Who Let lefty Out Again?

Go piss up a rope - I do get out sometimes.

After bringing death to a bunch of computers, laptops, and android devices, I had to buy Stuff to fix the lot of them. The quickest stop was Best Buy (uh-oh) - this was my first mistake. I researched everything I wanted online first, so I knew what I was getting. This was my second mistake.

Walk into most stores and it goes one of two ways: Can I help you with anything or IF I WAVE MONEY, WILL SOMEONE PLEASE TAKE CARE OF ME? I prefer the latter, which is what I got. This was my third mistake. I did enjoy floundering about, like Michael Moore in a candy store that doesn't really have lots of different kinds of candy in it, but it's still entrancing.  The Humongo Size TV setup, that comes with a couch and coordinated lamps, was playing Bohemian Rhapsody. The actor playing Freddie had huge, ugly pores.

But seriously, folks, I needed an SD card. And if I could remember which one I needed, I'd be in good shape. There were SDs, SDUHCs, SDFUs, and Spiderman Special SD-Xs. Plus they have grades or some other rating system, which covers how fast they fall when dropped into Niagara Falls. I went for the fastest faller because I'm that kinda guy.

The it was Mouse Time.
I would have done better going to The Mouse House in Florida, Home of Mickey, built by a rabid antisemitic called Roger Waters Walt.
We know I've been around a bit. When mice first hit the stores, they were ridiculously expensive and large. I liked them. Unfortunately you could not find a large mouse if your life depended on it. They're all varying degrees of tiny, like a convention of Small People. Then there are the portable ones, which are even smaller. Children benefit from this, but not adults (or large children with big hands, like me). I found one off-brand wired mouse. Little did I know I was only getting warmed up.

With fear and trepidation, I made it to the final department. I was brave, though; I didn't take the blindfold or the cigarette. I wanted a generic 24" monitor. This was the mistake that would be my previous mistake plus one (I think we're up to four now).  There were certainly a lot of monitors. They were certainly hooked up to a lot of computers. Few were for sale, just the ones that had prices that dwarfed the price we paid for our last few cars. The formula seems to be that a 24" monitor costs $150, but call it a 24" Gaming monitor and you can charge $599 for it.

I had no choice but to flag down a Helpful Sales Consultant.
Unfortunately they were all out of Helpful Sales Consultants. There weren't even any Generally Pissed Off or Grumpy Sales Consultants. I stood there, counting down until it was time to use the phrase, "IF I WAVE MONEY, WILL SOMEONE PLEASE TAKE CARE OF ME?" It was then that I discovered the secret to good service: be a woman. An attractive one. I noticed that the Helpful Sales Consultants, all male, were 'taking care of' attractive females, who had trouble telling left from right. Fortunately for them, they have two breasts, or all hell would break loose. Due to my inability to be a woman, good or bad looking, my temperature started going up. I thought of all sorts of interesting ways to either attract a Helpful Sales Consultant or put on a show so good, they'd talk about it for years (and I'd be banned from every Best Buy on the east coast).

Funny, there sure were lots of employees on and about the phones. Some were talking to the People Known as Customers, but most were doing what they do best: standing around, getting paid, and laughing with other employees about the sad state of the stock market these days and the poor suckers trying to get their attention.  Five of them were holding hands in a circle, dancing around a cash register, performing some sort of ritual, designed perhaps to attract more customers (that they wouldn't acknowledge). Another two were having oral under a counter. Or they might've been eating dinner... same thing.

FINALLY I located a Helpful Sales Consultant who looked like he knew what he was doing (he was over 17). He was with someone else, but promised to send another Helpful Sales Consultant over for me. Of course he lied, but everybody felt better for those five seconds. While waiting for this alleged help, two more employees came by, with two more attractive women. What I wouldn't do for a vagina at that point (I always say that). FINALLY someone else came over, strictly by accident. Had he heard someone needed help, he'd be over playing with the Barbies. Still.

