The Strange Saga of the Menstruation Gate

Prologue:
I'm still watching Nate's 'mentally different' dog (see preceding post). That I'm fine with. What I'm not so fine with is that Cheyenne is quickly approaching her special lady-time*, and I have nightmarish visions of my apartment turning into this:
Further complicating the situation is my belief, as a Dogon bushman, that menstruating females are unclean and must be confined to a menstrual hut for the duration of their shedding of the uterine lining. Unfortunately, I couldn't track down a menstrual hut seller on Amazon that was willing to provide free shipping to Chicago, so I opted for a metal baby gate instead, thus transforming my kitchen into a de-facto menstrual hut. I'm praying like fuck that the sky god Amma is okay with that. So, I order the menstruation gate from Amazon and it is scheduled to be delivered on the first of the month. You know what else was scheduled to be delivered on the first of the month? 20+ inches of motherfucking snow, that's what. The parcel was delayed a couple of days, which is completely understandable, even though our street was clear throughout. As of Thursday evening, the UPS tracking info indicates that the package is scheduled to be delivered sometime on Friday. Cool.

Day I (Friday):
Was up and going at 8AM just in case I got a go-getter delivery driver. There were a load of errands to run, but I decided to hang-tough (like a New Kid) and make sure that I didn't miss the UPS guy. I sporadically checked the UPS Track and Confirm status just to make sure that everything was on schedule. When I refreshed the tracking info at 1:30 I got "1:27 P.M. - The customer was not available on the 1st attempt. A 2nd attempt will be made." Dicks! Either they were outright lying, or the sign I had taped to the front door was overly vague:

My feeling on the matter is that if you are unable to decipher that sign, you probably shouldn't be driving.
Screw those guys. I decided that since I wasn't going to get the package, that I should focus on trying to get my Jeep out of the garage in case I had to go and pick it up. It took 30 seconds to get the Jeep out of the garage and an hour getting it dug out and the 10 feet back in**. I was stuck. Now I had to make sure that the menstruation gate was delivered to my door.
I called up the UPS 1-800 number to make sure that the parcel would be redelivered. I got through their automated telephone hell; "If you want to know where your motherfucking parcel is say 'motherfucking parcel'.. I'm sorry I did not get that", only to be transferred to a busy signal THREE FUCKING TIMES.
Okay, this is war.
I prayed to Amma to hold off the bloodworks through the weekend and begun waiting for Monday.

Day II (Monday):
Evidently there had been a 'Super Bowl' of some sort over the weekend, but I hadn't really notice as I had become menstruation gate obsessed. With the weekend gone, I was ready for those fuckers. By 8AM, I had a pot of coffee in me and all of my 'necessities' out of the way. At any time of the day I made sure that I wasn't any further than 50 feet from the doorbell. I spent lengths of time with my forehead pressed up against the window. Waiting... like a crouched panther.. strapped with a thermonuclear bomb. Hell, at one time in the day a doorbell rang in some fucking 1-800-Flowers commercial and I ran downstairs just to be sure. I was running to the window every time I heard a diesel engine passing. Listening. Watching. WAITING. Around 4:30 I caught the UPS truck driving by, and sure enough when I checked the Track and Confirm status it came up as: "4:41 P.M. - The customer was not available on the 1st attempt. A 2nd attempt will be made."
Again? So the were admitting that this was the first attempt and that they were just fucking with me on Friday? And now a 'delivery attempt' involves driving by at 30 MPH? Oh, fuck you guys! It's not like you have to deliver the fucking menstruation gate to some remote fucking fly-speck village in the Mopti region of Niger. I live on a main thoroughfare in one of the largest cities in the United States. C'mon, this shouldn't be too fucking hard, people! Yeesh.
Here's a suggestion; focus less on cheap buzzwords such as "logistics" and work on delivering some motherfucking packages, you brown-short wearing cunts. As for logistics, you suck at it.

