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March 30, 2006
canon in hp minor (i'm back)
I felt bad. It wasn't such a bad little printer - all it needed was a little love. No, actually, all it needed was some designers with half a brain and a corporation behind it that didn't equate screwing the consumer with dollar signs.
No, really. I was sad. I've always tended to personify objects, to feel they have some sort of life, and some sort of feelings, and I sympathize when one might feel badly. This includes inanimate objects. Not so much rocks and soil and stuff. OK, at least not all the time, because I just don't have the time for that.
Let's say I'm playing Spider Solitaire. I have a ten, nine, and eight showing in one column, and an eight, seven, six and five in another. Since the game is about building sequences of cards, the smart thing to do, of course, is to take the seven through five cards and slap them down onto the other column.
But I feel bad for the eight that I'm robbing of its chance for greatness, and that will end up alone. It wasn't its fault that it was the beginning of the chain - it was, literally, the luck of the draw. It had its little friends, Seven, Six, and Five, and here I am ripping them away to put with a bigger chain, just so I can maybe win a game, which is unlikely, anyway.
And there's always been the helpless victims of my anger that could neither cry out their pain, nor defend themselves in any way more effective than bloodying my knuckles or breaking a bone or two in my hand.
A porcelain bowl, part of a set of my favorite bowls, thrown into a sink. It wasn't as solid as it seemed.
A pen, a windshield, a wall, not mere testaments to the weakness of my control, but things that themselves suffer because of it.
So, when it was all over that night, when the wave passed and receded, and only the regret remained, my little printer sat there with its little cover bashed in. It made a sad little strained sound as its broken little printer head tried to move down its shiny little track, but it hung on a jagged edge. It was beyond repair. I had bought it at a discount for $64.99 at Frye's a few years ago, while I was still unemployed, and newly relocated from the home I had shared with my former girlfriend. We were both refurbished, damaged goods hoping that attempts at mending would make us, if not whole, then worthy of some purpose, of somebody.
One of its last efforts had been to print out hundreds of pages of writing that were bound into a carefully and painstakingly chosen three-ring binder. I had wondered if it could handle the task, but it came through for me.
And then, on that horrible night, failed by the design choices made by its corporate parents, and it couldn't do what I asked of it, and with a couple of blows, I killed it.
Later, adrenalin fading to a leaden remorse, I sat and stared at it, and I saw.
So, several days later, armed with a Best Buy gift card, I went to find not a replacement, but a successor. The first printers to catch my eye were two purposeful-looking black devices that printed photographs as well as your run-of-the-mill black and white documents.
The differences between the two were negligible, it seemed, because quite frankly, they both looked extremely cool and impressive. One was an HP printer, and the other was a great-great-great grandchild of my so-recently deceased Canon, a family that only days before I had sworn to never associate with again.
After about half an hour of waffling and staring at the two units at various angles, and poking at them to test their structural integrity, it finally occurred to me to get some test prints. I brought in the little wafer storage thingy from my digital camera, and stuck it in the Canon printer.
The Best Buy guy that helped me was a bit older, seemingly honest, and possessed an eerily unnatural air of competence and professionalism for a consumer electronics store. I wondered how recently he had become unemployed from some better paying and infinitely more prestigious job.
Still, he was unsure how to work the products, so I offered suggestions along the way. It turns out it was fairly straightforward. We picked a good sample picture, and hit "print".
It clicked and whirred, then kachunked.
It whirred and clicked... then kachunked.
It repeated each process several more times, as if to prove that it really was making an effort, before it admitted failure.
Another Best Buy employee's knowledge was limited to the concept that the printer took in some sort of paper, and pictures came out the other end, a process that was apparently as simple as the flow of nutrient through his body, or information through his smallish, yet echoey noggin.
I ended up buying a $69.99 HP.
