Rip My Face Off. Please.

A short time ago, the wife looked at me and asked what I thought about a beard.  I told her that it probably wouldn't look too good on her at this time.

After we got that straightened out, she explained that she thought it would look good on me and, equally important, would work well with my intense dislike of shaving.  I'm one of those guys who has baby smooth, highly sensitive skin.  It's irritable, like me, making shaving a real task.

So I went with it.  I knew that, sooner or later, I'd started the Dreaded Itch.  The Itch of Death<tm>.  A solid week in, I did not itch.  But I knew it was imminent.

A few days later it hit.  And when I say hit, I mean I wanted to shred my own skin and scratch my face with a concrete block.  My wife, ever helpful, suggested a number of skin care products, the best of which stopped the Itch of Death<tm> for up to five whole minutes.  I even tried hair conditioner in the shower, to no avail.

Then I did what all red-blooded citizens do - I went online.  I located a number of sites with helpful and largely not-so-helpful suggestions.  `Man up and deal with it for the magnificence of a beard' was often repeated and the least helpful of the bunch by far.    What do you mean it only lasts a week?

Shortly thereafter, I tried conditioner again and it worked.  Sort of.  I continue to monitor the situation because if I have to deal with this much longer, I might as well shave.  Meanwhile I'm getting all sorts of comments about the new, rugged, outdoorsy lefty.  Yes, that's me, the new, rugged, outdoorsy lefty, from the Great Indoors.

My dad said he didn't dislike it, which is odd, given that he's not fond of double negatives.  Mom liked it too (because she has to) and my boss took about two weeks to figure it out (and I sit right next to him).  It's ok, he has other things on his mind (and let's be honest, I don't need his comments to make my life complete).

So I have a beard.  And a communique from the Big Boss, sent to everyone via email.  Unfortunately I am unable to discern its meaning.  After asking around a bit, it would seem I am not the only one who cannot decipher the missive.  It is written in thirty point type across seven pages, with each paragraph taking approximately its own page.

Most people would say I'm not stupid, so it kinda smarts that I don't have the smarts to decode the Boss' email.  Our local scholars ascertained that all of the words are current English and have decent sentence structure.  On the whole it appears to be in English that anyone could understand, only no one can.  This led to rampant joking about the Big Boss having a taste for cannabis.

For the sake of science (and sociology), a coworker is going to do an experiment.  At her husband's next social gathering, where much cannabis will no doubt be consumed, she is going to print out the email and see if any of the Muddled Masses are able to understand or translate.  This should tell us, for better or worse, the alleged state of the Big Boss.

If the experiment proves positive, either the Big Boss will have to compose while straight or get a medical marijuana waiver for the entire corporation so we can understand his writing.

A Turning Point

Yesterday we witnessed an historical moment - a turning point for the country.  The egregious display of chutzpah by our president, for the children.  I am sad for my country.

We do not elect a king; we elect a president.  The penchant for the last two presidents to rule by fiat is alarming and becomes worse with time.  We have a legislative branch of congress, whether or not they accomplish anything.

None of the new rules or legislation would have prevented the massacre in Connecticut.

Those who trade essential liberty for safety deserve neither.  Look at the TSA for an example.  We are not safer for their incursion.

If gun control worked, Chicago, the home of the president, would be the safest state in the country.  It isn't.

Why does Homeland Security need 1.4 billion more rounds of ammunition at the very point the government is making it harder for citizens to arm themselves?

Gun crime went down after D.C. decriminalized handguns.

Our own attorney general, Eric Holder, presided over illegal gun transfers to drug gangs in Mexico.

The problem is a problem of mental health.  Connecticut failed to pass mental health legislation months before the shooting.  New legislation turns doctors into extensions of the police.

Obama and Feinstein have no trouble with assault rifles when they are deployed to protect them and their children.  Feinstein wants handguns taken away too.  There is an agenda, whether you care to see it or not.

As set forward in the Second Amendment, we already have the right to keep and bear arms.  The government has no right to infringe, which they just did.  The current administration is intent on destroying the Constitution and Bill of Rights.

For Obama to quote the Second Amendment out of context shows his contempt for his countrymen.

It's time to use what democratic process we have left to let our representatives and the White House know how we feel.

It's time to impeach the president (we did it to Clinton for less) and recall congress.

Let us avoid a Rush To Do Something and instead use common sense.

When the Constitution was written, a well-regulated militia was required to protect us from tyranny.  At that time, it was the tyranny of England's king.  In other words, we need to protect ourselves, not against just the lawless, but against the tyranny of our own government, bent on ridding us of our civil liberties.

We need to remain civil and work within the framework of the law.

Happy Belated Birthday

to Graham Chapman, of Monty Python fame, who would have been seventy-two yesterday.


Urinus Interruptus

So I'm minding my own business, in the bathroom, when the door opens.  Of course the door opens - it's the cat, mortified by my human desire to eliminate alone and with the door closed.  I suspect this need of ours for solitude somehow offends felines, who are smart enough to figure out bi-fold doors.  We thought we had outsmarted him (and the dog) by installing the door backwards but this took only a day to figure out.  For both of them.


The Car is Back!

After only three weeks and a day, our beloved car is back from the collision shop, fully repaired.  For those of you keeping score, it's deer zero, us one, insurance four thousand, rental car seven hundred.  It's most fortunate that I'm independently wealthy.