Day III (Tuesday):
At this point it's me against the clowns in brown. I'm jacked up on a mix Red Bull and pure hatred which makes me slightly more high-strung than a methed-out chipmunk. I'm waiting... No, I AM waiting personified. To compound matters, they start doing construction on the empty storefront below us, so with every new noise the (not yet menstruating) dog freaks out and I run to the window.
Around noon the doorbell rings. I'm downstairs in 10 seconds flat, swing open the door with an "A-HA!" and scare the hell out of the mailman. I ask him if he's seen any UPS scum in the vicinity. He mutters "Uh-uh", shoves Jenny's catalog order at me, and runs off. I begin to suspect that he's in on the conspiracy, possibly an undercover UPS agent sent to check my alertness.
Around 2PM I catch sight of a box truck in the unloading zone down the street. I run out and stare hatefully at the Snap-On Tools truck that was brazen enough to deceive me. At 3PM I chase a FedEx truck down the street just for the hell of it. Around 4:30 I notice my landlord outside and decide to take a break from pressing my forehead against the window whilst swearing and go down and say "hi". I'm in front of the apartment talking to Jimmy for about 20 minutes... Well, talking for 5 - bitching about those UPS fuckers for 15. I head back up to recheck the order status and get: "4:31 P.M. - The customer was not available on the 2nd attempt. A 3rd attempt will be made."
Okay, let me get this straight: You tried to deliver the parcel to the apartment while I was standing in front of said apartment? Trust me, I would have noticed. Hell, I probably would have run-up and tackled the guy once he stepped on the block. I would have chased a truck down the street swearing, had one driven past while I was out there. You fuckers aren't even trying now. I go upstairs, make another phone call to the UPS not-line, get disconnected again, throw a tantrum, decide to send UPS an e-mail, compose e-mail, get stopped half-way through due to the '500 character' limit, remove all obscenities, finish writing e-mail, notice that I still have several characters left. At this point I AM a burning hatred of UPS.
Around 5:30PM a UPS truck stops across the street and delivers a package. Before he can drive off, I scream "Gimme my menstruation gate, you brown bastards" out the window. The driver looks around, quickly jumps into the truck, and speeds off, I notice (thankfully) that the driver is a white dude.
Around 11PM Dena calls up and asks me if I want to meet up with the Valtrex Squad for some drinks. Fuck it, I need to get the hell out of this place. Jenny agrees and shoos me out the door. I head down to Quencher's - Drink. Then head across the street to The Mutiny - Drink more. By 2AM I'm substantially less crazed and very drunk.

Day IV (Wednesday):
Roll off the couch at 11AM. Mutter something about "UPS cunts" and grab some aspirin for the fucking headache. I make some lunch, and around 1:30PM the doorbell rings. It's my motherfucking menstruation gate; Praise be to Amma! I was so damned surprised that UPS actually bothered to deliver the parcel that I was downright giddy when I saw that brown bastard (yet another white guy). I didn't even care that the package looked like it had been re-routed through Vanuatu - I had that fucker! Later that evening Jenny and I started to put it together. Some pieces were scratched and slightly bent from the shipping, but nothing too serious. Definitely nothing worth sending it back and going through that ordeal again. I actually had it, and then I knew a happiness that can only be known between a man and a menstruation gate.
Here it is in all of its majesty:

Epilogue:
The dog hates it. Actually, it's more of a 'terrified of' than a 'hate', then again, she's terrified of helium-filled balloons so a new gate is bound to be horrifying. I don't care. We're ready for Cheyenne's special lady-time and I don't have to worry about the three week run of her menstrual-show. I'm fine with that.
To top it all off, UPS called in response to my e-mail and woke me up at 9AM this morning. I know it was exactly 9AM because the phone was ringing at the same time the alarm was going off. I was half asleep, so I started to say that I got the parcel and was going to let that be the end of it before the UPS rep foolishly mentioned that UPS had tried to deliver the package several times before I was available and that I was lucky that they allowed an extra delivery for me. I woke up damned quick and gave her the WHOLE bloody story. She seemed disturbed. Very disturbed. I was thoroughly amused by her horror. I win.
---

*Fun Fact: Dogs menstruate twice a year for 3 whole bloody weeks at a fucking time!

**4-wheel drive doesn't work if 3 tires are off the ground and the remaining tire is on a sheet of ice. In fact, 4x4 stands for 4" deeper and 4' further.

Before I Shut the Fuck Up

First I'd like to definitively answer the Old Dog's query, and categorically state that the reason that I've stopped blogging is that I haven't dug myself into any alcohol-induced holes as of late (ladies). Well, until now.