I told him what I wanted and he looked at me like I was a blithering idiot and what specific specs did the items have? Oh, a monitor? All we have is over on that shelf - take a look and see if it's what you want.  Now I don't want the guy to hold my hand (or anything else) but you think there would be some effort there. 'Over there' turned out to be shelves with 8 monitors, including exactly no 24" monitors. Makes perfect sense, right? Helpful Sales Consultant indicated that was about it. I helpfully asked what about the ten 24" monitors I saw online and pulled one up. He asked why not have it delivered to my house. No problem - can you guarantee I'll get it tomorrow? He looked and pronounced it would be ready to ship in exactly two weeks, which, as you know, is a lot longer than tomorrow. He further let me know if I wanted a monitor tonight, I'd have to get one from the shelf or I'd be S.O.L. (Sarah's Other Licker or Shit Out of luck, depending). Anything he ordered would take 2 weeks.

Oh.

Why did the website tell me to pick the monitor up at my local store?

Because you can pick it up at the store after your order it.

What kind of Joe Biden operation are they running? You can have whatever you want, at whatever price you want, provided you wait a few weeks. If I wanted a monitor, I could have gone to a number of places, but I stupidly went to the one with all the inventory listed on their page. It's like the blindfolded throwing darts in the dark, or Kevin Spacey with a hot chick.

Mind you, I got everything else without ordering it (or being accosted by different Helpful Sales Consultants). I couldn't decide whether I was Superman or Arthur, The Moth.



BUT WAIT... it gets better:

Once home, I unpacked my booty (boy was my wife surprised). After playing Hot Potato with a micro SDQQQ card, I finally got it in the slot and my tablet recognized it. This is what the religious community refers to as a Minor Miracle. Don't tell anybody, but I think I saw Pontius inside the tablet. Since it was a much bigger card than the stock memory, I moved all my hamster pr0n over to it, with plenty of space for more. Let's just say I know what I'll be doing this weekend.

Emboldened by Minor Miracles, I put together my 23" (NOT 24") monitor for which I overpaid. It's the first monitor I ever saw with a power block, as opposed to plugging in the regular old power cord. The joy of working with something new overcame me and, within twenty minutes of walking in my own door, I lost the power brick. HOW DO YOU LOSE A POWER SUPPLY in a tiny room with a 5' radius in which to work? How did those 3 humongous bags of Peanut Butter M&Ms disappear? I dunno.

I get a gold star for not crying, especially after watching my dog having trouble getting around. Dejected, I went to bed, planning to ask my lovely wife to help me look the next day. Of course she failed too.  As soon as it disappeared, it came back, like Rosie O'Donnell to the buffet. Of course you know by now that I forgot what the adapter looked like and it was right in front of me the whole time. I'm thinking of getting a brain tuneup but Wife suggests I go with a new, upgraded unit. She says even an average one will be a step up.  If I had any brains, I'd be insulted.

I *AM* the Black Cloud

I've seen some shit.
I've been through some shit.
The amount of shit piled up at my place now actually exceeds the interior volume of the house. It's called Quantum Shit.

You've had bad days.
I've had bad days.
This day is unprecedented in all its badness.

Most of my bad days start with computers. This makes perfect sense, as I've been in computers since high school. You know... a long time ago. My main computer was looking a little weird (as opposed to its owner, who is looking very weird), so I figured a redo was in order. Load up the dvd, reboot, and POOF, there were weird characters and it was having trouble reading the drive. The drive is solid state, plus I could see the folders, so all was not lost. I re-redid it. Weird error message. I re-re-redid it. Same weird error message. No suggested fixes worked.

Ok, main computer only has all of my stuff on it... (backed up), but I need a computer to run it on. Wife's laptop: kernel panic. For those of you not familiar, kernel panic is really bad, m'kay? It's what happens when the computer knows I'm overstressed or Just Plain Pissed, so it's terrified of me. So I tried to redo it. It was still panicked. I started to panic. It's not like there's a computer on every step on the stairs.

My phone decided it wasn't going to deal with email. This isn't an unreasonable idea, but it is for a phone. In fact, the relatively new tablet also refused to deal with email, in sympathy with the phone. I, on the other hand, had no sympathy for these devices and my neck was getting sore from shaking my head so much, out of sheer grief and aggravation.

