Thanks to everyone that actually read my ramblings, and to those that made the effort to post comments. I’m not going to be posting anymore comments here. My blogging is done. I don’t have anything else to ramble on about anymore. Take care.

Another woman yanked her baby carrier from the backseat of her Escalade and set it out in the street. Driver’s side. In front of moving traffic. Then leaned back inside to fuck with shit in the vehicle. As I’ve said before: I see this at least once or twice a week, and not from the same woman. People are fucking dumb as shit. Wait. Shit is smarter.

Yep. You read correctly. I’m not stt-tt-tt-uttering. Ok, maybe a little.

So, what’s up with the fucking dumbass naming conventions lately? I thought the Linux world owned the rights to fucking stupid names like Feisty Fawn, Dapper Dickhead, Whorry Hedgehole, and apps like Joomla. (what the fuck is a Joomla anyway? nevermind. Don’t answer that).

Then came Microsoft and their penchant for the fucking stupid long names like “Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate Extras Edition” and “System Center Configuration Manager” or even “Internet Explorer”. The competition has names like OSX, Tivoli, OpenView and Firefox. Simple. Brief. Not good enough for the overpaid marketing goons in Redmond.

But wait! If you call before midnight tonight!… you’ll discover that hardware isn’t immune to marketing idiocy at its best. How about Intel’s preferences for naming chips? Tigerton? WTF? Merced? Klimath? Who cares if they’re proper names for places. Why not “Moorehead” or “Brisbane” or “Hiroshima”? Those are places too? Tigerton? Geez.

I have a solution: go back to version numbering. Versions that include the date/period are nice. Simple. Helpful. When did Pentium 4 HT come out? I dunno. When did chip 2007.01.1234 come out? I’d guess sometime in early 2007. For God’s sake, even Apple has enough sense to use a version number with OSX. Hence 10.4. Don’t hold your breath for a version following behind “Windows Vista Home Premium Edition”.

I wonder why we sacrifice so many brave men and women in the middle east when we could simply dress up marketing pukes as soldiers and let them market their services in the Al Anbar or Waziristan provinces. I’m sure the locals would embrace them warmly (and explosively). The world is getting dumber and dumber every day.

So, a US Government study chastizes the Iraqi government for moving too slow and making too little progress. Hmm, let’s see. How can I refactor this scenario into an analogy that folk in America could relate to?

Let’s say China invaded your home town and destroyed the water treatment plant, most of the schools, most of the grocery stores, and a significant percentage of roads, bridges, hospitals, telecommunication lines, sewage systems and houses. Ok, then they swarm in with tanks, trucks and troops and stand on every corner all day, every day. Now, they ask YOU to stand up a government and get the infrastructure back in place and instill not only ORDER but a sense of continuity of community, and oh yeah, have it all done and back to “normal” by 90 days? Oh yeah, the word “normal” is from THEIR dictionary, not yours.

Yep. Pretty much it.

Ok, so I over simplify. Granted most of the rebuilding is being done by US or western personnel. That’s mostly because (a) Iraqi skilled labor has either been killed or fled to another country, (b) the Iraqi’s don’t have any capital to support rebuilding, nor the equipment and raw materials, and (c) Iraqi’s are afraid that by going to construction sites, they’ll be targeted by terrorists as American allies and either killed or tortured and killed or just killed and killed again.

Any way you cut it, we invaded and messed up a lot of things and created a bees nest of problems. Now we’re angry at THEM for not having it all cleaned up and back in order on OUR terms. Yeah, that’s logical. Before this is “over” (if it will ever be), we’ll be pissing off the few that like us to the point where EVERYONE over there is against us. Pointing fingers at them in anger is not the way to smooth things out and make it all better. It ain’t going to help at all.

My 2 cents.

WARNING: POWERFUL RANT FOLLOWS

If you have small children or fragile elderly nearby, please send them outside while you read beyond this point.

Terrestrial radio. Sucks. It sucks a truckload of shit. Why? Because I’m sick to fucking death of suffering through the endless repeat shlock some idiot marketing puke decided was “music” and that I should hear repeated once every 30 minutes. All day. Every fucking day! The same fucking goddamn shit all fucking goddamn fucking day. Interspersed with mindless jabbering and claims of “no repeat (fill in the day of the week)” and “(commercial-free interruption)” blah blah blah. I can’t wait to get back into the heavy shitface, assbrained rotation! Oh goody! Led Zeppelin? Beatles? Rolling Stones? ZZ Top? Aerosmith? Guess what? They only recorded two songs each. That’s right. TWO. You thought they recorded more, but you were wrong. Radio has decided that for you. Because you’re too stupid to decide things like that on your own. I’m going to boycott my local rock/pop/country/rap/hip-hop stations and try something different. No. I’m not ready to sacrifice my Starbucks stipend to cover XM or Sirius, because (a) I’m not in my vehicle long enough to justify the expense, (b) I rarely get to hear a full track at work due to interruptions and (c) I already have an iPod and 3 bazillion songs in my library. Fuck radio.

I used to pity them for the beatings they take at the hands of RIAA, SoundExchange, ASCAP/BMI, etc. But now I really don’t care. I don’t care if they start charging them $100 per each song, each time it’s played, per EACH active listener. I don’t care. Put a fork in it, radio is done.