I'm sorry if I've riled some of you up with my blunt assessment of Our Dear and Benevolent Leader (elect). There's a superb conversation thread in the comment field of the post below (if you haven't checked it out yet).

I just want to reiterate that:
A) I'm just getting it out there now, so I can gloat later if I happen to be correct in my assessment.
B) I hope that I'm wrong-as-hell in my aforementioned assessment.
C) I wish nothing but the best for Our Dear and Benevolent Leader (elect) and his minions.

All I know is that I've watched enough History Channel to know that when there's a charismatic cult-of-personality figure standing before countless masses that are chanting in unison and making obscure hand gestures, that the guy behind the podium is both lying out of his ass and up to no good.

Plus, It's never a good sign when our (already depleted) financial markets break through the floor in the days following an election.
I just can't picture the world's financial mavens saying: "Huzzah! Our guy won. This is the end of the tumultuous period that has plagued us mercilessly and stripped our houses bare. A new day is dawning, and we are now at the precipice of a great new era of bounty and prosperity".
--slight pause--
"SELL! SELL! SELL!"

Okay, I lapsed back into "sarcastic prick" mode there for a second, but I'm getting it all out now, because I promise to play nice and not say anything mean about Our Dear and Benevolent Leader (elect) unless he starts to pull some shit like he did back in his state Senate days (on July 2nd, 1998 - to be precise) when he advocated banning the sale or transfer of ALL forms of semi-automatic weapons.
For those not in the know, almost every single gun manufactured in the world today falls under the "semi-automatic" classification. Shotguns are semi-auto, Pistols are semi-auto, revolvers are semi-auto, most rifles are semi-auto. If this ban were to pass, the only guns that wouldn't fall under this classification would be antiquated break-action single-shot guns, breech loaders, muzzle loaders, bolt-action guns, and fully automatic weapons (which are already way-illegal).

You wouldn't give a wet shit, you say?

Well here's a thought experiment:
Let's suppose the the Bush Administration somehow finagled legislation through Congress that mandated that the right of free-speech guaranteed to us by the first amendment didn't apply to any form of communication that was invented subsequent to 1885 (the year the semi-automatic process was patented).
I wouldn't put it past 'em.
That means the first amendment wouldn't apply to anything produced with and/or utilizing the following technologies: Linotype typesetting, any Recorded Media (subsequent to rotating cylinder), personal Telephone, Offset press, Screen-printing, Film, Photocopier, Television, Telex, Computer, Cellular technology, the Internet, or (essentially) anything that uses any form of electricity in it's use and/or production process.

Would that be okay with you?

Let me tell you; I'd be unholy pissed. That would be a great time to have a stockpile of modern firearms, because it's damn near impossible to overthrow a totalitarian government with rubber hippie daisies and clever slogans.

Apples and oranges, you say?

Those are the 1st and 2nd rights bestowed upon us by the founding fathers.

The second amendment is misinterpreted, you say?

Talk to the Supreme Court - Their number is: (202) 479-3011.
Good luck with that. If you could, like, change their mind, you totally would, like, be on television or something.

All I'm saying is that once you start fucking around with the Constitution, you set a precedent for every single nut-job to strip away any right that they don't deem necessary.

That's not a good thing.

Okay, got carried away there again for a second.
I'm back on the nice now. I promise not to say anything more on the subject, unless Our Dear and Benevolent Leader (elect) does something that gets me going, or one of you unwashed heathens keeps me riled-up on this....

... although, I do have some personal thoughts and experiences I'd like to share with you on his appointed Chief of Staff....

...Wait for it.

Obamania

Mania: An irrational but irresistible motive for a belief or action.There's a lot of noise in the media about the three Abercrombie dudes standing behind Obama durring his Pennsylvania concession speech in Indiana. I really don't think that it was staged. I watched that speech live on MSNBC, and as I was watching it unfold live I had two thoughts:
a) Yup, that's fucking Indiana.
b) Yup, those are Obama supporters.
Wake up - THAT'S HIS BASE!
Senator Obama has become the 'livestrong' bracelet/pink ribbon/labradoodle of 2008. He's become a mall-culture messiah of the vapid masses. He's the black friend for everyone who wouldn't be caught dead in a black neighborhood. He's the hot new icon for the Abercrombie generation - All style, zero substance - A cotton-candy fart wrapped in the hopes and dreams of every American Idol superfan. He's the Che Guevara that you can bring home to grandma - A gen-u-wine black guy raised by god-fearing Kansas white-folk.
It would be offensive if it weren't so god-damned ironic.