AHA - I have a spare laptop... kinda anemic, but it'll get the mail!
Yes, I located said laptop. Unfortunately I did not locate laptop's power supply. No matter, I have 50 of them; almost one that fit, except it was missing the part that went to the electrical outlet. After digging that up, I plugged it in and it did its best impersonation of a government employee: nothing. In case you're counting at home, this is 3 computers, a phone, and a tablet.

The tears running down my face gave no indication that I would be more comfortable shooting from a tall building or mall.

Ladies and blog readers, this is just about the end of my computer inventory. Somewhere is an ancient pc with an ancient version of Ubuntu on it, but I suspect it had gone on vacation with the 3 laptops that have gone POOF over the last 3 years.

Pulling up the tablet, I ran a virus scan, because I'm like that. Halfway into the scan, POOF. The tablet shut off. I figured it was part of the Random Reboot package I paid extra for, but no, it shut down. Period. I plugged it in, hoping for some stupid reason it would work but NO. THE F&$#ING TABLET WAS HOSED. Bricked. A flat, sporty screen with nothing on it ever again. It was dead. Pushing up daisies. Gone and joined the choir invisible. Bereft of life, it rested in peace. POOF. It just died to spite me- no other reason.

Do ya see what I'm talking about? Once the excrement hits the whirling device, the only thing that happens is more excrement and more whirling devices, until I smell a bit and can't move for shit.

There was a small tablet around somewhere. Somewhere (far away look in his eyes). It disappeared, perhaps on purpose, the day the larger tablet arrived. Maybe it felt inferior. I just can't find it, in spite of the fact it only lived in one of two places, both now empty.

So I was dead in the water. Nothing. No way, no how. I couldn't get my frigging email. You know what that's like. You get the shakes, the bends, your genitals shrink, and you become even less tolerant of anyone sharing your living space.

I got a drink, sat back down, and promptly spilled most of it on my hand and pants.
I made dinner and burned myself, after I couldn't find the last ingredient of anything I wanted to make. The door fell off the pantry. The dog needed to go outside every 10 minutes, which she never does.

This is the part that's killing me: the only communicative device I had left was the work iDevice. With even more tears and a groin pull, I went about seeing if it could handle the tiny amount I needed to throw at it (not that the phone couldn't, but maybe wouldn't). I installed an email account. HALLELEUJAH! I installed a 2nd email account... well, no I didn't.. because I couldn't find the button to install a 2nd email account, including the one that said New Account. After asking my iHole friends, I learned that you don't add accounts to email through the email program - you add it in the Accounts section of the phone. Well how stupid could I be? How didn't I know this?  The only thing that really grinds my gears is that this is the only device in the known universe that has no punctuation on its keyboard. If you want a period, you have to push SPACE twice, or go to a second page of keyboard. What kind of abjectly drunk design is this? Periods are sort of common in most languages, with commas in there too. I checked the Apple Store and there were none to be found.

On the way to celebrate me, I kicked a case of soda. Not on purpose - my size 17 feet kick everything around me, whether I want them to or not. I can mistakenly kick something that's 2 feet away from me, simply because it's there while I walk by. Mostly I trip over stuff. Stuff that really isn't in the way. Every day I go into my computer room and notice the little space heater, and every day my foot hits it on the way by. It's like the device suddenly does the impossible and gets larger for half a second, while I pass by it. Or sticks out its imaginary foot.

Feeling overjoyed at something working, I went to check my mail.
Nope, I can't find the phone.
The phone I just got my email from.
It is missing.
People who don't know me and have never seen my house tell me I look organized.
Of course I look organized - if I don't put something in its place the moment I'm done with it, I will never find it again. So putting things away just looks organized.
Wait... I remember putting it on the sofa arm. Things on the sofa arm generally fall next to the sofa. Nope, not this time.
Hey - just last week I put my phone there. I found it hours later, in between the sofa cushion and the sofa end. Sure enough, this was the second one to do it.
So I put the phone in its place, after which it immediately plummeted to the ground, unassisted.

