technology

Space’s Shuttle Repair and Bacon Shop

I had to open two car doors yesterday. It’s unusual to have to open even just one in a given day. But two? Yes, friends, I’m as serious as a bowl full of mustard-covered lion feces. The crazy thing about opening car doors is that they all open differently. So you have to find the right way to do it. And yesterday, I actually had to get inside the pickup to be able to figure out how to open the back door. Well how about I just tell you what the hell I’m talking about?

My red-haired wife, Two-Step, Protector of the Grapefruits, somehow managed to break the back door of the pickup a few days ago. She said she broke a nail on the handle, because it just snapped back and wouldn’t open. I tried explaining to her, “Honey, the door handles aren’t held on by nails. It’s usually a torx screw or some very small bolts. But never nails.” I know. Isn’t it adorable when women talk about cars and shit? I patted her on the bottom and went outside to figure out what the problem was. I grabbed my toolbox, my iPod (yes I still have the damn iPhone), and one of those big ass 24-ounce cans of Schlitz and climbed into the truck.

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SpaceBrew Review: District 9

I finally watched District 9 a couple of weeks ago. It was nothing like I thought it would be. When I originally dropped it in my queue I was only vaguely aware of the plot. Here’s the plot summary from IMDB:

In 1982, a massive star ship bearing a bedraggled alien population, nicknamed “The Prawns,” appeared over Johannesburg, South Africa. Twenty-eight years later, the initial welcome by the human population has faded. The refugee camp where the aliens were located has deteriorated into a militarized ghetto called District 9, where they are confined and exploited in squalor. In 2010, the munitions corporation, Multi-National United, is contracted to forcibly evict the population with operative Wikus van der Merwe in charge. In this operation, Wikus is exposed to a strange alien chemical and must rely on the help of his only two new ‘Prawn’ friends.

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Pusher Robot No Longer Moves Air

Part 2 of the Shover Robot Saga

After many calls to my father-in-law, I am now a certified Master Electrician. I’m also a certified Master Air Conditioner Repair technician. Siege is now also certified in these departments. So when I left you at the end of the last column, my air conditioner was not turning on and my microwave was out. It works fine, it just has that extra feature now that my red-haired wife found to be pretty shocking. Our new status here is this: my microwave is still out, my water heater is out, but my air conditioner is blowing cold mountain air, fresh from the Rockies.

I won’t go into details about how we got to that status, but – wait. Who am I kidding? Of course I will. That’s what I do here. I called an air conditioner company here in SpaceTown, and the dude told me I had either blown a fuse or a transformer on the air handler. I know how much a fuse is. But how much does a transformer cost? And I don’t mean one of the gay autobot types, but rather a Decepticon, like Megatron, Shockwave or Thundercracker. “Well we charge about 200 bucks for it.” Whew! You guys are proud of them puppies! I wasn’t happy about that, but I was determined to find out what was wrong myself. And not pay someone else to come out here and fix this shit for me. I like to be handy, you know. Just ask my red-haired wife how handy I get under the covers. :perv: Oh wait. That’s handsy…

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Shover Robot No Longer Cooks Bacon

It’s funny how you never realize how much you count on your electric appliances until one finally comes alive, says, “PAK CHOOIE” and pushes your grandma down the stairs to protect her from the Terrible Secret of Space. Allow me to explain.

Saturday, 26 June 2010

Step, my red-haired wife, had decided that she needed to clean out the microwave oven, which is I guess what red-haired wives all over the world do. I don’t ever really pay much attention to it, so long as it reheats my bacon and my bacon-bacon burgers. Though lately it has begun to take on some of the physical properties of a cave, what with the brown rock stalactites that cling to its ceiling, and the rocky crevasses and stalagmites all over the walls and floor. The plates still fit in there, though they sort of sat at an awkward angle on the rocky surface… But I digress.

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No More Nuts On My Elbows

Well I hope you all enjoyed the last two days, with our two newest writers. What a delightful treat, yeah? Now if we can get them to keep writing, that will be the trick. But you know what encourages them? What motivates them? Responses. Keep posting your comments and letting us know how we’re doing here. I know, I know, Siege ranted about a traffic incident. It’s long been an unspoken law around here that we don’t talk about traffic. But I quite like his perspective on it, not actually coming out and calling the guy a douchebag, but rather implying he is one by saying his helicopter is in the shop. I see those every morning. And they’re usually driving H2s or H3s. Yeah, I said it. You drive a Hummer, you’re a douche. Simple math.

Stout and I were talking last night about the haircut, and how it costs so much damn money. You know, the price of the haircut is going up every year. And I should know, because I only get mine cut twice a year. I despise going to the barber shop. Again, I don’t mind a male barber, or necessarily prefer a female barber… It all comes down to the one question you face when you’re about to have to choose though: “Do I want nuts on the elbow, or boobs on the shoulder?” And of course, at that point, I always have to swing toward the she-barber’s chair. But the nuts on the elbow isn’t why I hate getting my hair cut. I think it’s the act of sitting there for fifteen minutes, paying fifteen dollars for a shitty haircut that I could have done myself, better. Seriously. No, really. I really do cut my own hair most of the time. I don’t do a great job on the fade in the back, but the top part with the scissors? Man I got that shit down.