I worked with Obama's Senate office on several issues back in DC. They were fucking useless unless you had media coverage, or got Durbin's office to do all of the heavy-work. Clinton's office wasn't much better, but were dependable on several assorted issues. McCain's office was highly-accessible, but always managed to torpedo everything you were asking for in mark-up.
From my experience, I'm not wild about any of 'em, but at least the other two had the courtesy to pretend that they gave a shit about the legislative process.
I have two friends working on the Obama campaign right now; one is a good friend in a very high position. I love her, but I'm just not buying "the cause". I'm also not buying Croc clogs, the new Counting Crows CD, or recycled cruelty-free toilet tissue. That must just be me.

I'm not saying that he's any worse than the other two ass-clowns running for president, but there's no reason to think that he's any better. You just think he is because everyone in your inspirational book-club tells you so.
Do the fucking homework, people! The last time everyone voted with their hearts rather than their brains for a way-under-qualified pseudo-politician we got stuck with Bush II (TWICE!!!), and we all know how well that worked out for all of us.
Regardless, the American people are gonna head back into the voting booths in about six months and pick the next President of the United States of America.
God help us all.

Glitch Slap-or-Why I Suddenly Hate Spike Jones

Fucking technology; stupid me.
Earlier tonight I discovered an incredibly stupid glitch in Windows Media Player. This weekend I picked up a Spike Jones 3 CD set out of the WalMart bargain bin on a whim. When I ripped it to my EHD, the artwork for the first 2 discs downloaded, but not the third. Instead of finding the artwork online and pasting it manually, I clicked on the "update info" WMP function. It updated that disc and (for some fucking reason) replaced about 1/5th of my files with that same artwork. Now about 750 of my files have the image (below) as their album art:Arrrrrrggggghhhhh!
I'm way too anal-retentive to ignore it, and this will drive me mad until I get everything back to the way it's supposed to be. Of course all of the files that were replaced were those that were not in the WMP library. We're talking about obscure Japanese punk comps, vinyl transfers, self-produced CDs, out-of-print crap, promotional discs, etc. Essentially, it's all of the stuff that it took me forever to find the graphics for the first time around.
Something that took about 2 seconds to happen is going to take about 65 hours to fix. Seriously.
The final kick in the nuts? The CD set is of such unbelievably crappy production that it is virtually unlistenable.
I know, I know, I know - WalMart, $7 box-set, Windows Media Player - I was totally asking for it. Bite me.
That doesn't matter. I'm about 6 shots of tequila away from driving out to California, defecating on Jones' grave, stealing the headstone, driving North to Washington, and hurling it through the front windows of Microsoft's main building. That might seem excessive, but should take up less time than it will to fix the fucking problem itself.
Cocksuckers.

Triple Fuck the Rev

Man, I am so pissed off at Record Revolution in DeKalb.
About a month ago I started to put together the Spring '08 WILT mix. Right now most of my music collection is packed up in a series of boxes, so I'm only using my "new" CDs that I've purchased in the last six months. It's a pretty good mix, but I decided that it could use a few more sources, so I went through a couple the 7DA boxes and cherry-picked about 25 used CDs to trade in for some new stuff. All the discs were in excellent condition (mostly unplayed promos), and were all in-demand titles that should sell pretty quickly (emo-core, pop-punk, indie-rock, etc.). I made a point to pick out the ones that I thought that I could get the most in trade for.
A few weeks ago I stopped by the Rev on Saturday - They had up a sign that they had closed early. Fuck. No big deal - I'll just head back tomorrow.
The next day I was there right when they opened - First one in. Bobo greeted me with "We don't buy discs on Sunday."
I just turned straight around and walked out befuddled.
WHAT THE FUCK?!?!
I know that the bread and butter of record stores are used CDs - You buy 'em (on average) for 2 or 3 bucks a disc, and sell 'em for 7 or 8 dollars. Used CDs are 200% profit. On new CDs and vinyl you're lucky to break even with over-head. To not buy good used CDs at any given opportunity is fucking insane.
I cruised around with the box of CDs in the back of my Jeep for another week and was driving past the Rev on Friday when I decided to give it one last shot. The kid behind the counter told me that only the owner can buy CDs and that If I wanted to sell back my CDs that I would have to make an appointment.
Fuck that. I was just trying to support the local scene, and kept getting jerked around. I hadn't shopped there since 1996, and can't imagine any reason for doing so ever again. I'm amazed that they are still in business - Give it a couple of years. They're fucking doomed, and as soon as they go tits-up I'll be right there to do a celebratory jig in front of the vacant storefront.

