Word Play

Am I the only one who finds the name "Aer Lingus" funny?

Do you think that, if the airline performs some particularly shrewd business maneuvering, that anyone ever says "aaaah....cunning Lingus"

????

Fuck the PC, VIVA LA MAC!

It's going to be difficult to write this one without using 'fuck' as every other word.

Here's the thing. I'm about to throw the fucking PC's off the balcony, then giggle and clap in delight as they crash into a thousand pieces. The irony here is that they seem to do that anyway, without my throwing them, so it's a largely symbolic gesture.

While I work in a creative industry, I'm a word person. I always believed that the extraordinary designers working around me were the only folks who really *needed* the Mac. But why keep banging my head against the wall like this?!?!?!

I had a nasty bug a few months back (my IT guy told me to stop surfing porn....as if that's going to happen) and had to wipe my computer. I was pretty amazed to discover that the bulk of my processing was held in the first 6 of 10 recovery disks. The final 4 were all junk that I am still finding and removing from the machine.

They obviously learned nothing from '98:







Before that, I held out for as long as I could before switching over to Windows XP's even greater piece of crap operating system. The reason was that it was so fucking dumbed-down that it made me want to scream. I still refer to XP as the AOL of operating systems, and I think it's more than apparant that the developers spent most of their time skiing rather than creating a viable OS.

Simply put, XP wants to make too many decisions for me. It's running me rather than me running it. If I'm in the middle of something, a machine will suddenly freeze up while the evil but necessary (thanks to the vast proliferation of PC bugs) virus software or fucking Microsoft randomly downloads god-knows-what to my computer. Gee, thanks....I'll just go ahead and pour another cup of coffee while you do that.

I'm just one of the nearly 2,000,000 folks who have committed themselves in print to saying "FUCK MICROSOFT!" (A number which rose to nearly 2,100,000 just while posting this) The truly awesome folks over at MICROSUCK have a great article about this bloat issue, pointing out that the vast majority of these so-called updates service files and programs that none of us use anyway. They go on to show how the useless files result in programs being up to 2000% larger than they SHOULD be.

So let me join David Letterman in giving the finger to Bill Gates:









And everybody's favorite runaway bride comedian Dave Chappelle gets into the pro-Mac movement:

The Brick Store

I just came across this, and was instantly reminded of one of my best friends taking me there when I went to visit her. We were both really into that whole "beer geek" thing at the time, and could actually hold extensive conversations about regions, processes, flavors, and alcohol content.

Since then, we've both pretty much morphed into wine snobs. Not surprisingly, the conversations follow a similar path. But one thing I remember about the Brick Store was that they had some kind of 'aged' beer selection....categorized kind of in the same way that wine is cellared. We got all excited and tried to figure out which one to order, but then realized we were already pretty well three sheets. By that point, flavors would have been lost on us, so we couldn't justify the accompanying price tag. But still, that was a very fun night.

YouTube -- How to Bathe a Cat

Okay, it's ungodly cold out today and after running some errands this morning (on foot, I might add...navigating the icy streets on foot seemed smarter than doing so in my 2,000-pound SUV) and the rest of the day has pretty much been frittered away with YouTube.

Ah yes, the beauty of working from home.

If you have a cat, have a friend with a cat, or have ever just seen a cat, you can appreciate this video. Personally, I'd be far more likely to stand in for that dead Croc Hunter guy than try to do this, but I guess in a way it's like "Jackass" for pet owners.

YouTube -- Bridezilla Bride has Total Freak-Out

If you haven't seen this, sit back and get ready for your jaw to drop. It starts kind of slow, but is definitely worth hanging out to watch.







There's some chatter on YouTube about this video being fake. I have to say, these girls seem to be pretty real to me. If it is fake, they did an awesome acting job.

The Perfect Cup of Coffee

Waking up in the morning is, to me, like being reborn. Somewhere along the line, it's become socially unacceptable for me to scream and cry until spanked (most mornings) in this process of rebirth, so a perfect cup of coffee is truly called for. My tastes seem to change every few months, so I have to continually reinvent my morning delight. Right now, I've found a flavor combination that is so good that I find myself actually looking forward to my morning balm as I drift off to sleep at night.

The cup of life-giving magic currently starts with a cheap Mexican espresso that I brew in the coffee maker. It's got the great smell and robust full flavor of say, Starbucks French Roast, without the burnt, acrid aftertaste that seems to be Starbucks' trademark flavor. Since it's cold as hell right now, I stick a coffee mug in the sink and run it under hot water while the coffee brews. This keeps my coffee hothothot so that I can pour in some refrigerated Bolthouse Farms Vanilla Chai Perfectly Protein.

Man, this is the stuff. This accidental flavor combination came one morning when I discovered the soy milk container had only a few drops left. So I dumped in some of the Bolthouse Farms mix, which had previously been the secret smoothie ingredient, and VOILA! Since the mix isn't sweet, the coffee flavor comes through, but there are subtle touches of cinnamon, nutmeg....oh hell, it's just good.

I'm not sure that my palate will continue to accept this cold weather pick me up once the temperature rises outside, but for now, it makes re-entering the world each morning much more worthwhile.