They tell me, whoever they are, that the universe is an incredibly vast place, with lots of strange real estate and even stranger furniture. Being so vast, the universe couldn't possibly care about me. Screw that - it is actively involved now, monitoring my every move and making sure nothing performs as expected. I just found a speaker I've been looking for (behind the computer desk, where all speakers go to relax). Sometimes I get the feeling that if stuff didn't go wrong for me, the entire universe would stop suddenly and disappear. I am that critical to Operations.

With nowhere else to go, I hooked up my old desktop. It booted! It did not explode. It did not have kernel panic (or kernel generalized anxiety). It did not shun me. For fun, I checked the last time it was run. Depending on file dates, alcohol, and potent pharmaceuticals, it's about 3-5 years. I remember this box kicking ass. Since I have no real memory, it's incredibly slow. After everything else is done, I have to build a new one. I'm getting too old for this shit.

The version of Xubuntu is very old. Very very old. Pre-Obama old. Depending on the version, you have to upgrade one by one, or every two versions. By next week, I'll be almost up to date!


Shopping List:

1. 2 full size mice
2. 24-ish inch monitor
3. new motherboard, processor, and RAM
4. 1 or 2 solid state drives, 1 laptop
5. a Sawzall for the next time I get mad
6. someone to follow me around and apologize for things I just said
7. Samsung tablet repair
8. sore throat drops from yelling

Not bad for a single day!

He's Not Writing About Sports Again, Is He?

Only a tiny bit, I promise.
It came to my attention, indirectly, that the Philadelphia Eagles won an important game. If you're from Philly, it's pronounced "Dem Iggles." I say indirectly because that's the only way I'd hear about it. I was in a mall or slaughterhouse somewhere and my phone started making noises, telling me my friends were in a group chat. It got really annoying, as any more than one DING does. They appeared to be commenting on a game. Since it's cold, it was probably Dem Iggles. I could see the straining through the phone. I suggested fiber. Apparently they won. My friends probably had to change their shorts after that. It took me quite a while to wash out the flying bits of animal that were intercepted by my clothes.

The whole thing reminded me of a lovely, happy celebration I saw once. It should be on a billboard that says "Welcome to Philadelphia".

I think she's a cheerleader

I told you it would only be a little bit.

I lied. Here's a little bit more: people are making dog masks and wearing them, in support of Dem Iggles. We are a nation of morons.

• Fortunately for Hawaii, the incoming missile alert was false. Triggered by one mouse click, the entire state went into panic. While one click set it off, there was no Cancel click, so 30+ minutes of panic ensued until somebody figured it out. Is it remotely possible that the alert system is about as mature as Carrot Top? That no one knows where to go? That we need a $*#)ing incoming missile alert? grumble grumble grumble YAH.
• The employee who clicked must be the most hated and horribly embarrassed person in 50 states. He was reassigned because it was a 'mistake'.
• Remember the Good Old Days, when the missile threat was from Russia?
• To give you an idea of how serious Hawaii is about security, they posted a serious looking picture of a serious looking man in front of serious looking computer equipment. It all looked pretty serious.. especially the password on the Post-it note, attached to a screen. It's apparent that we should just surrender now.

It's bloody snowing again. I flash back to winters where we barely saw snow [sigh]. True to form, our 'annoying dusting', which was to show up late tonight, managed to rear its ugly head at least twelve hours in advance. To be fair, the forecasters said eight. So they were damn near correct, especially for them.

But wait!!!!  It will snow tomorrow morning very early.  4-6" forecast, maybe 1-2", depending on day of the week and who you ask, and if their dice are rigged.