Anyway, I'm heading up to Reckless Records in Chicago this afternoon to trade in my box 'o' discs for some new stuff (I sure do hope that I don't need an appointment to sell used CDs there). So the new WILT should be ready sometime in the next week or so. If you want to complain about the delay, feel free to call up Record Rev at (815) 756-6242.
Bastards.

Freedom À La Carte

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Rally Crap

This time last week I was violently ill with "playoff fever", which (apparently) involves nervous vomiting, loss of reason, and explosive diarrhea (from consuming massive quantities of Old Style). I'm feeling much better now, thanks.
I've decided that the best course of action is to take a page from the more successful world religions and take my Cubs "faith" to the next level. Anyone who insists that the Cubs didn't win the World Series this year will be branded a heretic and be immersed head-first into a vat of boiling oil.
That solves that.

Okay, now that the Cubs have crapped-up their season, I need something else to get pissed about - Rally caps are that thing.
I'm watching these games and as soon as the home-team gets under, every Gomer in the stands has his fucking hat on inside-out. When did this become acceptable? What fucking dystopia are we living in when this is considered normal behavior?
Now you can't watch any televised sport without seeing this idiocy. Fuck, TO had his stupid fucking hat upside down on his stupid fucking head in that stupid fucking win over the stupid fucking Bills last Monday.
It's fucking stupid. Period. End.
Anyone over the age of 12 caught wearing a stupid fucking rally cap should be tasered, detained, and surgically sterilized by use of a knitting hook and a CrustaStun.
Carve it in stone.

Notes On A Quagmire -or- IROC-Zeesh

I've been meaning on doing this post for a long while now. I've held off on doing any "hot" issues for awhile out of caution. I really didn't want anything I posted up on this stupid blog to queer my chances of finding a job, but now I just don't give a wet shit.
So, here you go - look for more repressed posts in the coming days and weeks.
Stop and take a good look at the picture above - Click on it (to enlarge) and really look at it.
I'll wait.
It's a painting by Sandow Birk. It was featured in LA Weekly a few months ago, and it depicts the neo-cons vision of being greeted as liberators by the Iraqis. Great, huh? I think that we all wish that this was the reality on the ground over there, but it's not (with one exception - more later).

I've fucking hated this war from the get-go. The human losses involved in such an incursion are a damned shame, but the obvious financial detriment that this war would cost the US is fucking criminal. Our economy is teetering on the brink of ruin with the imminent retirement of the baby-boomers. The last thing this country needs is more deficits. I never bought into the "oil revenue" argument, and the last thing I wanted was our country indebted to rebuild yet another third-world shithole and police its streets. No nation building. Remember that?

Don't get me wrong, I'm no Birkenstock clad daisy picker. I was one of the few people that would have had zero problem if the US dropped ye olde atom bomb on Osama in the Afghanistan conflict. Fuck 'em. Human life is cheap - Ground wars are expensive. Just turn all of their sand into glass and rename the whole wasteland the "Vengeance Memorial".
Since the Ruskies folded up their war booth, we have a shitload of thermo-nuclear goodies that Nevada just won't let us bury. Just as well get some use out of 'em, and leave Nevada to worry about unlicensed whores and card-counters. Done and done.