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Techmophobia

Have you ever had to provide technical support to anyone? Namely someone in their 40s or 50s? Well, if you have, you have probably noticed they had what I like to refer to as ‘Technophobia’. The root word of that is ‘tech’, which comes from the Latin word ‘teach’, which means to show someone how to do something. The ‘phobia’ part comes from the ancient Korean word ‘phear’ which means you’re afraid of something. So basically they’re afraid to teach something. Wait. I messed that up. You know what? Forget it.

What I’m saying is that most 40- and 50-year-olds are “afraid” of “techmology”. And I don’t mean they think the computer is going to wake up at night, start saying “PAK CHOOIE” and push grandma down the stairs. What they’re afraid of is that they will mess something up if they even dare click the Tools menu with the mouse button. And what this results in is technical support calls, wherein I am called upon to perform a rudimentary service on a machine to which I have no physical access. Usually when I’m sitting on a beach with a can of Corona in my hand and several pretty ladies dancing in their bikinis (or out of them) for me. Or when I’m on the back patio with a can of Bart’s Backyard Brew in my hand with my wife and all her hot friends dancing for me in their bikinis.

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Why SpaceBrew Was Down

Another good title for this column would be “Why You Should Never Host With HostMonster”. Or even another good one might be something like “HostMonster And The Incredible Display Of Incompetence, And How They Are So Disinterested In Their Customers That They Would Rather Cancel Their Accounts Than To Make Money, So I Don’t Know How They Even Stay In Business, But They Should Probably Be Shut Down, Bombed, Or Both”. That would be a pretty long title, but it gets the point across. So let me tell you what happened.

Now this is pretty high-tech stuff, and I have to admit, I wouldn’t understand it if I hadn’t been in IT for fifteen years, and spent four years as an Internet Systems Engineer. So I don’t expect you to get it all, but I’ll try to use some awesome analogies. But I absolutely must write about this, because they pissed me off so bad I almost went postal on them. Through Live Chat. Yeah. It was that bad. Read on, dear friends, loved ones and enemies. Come with me on a little journey of customer disservice, ridiculous policy and guarantees of dissatisfaction.

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iPhone, it’s over between us.

First of all, I’d like to take a moment to stop down and say happy birthday to my insanely, ridiculously gorgeous wife. She’s officially a cougar as of today. Aside from that, yes, we’ve already had her birthday party. We had a combined party yesterday and killed one bird with three stones when we celebrated Stout’s, my sister Lisa’s and Two-Step’s all at once. That’s how we do.

So an update on the iPhone front: yes, it’s really over this time. I finally got fed up with the Kin. It was too much like a toy, or a child’s phone. I mean, seriously, no calendar? Even my old junk ass flip-phone had a shitty calendar on it. I tried, guys. I really did. I tried so hard to like this phone. I lied to people. I lied to my wife. “Ah, no, honey, I love this phone! Come on now! Look at how cool it is!” But it was all just lies. I always hated it. I like the way it looks and the way it puts your Facebook and your Twitter all right there on the home screen. I like – well, I guess those are about the only two things. I couldn’t take it anymore.

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I’m sorry, iPhone. I want you back.

I haven’t been using the phone part of the iPhone for the last six months or so. So I guess I’ve basically been carrying around an i. Heh. I got tired of AT&T’s bullsh, so I switched to someone with a more reliable network, and an altogether more affordable calling plan. Paying 200 bucks a month just so I can look cool carrying around my iPhone is ridiculous. Because I still didn’t look that cool. Not once did some hot chick with big boobs come bouncing up to me and say, “OMG you are so hot with that there iPhone, space.” So I dumped them.

So this other company, which starts with a V and rhymes with ‘horizon’ charges me 15 bucks a month to do all this great shit. Well, the phone was just a flip phone though, and – well, it didn’t have apps and all that glorious iPhoney stuff on it. Sniff. So I’ve been carrying around my iPhone and my phone. There’s just no service on my iPhone, so it’s like in permanent airplane mode. Which is cool. I mean, it’s like an iPod touch with a camera on it. Zing! So I’ve been pretty happy. Then came last week, when I made the mistake of my ife. (Get it? Ife? Like the beginning of iPhone… Yeah? No? Okay. Sorry, read on.)

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Seriously, dudes. Save the trees.

Does anyone read the yellow pages? Okay, that’s not what I mean. I know no one reads it! Haha! That would be a boring ass read, amirite? Yeah. Seriously. But yeah, no, see, yeah what I meant to say was, does anyone use the yellow pages? Yeah, see that’s what I thought.

I used to use them all the time. I’d pop one in Callie’s seat so she could reach the table. But I haven’t actually opened the yellow pages since – well, shit, I don’t think I ever have. Why would I? I have an iPhone. I have google 411. I have the Internets. That’s all free. And faster. And last I checked, no trees had to die to support the internet. So please, Southwestern Bell, save the paper. Save the trees. And stop sending me the stupid yellow pages.

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