It sits sleekly at the back of my desk - a simple, pearlescent white, curved bar of efficiency, constructed to make it more palatable to Apple cultists. It's pretty, furthering my desire to own an Apple computer to just look at and not use. It takes up far less space than its predecessor. It's very fast. The prints are clearer. I do love it, and it has a life of its own.
The old Canon printer, though, still sits in a box against the wall, where it completely refuses to either decompose or ascend to a loftier plane in a flash of holy light. I can't figure out how to fix it, and I can't seem to throw it out.
It seems obvious and natural to me that inanimate objects feel happy, sad, lonely, useful. But every night and every morning, I wonder if they forgive.
Posted by Rob at 10:02 PM | Comments (0)
March 21, 2006
an open letter to canon consumer electronics
Dear Canon People/Minions of Evil:
It's 12:12 AM in Austin, Texas, and I hate you people so much right now. I am sick and tired of having to replace cyan, magenta, or yellow ink cartridges, which I never use, just to print a black and white document, say, the sixth page of a six page writing sample that the agency I want to work for has requested.
Then, you can't get rid of the error window until you replace the cartridge, manually end the task, or beat the damned thing, finally and justly, to little pieces. I will admit that I am impressed by your product's resistance to impact and other trauma.
You guys make brilliantly engineered products, so I doubt this is merely some assinine oversight - it's clearly a scam to make people needlessly buy more of your overpriced ink cartridges.
Well, I'm done, and I'll do whatever I can to make certain no more of my friends buy any of your products, and I sure as hell won't. I would really like to tell you to go screw yourselves, but that would sink me to your level, since your product clearly communicates the same to the consumer.
Actually, you know what? Never mind - go screw yourselves.
Posted by Rob at 12:11 AM | Comments (0)
March 14, 2006
watch out
changes are afoot.
six hours of hammering later, here's where we're at. through lots of trial and error and reverse engineering some other sites (a.k.a. "plagiarizing source code"), i've learned enough html to get this thing looking a little better. i feel like i've accomplished something, and therefore feel better.
there's still stuff to do. i need a proper masthead, which will no doubt task my meager artistic abilities. and there will be other stuff, too. stand by for all that. (if anyone knows how to make little subcategories in movable type, please email me).
most importantly, the tenor of the writing is going to change a bit, back to the stuff where i'm at my best. my favorite supporters/critics have reminded me about that.
maybe i'll just open a second blog that will be morosity.com. kidding.
like i said, stand by.
Posted by Rob at 12:11 AM | Comments (3)
March 13, 2006
doocing the blog
so, i'm here at halcyon, watching a truth i have long realized in the virtual world play itself out in the physical world.
for the last hour, there's been a long receiving line reaching out the door, of people waiting to meet heather armstrong. she's a cultural phenomenon born on the internet, a cyberspace hero to who knows how many people.
she was a web designer out in L.A. a few years ago, who also maintained her own blog, dooce.com. she would write about her life, which, of course, naturally included her job and the people in it. not surprisingly, it wasn't all positive, and not surprisingly, she got fired. this gave rise to the term "dooced," as in, "Doug said some ill shit about his supervisor on his blog, and they dooced his ass."
dooce.com is the phenomenon i had hoped whowantspudding would be. and heather armstrong is the mass-exposed author that i had hoped i would become through this site. she's got a book deal. right now, she's taking pictures with someone's baby, like she's a young, attractive, female pope. which is something i think the catholic church should strongly consider.
she announced a week ago that because there were a lot of people who wouldn't be able to get into her SXSW appearance, that she and her husband were going to be hanging out at a little coffeeshop called Halcyon around noon, if anyone wanted to come by.