I saw Iraq as a fool's-errand and detrimental to achieving our goals in Afghanistan. I was amazed that ALL of the news outlets were cheerleading this war from the onset. I never watch Fox, but MSNBC and CNN both had "countdown to war" counters running. Any dissent to the inevitable war was often overwhelmed with extended commentary on how there was no other option. Roll the flag graphic and sell the war.
The one example of this that really sticks with me is the media's treatment of Scott Ritter in the run-up to the war. If you don't remember, he was the former US weapons inspector in Iraq. He was the military guy with a buzz-cut claiming that there were no WMDs in Iraq. Remember? Right before the war he was on every news network pleading not to intervene militarily. He was ignored and slandered. That guy went from being a military consultant for Fox News to being branded as a traitor (and later pedophile) by his own circle. He was derided by his former employer as being on Sadam's payroll, and was largely dismissed by everyone else.
He was right.
I haven't heard word one from that guy since the early days of this war. I'm amazed that he hasn't cashed in on his Cassandraesque prescience. If I was in his shoes, right now I'd be holding Cindy Sheehan's hand with my right hand and my new 'told-you-so' book in my left. The singular fact that he hasn't cashed in on this whole fiasco just goes to reinforce his initial motivations. He was trying like hell to keep us out of a stupid fucking pointless war.
He failed.

Historically, every single fucking conflict with the third-world has ended poorly. Ask the Brits. Shit, ask the US government. Any serious war that wasn't a regional land-grab has been an abject failure. Hell, we provided Iraq with munitions in their war with Iran after the latter grabbed hostages from our embassy, and we brought the fucking Taliban into power to repel the Soviets. The whole fucking region is a god-damned worthless hornets nest. Oil may be a lubricant, but we're the ones getting fucked - Hard. If I wanted to fight to the death with backwards fanatics, I'd wander drunk and naked into a fundamentalist church again. Forget that.
The smart move would have been to give Israel carte-blanc to deal with this issue. The reason that Iraq had no WMDs? Because ISRAEL kept bombing out all of their nuclear/biological warfare installations going back to 1981.

This whole fucking oil-run has turned into the most embarrassing debacle for the US in the last century. We're paying more than ever for gasoline and we get stuck chaperoning a civil war. It's the equivalent of running out to the corner-store for a quart of milk and returning with full-blown herpes.
So what's gonna happen? Here's the deal: Regardless of what we do, or when we leave, the region is going to (roughly) split back into the three former Ottoman vilayets of Mosul, Baghdad, and Basra that existed before the post WWI British occupation. The Sunni faction will ally with Syria, the Shi'ah faction will ally with Iran, and the Kurds will probably be subjugated by Turkey.
Kurdistan in the north (formerly Mosul) is the one shining ray of hope in the region. If you go into any cafe in Kurdistan they have a portrait of George W. hanging right above the register like DiMaggio in a pizzeria. They have a booming free-market emerging, and are true proponents of representative democracy. Everybody fucking hates them - They're doomed.

The bottom line: Now we've lost many more Americans in Iraq than we did on 9/11. We've destroyed the global sympathy that was generated after that tragedy. We've allowed Al Queda to escape into Pakistan, replenish its ranks, and have bankrolled their enlistment campaign. We've made our great country enemy #1 of the hamophobics. And, most importantly, we've flushed a metric ass-load of money right down the shitter just so George Bush could finally out-stupid our last Texan president , LBJ.

WMD is the new Gulf of Tonkin. God bless America.

Fuck a Duck

The motherfucking Anaheim Mighty fucking Ducks just took the cocksucking Stanley Cup. FUCK!
To give you non-hockey fans some perspective, this is the equivalent of Rush Limbaugh winning the Democratic party's nomination for president with Bill O'Reily as his veep.
Right now the NHL ranks somewhere between intramural badminton and competitive hotdog eating in my pantheon of sports fandom. I fucking give up - Why couldn't there be a fucking strike this year? Now the cup is scarred for life with this blight forever engraved into it's visage.
The Stanley Cup used to be a beautiful unattainable goddess, now she's just some sleazy bar hag that vomited down the front of her tube-top right before porking your retarded cousin.

AAARGH!!! The NHL is D-E-A-D.
I'm done.

More on my feelings about the the NHL (& the Ducks) HERE.

Fucking Dumpster*

Fucking Ryan Dumpster just blew a fucking 4 run lead in the bottom of the fucking 9th against the fucking Mets. Fuck!

I still like him way-better than Grossman.
---

*Not to be confused with the actual fucking dumpster (located behind the Paperback Grotto).

