WHAT IS OUR TIME WORTH?
Hey, you're probably thinking that "this guy has a fixation on ME, why doesn't he get over it?"
Yes, perhaps I do. But over and above that, I say over and over, "What kind of a company sticks it to you and sells you an operating system that is deficient in so many respects, and doesn't tell you the truth? Why didn't Michael Dell, the CEO, order either a credit or a replacement and admit that ME was unstable to his customers? When I think of all the time I lost, hours and hours of frustration, raised blood pressure, calls to my Guru, to fix the (really) unfixable, I get pissed off all over again.
If it was a waffle iron, I could take it back. If it was a car, there is government oversight to make certain that problems like that get fixed. When I think of all the people in my category, elderly, or people without sufficient training to cope or even know that something is radically wrong with the program and NOT WITH THEM, well, I get pissed all over again. (please read that line correctly). Yes, Michael Dell and Dell Corporation are thieves, because they've stolen my time. At my age, my time is most valuable to me. Bill Gates and Microsoft have also stolen my time.

How do I know? Well, XP works so smoothly, so well, and is such a pleasure to use. I should have been openly told by Dell and Gates how to end my suffering (other than blowing my brains out), but they did not have the honesty to do that.

There should have been a huge Class Action suit filed against them!

ODE TO MICHAEL DELL #15

The CEO sat in his strong room and counted up his gold,

Fourteen billion he had there, that's the total we were told.

His mansion sat overlooking the valley far below,

His opulence, his treasure, his worth...daily seemed to grow.

THE COMPUTER MEDICINE MEN

When I bought Windows ME, I was in a trap,

I didn't realize that it was really crap.

I have photos to prove that what I say is true,

As sure as the grass is green, and the sky is blue.

It always had my temperature close to a boil,

While XP is just fine and works smooth as snake oil.

I've more than 100 photos backing up my many problems with Windows ME in my Dell Dimension. I'll scan them in for your viewing pleasure. Yeah, in my opinion there was a close parallel to the snake oil salesmen in the old west and Michael Dell and Bill Gates when they sold ME to the public. It should have been replaced, replaced with XP, but then Mikey and Billy could not have added tens of millions more to their private treasuries. That earns them my vote for The Snake Oil Salesman of the Year Award.

SPYWARE BY DELL??Ode to Michael Dell #14

I have some special news for you,
What do you think that Dell would do?
Do you think that they'd have the gall
In each computer to install
Spyware so that they might find
Whether you've had a change of mind
And changed awful Windows ME,
Replaced it with Windows XP?
Improving your Computer from Hell,
Bearing the name of Texan Dell!
You may find you've spyware within
Or I belong in the looney bin.
I may be wrong, but I suspect
Spyware hidden if you but check.
Or else crafted...a timely mine
To cause problems that'll prove devine.
The Messenger comes straight from Hell,
Could it be from MS or Dell?

Three years I've had of suffering

And now they threaten buffering!
It affects all, just wait and see,
Except that shameful ol' ME.
Am I about to lose my work
Because I think that he's a jerk.
He stuck me with a program which...
Makes me think he's one son-of-a-????

How to Make Money

JIB-JAB
After all the raw humor, the dirty politics, the nastiness that we've seen in this political campaign, it is great to come across some political humor that is just plain good clean fun! These brothers, the creators of these two animated cartoons, deserve the greatest credit of any commentators during the past few months. I cannot praise them highly enough. There isn't a word in the English language that would cover their accomplishment. They are literally geniuses. If, after this election, we could come back together as a nation as clean and refreshing as the message that comes from these cartoons, I would say that we are truly the greatest nation in the world. However, I know the enemity and hatred that came from the last one and I hold little hope for their message to shine forth after this one.

That sense of innocense that we had so many years ago in our humor, the sense of fun and enjoyment, is certainly not found in many comics or cartoons. Calvin and Hobbs had it a few years back, and certainly ZITS has it today, but they were not political in nature, not satire, as JIB-JAB. My hat is off to them.

Bottled Water and an Army of Ants
Last night I flipped the light switch as I went into the kitchen to get a glass of water. I doubt most of you do what I did next; I turned on the faucet and filled a glass with nice fresh water and drank it straight! No glass bottle, no plastic, no osmosis or filters, just an ordinary glass of water that came through the city pipeline from a distant reservoir, and I didn’t drop dead of some frightful disease. In fact, I’ve been drinking faucet water for all of my life, except now and then when I give in and foolishly spend a few cents for bottled water. Even then, I really don’t know why I do it.

Just think, people from Colorado buy California water, and people from California buy bottles of water from Colorado. We bring in water from Italy and France, from Maine and Arizona, well water, filtered water, spring water, glacial water, and who knows what else. We send it from all of these places to New York, to Los Angeles and Chicago, to stores in every city in the country, where people buy it and take it home, carry it in their cars and hands and pockets, and sip it all day long. We spend millions of dollars taking ordinary water from one part of the country or world and shipping it to another place, tons of water from upstate New York to Southern California and more tons from Southern California to upstate New York. Busy as ants, running hither and yon.

Oct. 15th Entry:When you consider how stupid most environmentalists are, it is enough to made your head spin like a top. It is my feeling that most of them are in the bottled water carrying category. Think of the waste of fossil fuel trucking the stuff all over the country, criss-crossing the states, and you're probably getting water that is more pure than anything coming around the corner in plastic right out of your garden hose.

Yep, in summer we often just drank out of the hose when I was a kid. We drank water out of fountains in the park. Fountains at school. Fountains in public buildings. I never saw anyone drop dead from it. I never heard of anyone getting ill from public fountains. But look at the huge trucks, burning gas, diesel fuel, the ships that transport water across the ocean, the tremendous use and waste of time and energy in the bottling and transportation of water, while some poor natives in the hot climates of South America or Africa subsist on small amounts of water from holes in the ground, wells that contain minerals or chemical residue, or have animals using the same source for their water, walking in it, bathing in it, peeing in it.