The wife is beyond joyous; she loves her car.  I'm happy to not be paying for a rental, even if the seats were nicer.

Let me say something nice here about State Farm: they've been great and fast.  No crap, no fuss, it's done.  All insurance should work this way (take notice, health insurance).


A Word from the AntiSports

I don't usually bother but I came across this little factlet on the radio the other day: hockey is about to start again, after the lockout.  Philly is the city with the least amount of ticket refund requests, at two-hundred.

Seriously, Philly, you are a huge, dirty city of enablers.  You put up with crappy team performance and greedy millionaires.  What do you do?  You line up to pay them some more.  You deserve what you get.  You pay an egregious amount to simply park at football games, not to mention the now standard TSA-style groping.



In closing, I urge caution on the forced national panic about guns.  There is obviously an agenda here.

The World IS Ending: lefty Evaluates the iPad

Anyone who knows me or reads the blog knows how much I love Apple, Steve Jobs, the drooling fanboys and the products Apple produces.  iHoles, the lot of them.

As it turns out, I'm the lone Android tablet user at work.  Since I'm kinda responsible for security, the boss thought it would be a good idea for me to take a look.  Actually, he thinks he's going to convert me, so I let him believe whatever he wants to.  He's the boss, right?

After weeks and weeks and weeks, the unit finally arrived.  It appears that Apple refused to sell us a certain model of iPad and we had to wait until there were other models available.

Following several sets of instructions and applying the Guess Method at certain points, I got the device registered.  Note that this does not reflect on Apple: this would be the fault of our supplier and us.  Naturally there is no one around to ask for assistance.

The first thing I do with any device is poke around the settings.  This is where I started getting nervous. From a privacy standpoint, there appears to be an incredible amount of data leakage to Apple, at very least.  This was confirmed by one of the fanboys here.  When he found out I got an iPad, he suggested I just save the company money and give it back right away because I was going to hate it.  Funny, he was the same one who, last week, kept telling me to embrace change and come over to the Dark Side<tm>.  He suggested jailbreaking immediately.

My immediate question was how to get data onto the device.  Fanboy said there is no way to install music but iTunes.  This is not acceptable.  My device, my music, my storage.  I do not want to ask Steve Jobs' permission every time I want to put music on my tablet.  No idea how to put non-music data  on- everyone seems to use Dropbox or something similar.

Since email is a rather important item, I went to configure it.  Oops, I need a data plan, in spite of the Verizon icon.  Again, my company, not Apple.   It's most fortunate that we are considering this a test run (because we failed).  In fact, the test run has been halted because the vendor messed things up royally.

Back to the unit itself.  Let me say some positive things, ok?  The battery life far exceeds my android tablet (which isn't fair, as there's something wrong with the android or its battery).  It was easy to understand and operate.  People don't instantly grok 4-5 finger gestures so it should probably be mentioned somewhere.  Personally, I say a lot with a simple one-finger gesture.

I located the market and did some browsing.  It sure costs a lot to operate one of these things.. the great majority of android programs are free, including the ones that Apple charges for.  Since Apple is known to musicians, I went to that section.  There were a ton of guitar magazine apps, a few of which I downloaded free.  Each was an invitation to subscribe.  Uninstalled.  I located a few tv apps, which led to questioning why I can watch episodes of such great shows as Billy the Exterminator and Hoarders on the iPad when I couldn't watch them on my android.

Let's Talk iTunes

I asked around.  Apparently it's near impossible to get content to the device without iTunes.  Sorry, kids; I will not be held hostage by a large, bloated digital rights management scheme masquerading as a content transfer app.  My ever-helpful coworkers pointed out that I could always import my already-purchased music into iTunes and transfer it to the pad.

Why?

Apple has no need to know what content I have, especially the content I did not purchase from them.  What a crock of excrement.  The privacy leakage is obscene across the entire device and there is very little available in terms of stopping it.

The same helpful coworkers told me they use Dropbox for transfer outside of iTunes.  Great... another cloud solution... Another unsafe alternative to keeping content on your own device.

One assistive friend said I `really needed to buy into the entire Apple ecosystem'.  That was by far the best quote on the topic.

If I keep the device, I will use one of the apps that functions as transport and media player.  Emailing myself docs will have to suffice.  Jailbreaking is probably in my future.


Interface

As promised and harped upon, the entire interface is a no-brainer.  I found everything and figured out a few things not noted.  My wife operated it with no difficulties.  My best friend's aging mother has no trouble with it.  The only slight niggle is the lack of a locking shift key.


Let's face it: I am not Apple's target customer, even though all of the IT professionals around me seem to have consumed the Kool Aid.  There will be no iPhone for me.  I'm not even sure how long I'll have the iPad (I prefer the android, thank you).

In Summary

I want to be as fair as possible in this evaluation, especially considering my great love for all things Apple.  Aside from small bits of frustration that one would have with any device, the iPad user interface is just fine.  The hardware is just fine.  It's just the entire Apple experience that drives me up a tree.  If you could plug this device into any computer and it would act like a storage device, there would be little to complain about.  Apple is downright linux-hostile, which needs to change.

All in all, I prefer the android.  It does what it does better, with tons more variety, control and choice available.  No surprise there.