As soon as I started grumbling, I remembered a very early adopter of this (alleged) blog, who is completely friggin' buried under snow in Kentucky. Kentucky is prepared for snow only a little more than Hawaii. The drunken lawn tractor races have been postponed for a while, which is a shame, as this is the official sport of Kentucky. The KKK is deliriously happy, as it's white all around. They expect to have a highway cleared. At some point. The locals may be expected to clear streets themselves, which may require chains on their lawn tractors, and worst of all, being sober while running them. The local police have sprung into inaction, triggering heart attacks, because they thought it was raining cocaine. Can you imagine... 8+ inches of cocaine all over the place? People would be so stoned they couldn't move. Which may not be a bad thing for Kentucky.

The Kentucky Tourist Board says Come to Kentucky-it's a great place to rest.
Because you can't go anywhere.

• Indiana, free of snow (temporarily), is the site of yet another ransomware attack. Hancock Health got stung, forcing the entire crew to go back to pencil and paper. Employees under 25 had to go for training, as none could operate a pencil.
• Hats off to Hancock, which got back up shortly after the infection. This is due to good backups. How did they get infected? The most likely culprit was some genius, who was 'forced' to click on a link. Ladies and gentlemen, there is no law that says you must click. Practice safe surfing. Remember the ThermionicEmissions motto: Just Don't Do It.

If you use the Chrome browser, or browsers based on Chrome, you'll want to make sure you're not using these extensions: Change HTTP Request Header, Nyoogle - Custom Logo for Google, Lite Bookmarks, or Stickies - Chrome's Post-it Notes. They were designed to allow Bad People<tm> to send Bad Commands to your browser. Uninstall NOW.

• Perhaps it's my advanced age, but I'm flummoxed at the new trend of kids eating Tide laundry pods. Whatever happened to live frogs? As best I can tell, this stuff is not a part of the Recommended Daily Allowance of food, plus it would appear to be bad for you. If you're going to do it, don't be a sissy and just drink some radiator unclogger or Drano. Besides - everybody knows Tide with Bleach tastes better.
• When I was a teen, we put M-80s in glass soda bottles (remember them?) and ran like hell. Good clean fun - not like these kids today.

Is your computer sluggish? Does it have a bad attitude? Do you wish it was faster? Get yourself a solid state drive (SSD). I use them and can attest to the speed boost. Buy the largest you can afford because data expands - especially porn. You can even buy a small one to put your operating system on, the your data on your existing drive. A larger one will allow you to just duplicate your existing drive - the SSD comes with directions. If the thought terrifies you or you fear reading, ask your local teenager or geek. Everybody knows a geek. They can be paid in money, Dunkin Donuts gift certificates, or sex.

• Today's oxymoron: delicious vegetable lasagna.

The New York Times reports that the Pentagon has suggested countering cyberattacks with a nuclear response. That sounds like a perfectly normal response. I don't want to come off as any kind of expert on cyberattacks or nuclear retaliation, but I was wondering if maybe we could get some really hot cybersecurity people to harden the systems and some really hot hackers to put on the offense. The NSA has demonstrated that it has 'goodies' planted in foreign networks. Ah, now that I think about it, if we can't bill Lockheed for it, the Pentagon doesn't want to hear about it.  But using the nuclear option will certainly assure us that they won't do it again.

• Apropos of nothing, Pornhub saw a 50% increase in traffic from Hawaii in minutes after the false alarm was rescinded. The internet (the world) runs on porn.

Today we ask the question "Is this the golden age of drag?"
Why we ask the question completely escapes me. Stay tuned for other escapeful questions.

• New Jersey is a great place. It's a town where law and order rules the day If you don't believe me, ask the guy in Hackensack, who got a ticket for jaywalking, right after he got hit by a truck. 

Whither Plumbing

Meanwhile, on this Martin Luther King holiday, I have tackled trash, drains, toilets, dishes, and occasionally, the dog.  I'm strangely pleased. Instead of a four page screed on Manual Labor being hispanic, I'm borderline tipsy with glee. Wait, make that joy.. glee is a little too gay for me.

For those of you keeping track of and guiltily enjoying some of my horror, we had a Plumbing Event a short while back. Let's say that we came to appreciate the little things in life, like a glass of water, flushing the toilet, and showering. After paying yet another ridiculous bill, allowing Roto Ranger to buy a new truck, we were allowed to shower again (whether we wanted to or not). New truck aside, I have only good things to say about Roto Ranger. Nice guys, great work, they left it much cleaner than they found it, and they were polite enough not to say anything after they saw Jimmy Hoffa's body, over in the corner.