The Roxio Incident

The ePissers will remember my CDROM issue from a couple weeks ago, well here’s the full story (so far):

Somehow, a really annoying program has grafted itself to my CD-ROM drive so that whenever I go to copy anything to the disk it comes up as "waiting to be copied" rather than just fucking copying it directly.
The offending program is the "CD Writing Wizard"(thus confirming my belief that all wizards are gay), and appears to be by the (equally queerly named) company, “Roxio”.

Here’s the deal: The only thing I ever use the copy function on my CDROM drive for is one thing and one thing only - Ripping WMA files to a disc so that I can listen to ‘em in my Jeep. A single WMA disc can hold damn near 10 hours of music files on it, so I use ‘em to copy between 15 and 20 full albums onto one disc – no pick and choose bullshit.
I used to be able to just drag and drop any file (text, MP3, picture, etc) I wanted into the CD window & it would burn it and show me how much space I had left on the disc. Dandy, huh?
Well now I have to drag all of the files into the CD window and they come up as “waiting to be written”, then I have to go back and write down each file size I want to transfer to CD, break out the fucking calculator to figure out how much space I have left on a disc, and then click “write to CD” and wait for it to go through the whole writing process all over again. The entire start-to-finish process used to run under 10 minutes, now it takes over a half-hour, and is easily 10 times more frustrating.
I have an Aiwa dual-disc stereo component CD burner that I use to burn my mix CDs, so this isn’t a huge problem for me, but it’s driving me mad, nonetheless. I’m about ready to re-format my entire hard drive in order to get rid of this one little program that I maybe use once every couple of months.

Well, I've been all over the internets trying to figure how to disable this function and get things back to normal, but the only solutions that I have come up with involve firearms and/or blunt instruments. I’ve tried every trick I’ve found, and have removed all programs and updates I’ve installed since this problem has surfaced – Nothing. I spent a good five hours today ripping out programs and applications from my hard drive in hopes of killing this – Still nothing.
Herpes and stray Italians are easier to get rid of than this fucker.

If anyone knows me, they know that shit like this pisses me off more than anything, and that I’ll salt the fucking earth to kill this one pesky weed. I didn’t want it. I didn’t download it. I’ve tried like hell to disable it, and it serves no purpose – It’s fucking less than useless.
I need complete control over every single program on my PC – If I can’t get that, I just won’t use it (and that’s why I could never own a Mac).
Now I’m about ready to nuke my OS and reinstall Linux just so that I can use my CD drive without jumping through some ridiculously redundant hoop. I’m prepared to lose everything just to get rid of this one thing - Burn down the house to kill the mouse.
I’m crazy like that.

McRant

This is the third version of this post. Saturday I wrote another St. Paddy's rant, but chucked it because it was lame. Then I decided to post up a Video clip on Absinthe because a) It's green, and b) There's nothing like a love-note to some fancy-pants French liqueur to piss all over that sham holiday. That never got done, so now I'm back to a rant.

I love to drink (lots), and any excuse to get howl-at-the-moon stinko should be a good one, but fuck St. Patrick's day. Seriously. The more I think about it, the more worked-up I get. It's a holiday for a Roman-Catholic saint for Christ's sake. I'm not Christian, and sure as hell not Catholic (even though I should be able to claim so after enduring a 5-fucking-hour-long wedding ceremony). I'm a drunk, and I am part Irish - There's a long line of dirt-farmers, travelers, and white-trash crapping up that branch of my family tree.

St Paddy's Day (as we know it) isn't an Irish holiday. It's not a religious holiday. It's an American holiday. It's a bastardized 20th century Hallmark holiday fueled by Miller Lite and the makers of green food dye. Leave it to our dopey culture to turn a high holly McHoliday honoring some English slave turned zealot into an excuse to wear green, drink mint milkshakes, and get shitty on crappy beer dyed green. Jesus fucking Christ, what the hell is wrong with us? It's an Irish holiday, so we all have to get fucking loaded? I'm part Norwegian too, does that mean that I have to burn a Danish flag and dig up jars of fermented fish out of my backyard on Syttende Mai (May 7th)? It's just embarrassing, and real fucking lame. Period. End.
Oh, and if I see another cutesy leprechaun lapel pin it's going up someone's ass.

