Tag Archive for 'bill gates'

Blaming Canada Led Me to Write Poorly, Badly, Ungoodly.

Published on July 1, 2009 in Blogging, Education and Technology. 6 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , .

This writer dude is giving me tech support advice. Isn’t that kind of like a painter giving me cooking tips?

Not really. There is a story. Always a story, isn’t there?

I read this post about blaming Canada. (Happy Canada Day!) Since I know a couple people in Canada via blogs and somebody tweeted they are vacationing in Canada, and another blogger is on her way home from Quebec City, I thought I would read why I should blame Canada.

In other  words, it was a helluva headline.

It was written by a writer dude from Men With Pens (which I always read as Men With Penis.)

James Chartrand is an unrepentant Canuck who survives exclusively on maple syrup, poutine, and beer. He is unfailingly polite and helps entrepreneurs and freelancers earn a decent living online at Men with Pens (dot CA, of course).

I ended up at Men with Pens and saw this:
cleartype

Dump Dump (the Law and Order dramatic music interlude)

Digression: Here is a great video of dog howling to the Law and Order theme song.

Back on topic: It was not the content that caught my eye.

It was the raggedy-ass font display that caught my eye.  As I am wont to do, I found the “contact” button and sent them a note saying their site looked like shit. Actually  I said it much nicer, but that was what I was really thinking.

Info from Men With Pens wrote back:

Thanks for that – have you tried turning on ClearType if you’re on a PC?

Huh?

ClearType? I have never heard of ClearType. I’ve heard of TrueType, but never ClearType.

So I responded:

I know nothing of ClearType.  …
I probably won’t bother with ClearType since I know nothing, and will be reading in RSS.
Observation: your designers made a site that requires a system tweak? ahem.

Info said:

Actually, no, Mark. Microsoft makes our site require a system tweak. View the site in Apple and it’s smooth and slick. This is a fault with Microsoft – not our site.

I instantly took a liking to Info.

He called me Mark, said view the site “in Apple” and blamed Microsoft. Those who read me regularly can all chime in with me…

Bill Gates is a Prick

and I told Info that.

He “heheh’d” and said:

Hm. Just had a look myself. Smooth as a whistle, and I’m running  the latest Firefox on a Win XP PC. So… I’d say you need to turn on your ClearType, yes.

I responded…
I need one of those start>control panel>thingy>dealy>ClearType>options>activate> Restart emails.
Just sayin’…
Thanks for being so kind. I’m REALLY joking now. I will Bing it to see how to do get ClearType started. It would be good for me.

Yes, I wrote to Info at Men With Pens, a professional writer’s blog with thousands of regular readers, and actually wrote “how to do get ClearType.”

I haven’t heard back from Info, so I’m thinking that he is a techie and the only thing he writes is code.

Whew, that could have been really embarrassing.

Note: there inevitably will be a typo or error in grammar in this post. It’s there on purpose.

Buffalo Bill Gates Buys Lake Irma, May Have Started Holy War Against Cloistered Monks. Do I Love It? Ayup.

Published on June 5, 2009 in Baby Boomer, Family, Money and Technology. 6 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , .

Bill Gates, the richest man in the universe, decided that the exact hunk of  Wyoming – the same place that some monks wanted to cloister themselves (is that still legal in Wyoming?) -  is a vast spread of Wyoming he wants.

The monks have been trying to raise the almost $9 million it would take for them to live on the few hundred acres near Yellowstone to be alone.

Instead Bill Gates swoops in with Thousand Dollar Bills flying from his underwear, like Underdog, and snatches this pristine land from these peaceful God-loving men.

In a solitary monastery under the Rocky Mountains in northern Wyoming, the Carmelite Monks of Wyoming seek to perpetuate the charism of the Blessed Virgin Mary, living the Marian life as prescribed by the primitive Carmelite Rule and the ancient monastic observance. This new monastery of contemplative monks lives a life of faithful orthodoxy to the Magisterium, where joy and peace abound in a manly, agrarian way of life.