A coupla days ago, someone flushed a toilet. This is a fairly normal occurrence, which normally gathers no notice. This time, however, the other toilet let out a house-shaking gurgling, as if Satan himself had taken residence in our pipes. As the toilet was still on its mount, I gingerly backed out of the bathroom, content to let the Dark One do whatever dark ones do in plumbing.

Unimpressed by my display of leaving him alone, Satan continued his work, by making the toilet overflow when I flushed it. I swore, when it was all over, I was going to bill him for all the Playboys and Vintage Guitar magazines that got ruined. Later, I was summoned to the torture chamber basement, where it was raining. Now it wasn't raining outside, so I used my Science Brain to deduce that it was only raining inside. This is why I get the Big Bucks. She had just showered, which must've had something to do with the rainfall (I told you I was good). She shouted out directions in the way only she can, which meant I only understood about half of what she said. This served only to annoy her, at which point I started to feel bad for Satan.

The rain seemed to be coming from a large diameter pipe that had the nerve not to be cloud-shaped. Fortunately for us, the water was coming down outside the pipe. Yes, it was still raining, but it wasn't from a burst pipe. In my life, it's always the little things.

Out of nowhere, I wondered if it had something to do with that little lever jigger that you use to keep the water from going down the drain if you want a bath. In a stunning display of bravery and confidence, my wife had removed it because it wouldn't shut all the way. Unfortunately, bravery didn't extend to putting the new one in. Apparently this way My Job, but I didn't know it until just that moment, in the basement rain. There was no transfer paperwork or customary thirty days' notice. The only problem was that I didn't see it come out and had no idea how it worked. I checked with the brand spanking new Master Plumber, who told me all I needed was to put back the screws. This went swimmingly, only causing a few trips up and down steps, and about thirty minutes of screaming at the parts. It still didn't work, which made the Master Plumber give up. A few adjustments later and I fixed it (he said proudly). If I were a real plumber, I would have charged her $550 for it, plus the off hours fee.

A day later, the basement sink got clogged. Satan had been a busy little bee. The Master Plumber got right on it, with her lotions and her potions, designed to blow a hole in the ... ummm... hole.  At that point, the Master Plumber handed things over to the Reluctant Apprentice and promptly retired, screaming about someone had better fix it or we'd have to take out a fourth mortgage to pay the real plumber. She was kind enough to leave me detailed instructions that only left out a few steps here and there. If you ever get bored, or get a clogged sink, pour baking soda on/in it, then some vinegar. It's like a mountain of an explosion that gets down there and cleans and shines your pipes to a mirror finish. One pot of boiling water and two plunges later, we were back in business.

I didn't expect or deserve a parade; it was my damn sink too. I told her maybe just a little kiss on the cheek and a high-pitched "You're my HERO!" Judging by the way she held the chainsaw in her hand, I was unlikely to get much of anything, except for bloody.

HALLELEUJAH, we had achieved pipes! Water flow. Dishes. Toilets flushing.
Just for fun I plunged a toilet, which flushed effortlessly.  The other one... well.. Satan was still in the house, making that horrible noise when the other toilet flushed. This time it sounded like an earthquake, with the toilet about to shoot across the room at any moment. Flying toilets are not in my job description, so I called the Plumbing Police and told them to bring a priest. He did his magic and blessed the place, stopping only long enough to ask if there were any good little children who wanted to be his special altar boys.

In other news, we're thinking of laying off the fiber.


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Apparently I typed too quickly.

The Demons of Stupidity came back for another exciting round.
After working 2 jobs, I had to go food shopping because I was OUT OF COFFEE. You understand the implications of this.

Let's say never send a man to do a woman's job.

She shops, which is good. She physically couldn't, so I did.
She wrote out a list, assuming I knew what she was talking about and where everything was. See where this is going?