Here's my solution: Forget St. Paddy's Day - Bacchanalia is March 16th and 17th every fucking year. We get an extra day, and it celebrates a god who actually endorsed drinking, gluttony, and fornication. Sounds good to me.
The Italians are about to lose Columbus Day (all evidence indicates that he was born, raised, and lived in Spain), so Bacchanalia could be the new Dago Day. It'll be great. All the girls can put on too much eyeliner and dress up in gold-lame - All the guys can don knock-off Member's Only jackets embroidered with the Lamborghini emblem and sport bushy fake mustaches. We will all eat spaghetti, watch Satyricon, and talk like Sopranos. I can even envision a market for leaning-tower beer kegs and Mussolini pinatas. Who wouldn't love that?
It's fucking genius.

Arrrrrgh!

I've just spent the last five hours in customer-service hell.

I'm trying to port my contacts from Outlook onto my new phone. Should be easy, right? I've got Bluetooth connections on both my laptop and phone. There's even a "Send to device via Bluetooth" link right up there in the Outlook the drop-down menu. Simple as a bread sandwich, right? Oh, Hell no.
All of the contacts transfer, but very few of the numbers do. Furthermore, it has isolated all of my contacts that I only have listed by first-name (which are the ones I use the most) off in some pariah-folder that I can only access by clicking on no fewer than 5 separate buttons, plus those names don't show up when using the search function. I tried adding the last names, but those contacts still remain in the "outcast" folder. It also proceeded to re-name all of my files. Now If I want to call Joe, I have to look under "D" for 'Dog, Old'. You're fucking kidding me, right?
I called up Verizon, I was amazed that I got a representative right off of the bat. She took down all of my information and listened to my explanation of my problem, then promptly put me on hold for damn near 40 minutes, then (somehow) managed to disconnect me.
As I was storming around the living room throwing around my stack of old (yet unread) Wired Magazines, and swearing up a blue-streak that sent the dog running for the bathtub, I got a call from the Verizon tech division who (miraculously) managed to figure out that my call had been dropped.
I talked with that guy for about 10 minutes, when he decided to dial into the LG tech-support line. We both sat on hold for 15 more minutes until LG told me to enter my number, and that they would call me back promptly. That was 4 hours ago - Still no call. I probably won't hear from those assholes until Monday (if I'm lucky).
While I was biding my time I decided to take a closer look at what information was being omitted. I discovered that any number that was written out without any formatting transferred, whereas any formatted number didn't - IE: 8005551212 would show up, whereas (800) 555-1212 would not.
I then spent the next 2 hours online weeding through Microsoft "help" files in order to find out how to disable the masking function. After finding nothing, I decided to give MS a call. The recorded message told me that since Outlook was packaged with my computer when I purchased it, that I had to call Dell for any support issues. They offered to help me directly if I could enter in my credit card number for a fee of $35.00. Bastards.
While I was sitting on hold for Dell waiting for 'the soonest available representative', I discovered a thread on a hacker BBS that explained that the masking tool was hard-coded into the Outlook program, and the only way around it was to add unused 'dummy' characters into all of my Outlook phone numbers. That would take way-longer than just entering the numbers that I needed. While I was trying to wrap my brain around just how asinine that was, the Dell guy finally picked up the line. I told him that I had just called to let him know that he was a dirty twat, and hung-up.
I'm screwed. There's nothing I can really do to fix this nonsense. It's all a fucking rigmarole of proprietary horseshit. Something that should be a delightful dance around the may-pole, turns into a freaking psy-ops experiment. I can't believe that people willingly put up with this crap.
With my old Blackberry, all I had to do was plug the damned thing in and everything was roses, so I know that this can be done. But, with LG, no such luck.
Now I have to erase everything and just enter all 165 contacts in all over again. Granted, I could have done this several times over in the time I've wasted trying to do it the "easy" way, but that's not the point. THINGS SHOULD WORK THE WAY THEY'RE SUPPOSED TO WITHOUT JUMPING THROUGH AN ENDLESS SERIES OF HOOPS.
In all of that poking-around I did learn a lot about my (stupid, stupid) phone, the Verizon site, and Microsoft's tech-labyrinth. I even managed to change the phone's master function to read "Retard" instead of "LX9900", so that's something.

In summation:
Fuck Verizon Wireless.
Fuck LG.
Fuck Microsoft.
Fuck Dell.

Add 'em all to my Jihad List.