Take a look, and tell me who belongs more to this land… The Dark Lord Bill of Prickdom, or the Carmelite Monks of Wyoming.

irmalake

Aside from the fact that the monks blend in too much and might get mistaken for a trophy elk, who could argue that these men belong here.

Even Buffalo Bill, who used to live on the Lake Irma Ranch, would agree.

The fabled South Fork ranch is 21 miles from Cody and includes Buffalo Bill Cody’s historic hunting cabin. Cody named the 492-acre property after his youngest daughter.

So Nerdy Bill Gates is a two time loser on this deal. He buys land out from under a cult of religious fanatics and it’s land once owned by a revered American hero.  Has Bill Gates ever toured with somebody like Annie Oakley and Sitting Bull?

No, he plays bridge with rich old white guys.

Here’s how one of Bill Gates future neighbors put it:

“What a drag they are on the rest of us who would simply like to be invited up for dinner occasionally. I for one just wish them and all the tourists and the oil companies would leave here and let us work toward being like Medicine Bow, or Burgess Junction, or Powder River. “

Usually the rich are good care-takers of the land. But in this case, Bill Gates is a Prick.

Carmelite Monks would have been best care-takers of this land.

I sense a road trip coming on.
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The Next Decayed Decade Will Be Significant

Published on January 23, 2008 in Baby Boomer, Family, Food, Holy Shit! Lookit This! and Technology. 6 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

The next ten years of my life are sure to be my decayed years. (Pronounced in this case dec-AID – as in decade. Decayed Decade or DD.)

Tomato. Tomato.

I’ve already laid out my game plan for when I actually turn seventy years old. So I have established my reward for getting there.

I’m working on my plan to reach my reward.

In the meantime, some significant changes will occur. I’m trying to anticipate them so I can work them into my plan for the DD.

My Million Dollar 20 year term-life insurance will expire. Looking over my shoulder will be imperative. What do food tasters go for these days? Are spouses informed of firearms purchases?

I will be a patient in the hospital. That’s scary. I think it will be a physical ailment. I haven’t been in a hospital overnight since I was twenty-something. That will change during this DD. Previously, I was in a car wreck and spent a couple months in bed in traction because this is all they had to treat a splintered femur.

UPDATE: Done – had a knee replacement. Two nights in horspital.

legtreatment.jpg

I also had a head injury (duh!) and had to wear a jerry-rigged thing-a-ma-bob. The docs figure I punched myself in the forehead and caved in my sinuses.

So think of head gear for braces, except the wire went thru the bridge of my nose and attached to a plaster cast with a coat-hanger hook poking out the front.

headgear.jpgcat_hat.jpg

TMI. We have a boomer friend who just became and R.N. I may hire her to stay with me. Unless I can’t wipe myself, at which time I will just die.

I will get in a fender-bender with a twenty-something and have to prove I am not too feeble to drive. Have you seen how young cops are these days? I know the punk and the pig will gang up on me and swear that I was tailgating the punk at 40 mph. Which will be correct, but still… Why aren’t there old patrol cops anymore? Hemorrhoid disability pay kick in?

I will collect the last nineteen cents left in Social Security. President Gomez-Gonzales will give me a large Publisher’s Clearing House-type check. He will then whisper, “don’t deposit this right away.”

Technology will finally get the best of me. I will break down and buy a cell phone and obsessively check for text messages. I will not be able to answer because my old man shaky hands will make every response incomprehensible: LOJ, TTFO, LMCM, 309J. The only message I will send successfully everytime is 4Q.

Steve Jobs will have me arrested. It will be a felony charge, so I won’t be able to vote anymore. After all the years of calling Bill Gates a Prick and using Macs, it will be Jobs that will Job me. My time in the county-hooscow will enable me to make great connections for HGH, so it will be time well spent. My candidates never won or Nancy and I canceled each other, so no biggie on the voting rights loss.

Wal-mart will stop hiring old farts as greeters. There will be no more Wal-mart, it will be Google-mart ™ and they will not hire anyone over 21. Sergey and Brin will no longer exist as homo-sapiens.

The company mantra will be “Do Evil. F*ck ‘em.”

I will adopt their mantra, and live until my 70th birthday.