First item, special cheese. I had to call and ask what this was.
Call cell phone: goes right to voicemail. sigh.
Call house phone: all circuits are busy.
WHAT?
All circuits are busy. Since when? It's 2018 - why can't I complete a phone call?
Plugged earphones into phone, so I could listen to music. The cord tied itself around the phone and every other object it could find. This is when one or the other wasn't falling out of an ear. I see people using earphones every day. Do I need a class for special earphone users? Does the valedictorian get his picture taken with President Nixon?

Have you ever seen somebody go completely MENTAL in a supermarket?
It was all I could do not to scream bloody murder. My day apparently wasn't going as well as I hoped. My phone helped by readjusting the volume to 'protect' me. This is almost as welcome as my car DINGING at me repeatedly when I take off my seatbelt. Seatbelt: the thing that holds your dead body in the car after the crash. The thing that gets caught and keeps the door from closing.

I was finally going to get my lemon Snapple.
Oops, I was prematurely optimistic, as I tend to be premature in general. No lemon Snapple except for diet. People who drink Diet Snapple also drink 2% milk. They eat two hoagies and a diet Snapple, because they're worried about their weight.
I think the store just stopped carrying it and is just screwing with their customers, telling them it will be on the shelf tomorrow. I would definitely do that. This is one of the many reasons I don't work in retail. One of the others is that customers who annoyed me (most of them) kept mysteriously developing burns on random parts of their bodies. They never found out how it happened.

How about some chocolate milk from the list?
Good luck finding chocolate milk. There is a wall with four separate doors, full of milk. But no chocolate milk. Oh wait - how about some lactose-free chocolate milk? Ummmmm..... no. Hmmmm.... 2%?  No serious person drinks 2% chocolate milk. Hey, there's another cold section with actual chocolate milk. Of course there is. And it's not chocolate milk, it's some bizarre chocolate drink-like substance, probably with no actual chocolate in it. Meanwhile, the phone is continuing to help me by adjusting the volume of the music, sometimes in the middle of a song. I'm singing out of tune with a song only I can hear in my head. I was very busy shopping, but it had something to do with chopping off heads and general indiscriminate maiming. My eyeballs are spinning like a slot machine. People were fleeing the general vicinity. Little children were crying. And I could find bags of lemons but no actual loose lemons. I'm told it's inappropriate to hurl bags of lemons over your head like some kind of 'special' superhero. Lemon Man - Lemon Man can! Am I digressing? You bet your car's blown fuse that keeps the interior lights from coming on, I'm digressing.

There are certain facts that are helpful to know.
The most relevant one, aside from letting someone ELSE do the shopping, is that you cannot buy real chocolate milk - only 2%. It's apparently been this way for a while. All this time I've been protesting getting screwed by two political parties that aren't different from each other, when I could be protesting something important - who the hell says I can't have real full fat-engorged chocolate milk? Who is 'protecting' me from chocolate milk? 2% milk is for people who think 2% is going to make the tiniest bit of difference in their lives. Like drinking it is going to make you look like a Victoria's Secret model. "Oh, I drink 2%. You can keep your real milk."

At this point, seven people move their carts directly in front of the milk, as if choreographed. There was chocolate milk back there, but I'd have to go through all seven of them, grab the chocolate milk, then pay and run to the car, hoping they wouldn't call the police. The irony here is that the police were down the street, at the convenience store (no, not the Dunkin Donuts).

Once home, I put away some groceries, after it being noted that everything I purchased was wrong, and I look slightly to my left. Where both huge halves of the sink are completely full and backed up from Satan knows where. All over again.

The wife reminded me that murder stubbornly continues to be illegal.

My hard-earned, small, just for me bonus?
It's going to the plumber.
Sometimes they like to torture me by letting me touch the money first. I get actual money and can feel its crispness, smell the fresh glory of the green. If I were a dog, I could smell the drug residue on it, as most money has drug residue on it. I can imagine what I'll do with it. Then the sink backs up, the money leaps out of my pocket, and if I don't pay the home improvement salesmen, they're threatening to send more of them around, especially during dinner.


