effort to expand my reader base beyond 8 or 9 people, I really whored myself out today. I’ve added back the Google Adsense ads (of which I’ve earned a whopping $15.00 in a year - hooray!) and added simple links for you to share my needles back out to the community.

Everybody else does it. Shouldn’t I make it easy for you to share my blathering elsewhere?

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1.  I hate websites that use people art that is taken from an angle high above their head.  I am so… incredibly… tired… of this angle.  It is the single most overused, overrated, idiotic, silly, stupid, unoriginal thing ever.  If you’re going to put clip art of random people on your website, please don’t climb a ladder and shoot pictures of them looking down at them while they look up with this big-ass cheesy smile.  Just… stop.  It sucks.  You suck if you do it.  Get off the net.  Please.

2.  I hate the word “support” and I hate what it’s become in IT terms.

This has been your Things I Hate for… this… past recent portion of time.

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So the negative spin last night and this morning on Vista is Microsoft’s decision to enforce the notion of the “upgrade version.”  You cannot install Windows Vista without Windows 2000 or XP already installed on the system.  This bucks the previous process of installing Windows from scratch, but proving you own the prior version by inserting the disc for verification.

I’m going to go on record as saying I don’t like this - not one damn bit, but I saw it coming.  Given the “smackdown” mentality Microsoft has gotten themselves into, this was just a natural evolution.  They’re merely enforcing what the license terms say should happen.  One item you might want to be aware of though - when reading the Vista EULA… once you install the Vista upgrade, the Vista rights/EULA completely supersedes all licensing agreements for the previous version.  This means you essentially lose your rights to even install the prior version of Windows ever again.

Hope that Vista upgrade goes well for you - because if your computer ganks up (which, it will), you’re breaking the law by reinstalling Windows XP to upgrade back to Vista.

I continue my march toward Apple… not with a wave, but with an extended finger.

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