Halcyon is, of course, the place where i've been secondarily employed for almost a year now. it's right across the street from the "other job." and of course, a few weeks ago, my boss read about my intent to resign from my job as part of quitting the law altogether, and he accepted that resignation via email the next day. sort of convenient, really.
so her appearance here seemed pretty exciting and serendipidous at first. now, it seems sort of like the web gods are rubbing my nose in it.
the complete failure of my megalomaniacal scheme is pretty obvious if you visit her site. first of all, it's visually appealing and professional-looking. changing from my blog software's default grey and powder-blue scheme to more ridiculous colors was a major technological victory for me.
she's more consistent about posting new entries. and most importantly, her content is better. more interesting, because it's entertaining, and whether it's funny or personal, people can relate to it. she's also really a better writer, so there's that, even though i think my writing is good enough if all the other factors were correctly in place.
the line is finally thinning out. i'd like to meet her, but i'm not sure what i'd say. clearly, saying what i've said here would be kind of pointless. she would really have nothing to say that would help, because she doesn't know me or my writing. on the other hand, she knows her own writing, is aware of her own phenomenon-ness, and would really have to agree with my assessment of our relative places on the success/failure scale.
"yeah, i've got a blog with kind of weird orange colors and about 40-50 readers. yours is professionaly produced. you got what, thousands of readers? let's talk."
it's like someone who makes home movies of his dog dancing in circles wanting to talk to martin scorcese, thinking they have something in common.
so, anyway, there's nothing really to do at this point other than either drop this thing completely, or revamp it completely. learn how to do fancy-assed web design (or trick someone into doing it for me for free), change the way i write, write more frequently, and try to market the thing more. decisions will be made soon.
i also think "whowantspudding" is just not working. time for rebranding. ideas?
Posted by Rob at 01:02 PM | Comments (1)
March 06, 2006
stand by
too much going on in my head, and i'm drunk, and i'm tired.
i will tell you this.
my friend listened to everything. i was still shaking from the conversation i'd had half an hour earlier. i had to hold the phone together carefully, even though the battery had heated up enough to be uncomfortable. i rarely drop my phone. in fact, i think i may never have dropped a phone in years, other than brushing it off the nightstand onto the carpet.
tonight, though, it hurtled through the air, punctuating the end of the conversation it had just played an innocent role in. its flight fell short of alleviating equal measures of rage and pain and frustration, smashing instead against the wall like evil knievel's rocket against the far wall of the snake river canyon.
the explosion was similar, pieces showering everywhere. i pieced it together, and tried to turn it on. nothing.
all my numbers are in the phone. increasingly, we are losing the ability to remember phone numbers, because there are so damned many, and because we only have to hear them once, when we first program them into our cell phones.
when i made my brief visit to the hospital lately, i realized that without my cell phone, there were only a couple of numbers that were appropriate to call, and that i remembered offhand. yet, the other night, i ran into the younger sister of one of my high school friends. we talked about the neighborhood, and phone numbers came up, and i still remembered many of them. weird.
but tonight, when my phone seemed to be finally, clinically dead, a fear actually hit me. i was cut off, alone, at exactly the time i didn't need to be. i kept trying, and eventually, it came to life, though not all the buttons work.
i made a couple of calls. i got one of my friends. she listened, sympathized, and then, being a psychologist, asked me what one thing i would change in my life, if i could.
the answer was immediate, but it sounded, sounds, weak, and corny, and seemingly so unrelated to everything else going on right now. the conversation had been with my mother. very different. but it was just that much more, a situation added to a poorly-timed announcement added to my own decision. bad things, chosen or not, in threes.
but all these things were just part of the big picture, a reminder of the answer to my friend's question. after long seconds, and stuttering: "to not be, or feel, alone in all this."
i have the best friends in the world. friends today and tonight kept me afloat as the tide continued to roll in relentlessly. my friends pick up pieces of me, hold up pieces of me. they go above and beyond, but while they never complain or mention it, they have their own lives, their own problems. this is what friends do.
but to have that one person that is there...
is that wrong? i quote aimee mann a lot. it's because she's fucking brilliant. i kept hearing one line from her latest album: "they think that by sharing the burden, they'll lighten the load."
she doesn't seem to buy it. i still don't know.
rambling. going to bed.
Posted by Rob at 03:23 AM | Comments (1)