Epilogue:
The job took my entire bonus, plus another ten percent, for good luck. I saw things that people should never see.

It's SSD for Me

I had forgotten that when I ordered my new laptop, I had asked for a solid state drive.

What is a solid state drive?

It's a hard drive with no moving parts.  Think of it as a really large flash drive.  The effect is to speed up the entire process as the general bottleneck is the mechanical hard drive.  Since you speed up access to the data, everything moves faster.

Unfortunately the ssd arrived a few days after I had gotten a dual boot system all set up (Win7+Xubuntu).

How to make the switch?

There are a number of ways to change things around.   I figured I'd use linux to copy everything from the original hard drive to the ssd.  I also set up an external hard drive in case I had to copy things over.

If you are going to perform this, BACK UP ALL OF YOUR DATA.  Seriously.

Someone with a lot of class included an external hard drive case and cables with the ssd.  And some software that boots right from the cd (based on linux).  The directions were clear and concise.  And in several languages.

I was presented with another, easier way to switch things over when I opened the laptop and discovered an additional hard drive bay.  I moved the original drive to the second bay and installed the ssd in the first.  Since I used the original drive, which had mounting hardware attached, the ssd had too much wiggle room so I knew I had to be very careful while cloning the drive.  This wouldn't be a problem for me so much as a very helpful cocker spaniel and a wife without a single graceful bone in her body.

The included software seemed like the way to go, so I read the docs (really, I did!) and booted the cd.  In spite of having a few partitions, I went with the automatic cloning.  The timer said about an hour.  It felt much longer.

Have you ever had to keep a helpful pet from jumping on the couch?  I have.
Have you ever had to remind your wife not to FLOP down on the couch?  I have.

The cd finished and I rebooted.

And nothing happened.

I re-powered and nothing persistently continued to happen.

Of course the manual completely failed to cover this eventuality.  And I refer to it as an eventuality because stuff just seems to happen to me.

So there I was, deflated and on my own.  The wife went to bed and took the helpful cocker with her.

With absolutely no idea what to do, I figured this might be a GRUB error.  GRUB is the linux boot loader that allows one to boot linux and/or other lesser operating systems.  Windows doesn't play nicely with other OSes so if you have to use it, you need to install it first.  Then GRUB will provide you with a basic boot menu to choose which OS you want to use.

I went back and booted to the original hard drive, allowing me to access linux.  I checked and the ssd was cloned; all the partitions were there.

I have never manually used GRUB before so I had very little idea where to start.  There didn't appear to be a GRUB-SEARCH function, so I took a stab at GRUB-INSTALL (lower case, actually).  It's not a particularly good idea to guess at this unless you have lots of time and lots of backups.

If I remember correctly (and I rarely do), it was something along the lines of grub-install /dev/sda.  It happened instantly.

When I rebooted - POOF - there was my boot menu, right on the ssd, where I needed it.  I closed up, took out the original drive, put the hardware on the ssd so it could no longer wiggle and booted into linux.

HOW DOES IT RUN?

It started to boot then gave me something about DO NOT TURN OFF THE COMPUTER and did some sort of service pack thing.  Since I had just booted up, I had no intention of turning the computer off.  However, Windows did, so I had to re-reboot, at which point it went further into configuring some sort of service pack, stopping to remind me NOT TO TURN OFF THE COMPUTER again.  After about the third reboot, Windows fully booted and informed me that a service pack had been installed.

Alrighty then.

The speedup in Windows was also dramatic.  Things tended to happen a lot more instantly than with the original hard drive.  I ran another scan to see what Windows thought of the new drive.  It got done then told me it couldn't test the hard drive for some strange reason.  Since the only change was the hard drive, I did what I usually do with Windows; give up and boot into linux.

Ladies and gentlemen (and guitar players), you need to run down to the store and buy the biggest ssd you can afford to install in your laptop (and desktop).  You can also buy smaller ones just for the OS and put your data on a mechanical hard drive.  Either way you will love it.