I have seen the future.

Reported problem: "My machine won't boot. It hangs on the Windows splash screen forever."

Grab the machine, bring it to my desk, start it up in safe mode: Works, but slowly.
Reboot in self-repair mode: Detects problems with booting, determines that there's nothing to repair.
Reboot into normal mode and go for lunch: Machine has completed booting normally by the time I get back. Log in, notice incredible slowness, check event viewer and resource manager: Hard disk access time is incredibly slow, ATAPI errors.

Most likely problem: loose or bad SATA cable. So I go to pop the case open and discover....

#1: The case has been disassembled and reassembled poorly, jamming one of the sides and requiring a lever to get loose.
#2: The sides are on BACKWARDS, meaning there's no vent for the CPU fan.
#3: Filled with fucking dust because duh.
#4: Lying on the motherboard: A screwdriver, four screws, a grounding strap, and a SATA cable disconnected from everything.
#5: HDD cable is loose.

Blow for dust, reconnect SATA cable, reassemble case CORRECTLY, add LOCK to case, everything works.

But seriously. Who thinks "gee, I will just leave a screwdriver in my computer?"

(User is a hardware nerd who occasionally needs to plug something SATA into his machine for work. I have pointed out that his machine has an EXTERNAL sata port for exactly this reason.)

I am being rude to the abysmally stupid. I should stop that.

It's good for me, I think.

Watching The Truman Show, which is an excellent movie despite itself.

Was thinking that Truman would have been far easier to control had they added religion, screwing him up from a young age that God didn't WANT certain things to happen or he'd suffer.

But there's at least two major reasons not to do this.

#1: No matter which religion they picked to inflict on Truman, they'd alienate a big chunk of the audience. The "nonspecific American Christianity" they used would poll better, and make more money for the show.

#2: Under no circumstances could Christof[1] POSSIBLY allow any God before Him.

[1]: Ed Harris. And no, that name isn't meaningful. At all.

torrain: "Look, it's got a thorn and an eth. It really should have a yogh!"

Me: "That's what she said!"

torrain: "John, what is Juffo-Wup?"

Me: "A single spore lands, finds nourishment in decay and soon attains maturity. In turn it exhales a cloud of new life, a thousand spores, each lands, finds nourishment in decay. So progresses Juffo-Wup."

torrain: "That's not helping."

So I'm playing New Vegas because, no shit, Assassin's Creed felt too much like work. I've installed a bunch of new mods so the gameplay is actually pretty different than the last time. Still, some things never change.

I'm bopping along with a good Perception, and Boone[1] and ED-E[2] in the party, so I've basically got RADAR. I see a red dot on the map and think "ah-ha! I shall sneak up on it and shoot it a lot! I have a good feeling about this!"

So I start sneaking up. And I come around a hill and three things happen simultaneously:

1) The red dot splits into FOUR red dots and starts dancing back and forth
2) I catch a glimpse of gossamer wings on the horizon
3) I crap myself. In the immortal words of a very stupid fish, "Good feeling's gone!"

And now I am sneaking away, keeping hills between me and them as much as possible.

(Right now, people who've played New Vegas understand. For people who haven't played New Vegas, GET ON IT, seriously, one of the best games ever - and what I saw was the signs of a flock of Cazadores, which is to say Giant Mutant Radioactive Tarantual Hawk Wasps. They are easily the nastiest things in the game, by far. Deathclaws? Not as dangerous as Cazadores.)

Anyway. This is a thing.


[1] Sniper AI teammate. Accurate, long-ranged, and his existence gives you the "Spotter" trait and causes enemies to glow in your vision when you aim.

[2]: Eyebot AI teammate. Floats, has LASERS, and his existence gives you "Enhanced Sensors" - non-aimed passive perception range is greatly increased.

Me: Here, have a link. It will make you cry but not in a totally bad way.

[time passes]

Frances: I want to smack this writer.

Me: Don't read the comments. NEVER read the comments.

Frances: But it's a comment by the writer!

Me: Even then. I try to avoid letting comments, even author's comments, get in the way of a piece.

Frances: The piece itself has its problems!

Me: Granted, he totally dismisses the idea that the man might want help and be unable to ask for it, or that he might desperately NEED help. But he still offered it?

Frances: I suppose?

Me: Think of it this way. He's a teabagger from Alabama, and he stopped and gave a homeless man a meal, and a sympathetic ear, and he offered further help and he shared the man's story. The bar of humanity may be set extremely low, but, at least this one time, this guy cleared it?

Upon seeing the name of an enemy in Borderlands 2:
torrain: "It must be kind of surreal, being a Hyperion Assassin"
Me: "Really? Why?"
torrain: "Because Hyperion keeps bringing your victims back to life. It's more 'Hyperion Collections Agent' than anything else."



(She's TOTALLY RIGHT.)

Me: "This is exactly what I said would happen."
Client: "Yes, but the decision was made. We can't keep going around with coulda, woulda, shoulda. That's not productive."
Me: "This isn't coulda-woulda-shoulda. This is 'I told you so'"
Client: "Carry on then, that's totally different."

torrain: "My tits are GREEN!"
Me: ... [reaches for keyboard]
torrain: "You are NOT slice of lifing this."