Life on the Lam

*Sigh* It's happened . . . again.

Yesterday, I sat down with my laptop - yes, the very same Gateway laptop that, having made four trips to the service centre in the past month and a half, was returned and certified to be 100% healthy and psychologically well-adjusted - to get some work done. And, for an hour or so, things proceeded just fine. I was in the groove, tapping away on the keys, my thoughts flowing out and magically being transformed into letters, sentences, and paragraphs.

But then, the laptop thought it fit to interrupt me and deliver this message: "You may have a counterfeit version of Windows."

Um, what? The only version of Windows on the machine was the one it came installed with . . . and which has, as of last count, been reinstalled four times now.

Call me jaded, but I couldn't help but have a bad feeling about that message . . .

I looked at the laptop. The laptop looked at me. Neither of us did anything for a pregnant moment, laden with a profound anticipation, that seemed to drag on for an eternity.

The message disappeared, fading slowly into a digital nothingness, leaving me staring at the block of text I'd just entered. Being of Irish descent, with some German and Russian thrown in just to make for interesting family reunions, and therefore by definition not being very bright, I blinked, then resumed working. After all, what could possibly go wrong?

Of course, rumour has it that's exactly what the Captain of Titanic had to say when informed of all the ice floating around, but I digress.

For the next half hour or so, everything was still just aces. Despite the hiccup, I was still in the zone, cruising on auto-pilot, the words and thoughts flowing inexorably from brain to electronic page like a mighty river in full flood. But then, apropos of nothing, the laptop interrupted me for a second time, delivering this message: "The activation code you have entered for Windows is invalid."

But, wait. I hadn't entered an activation code for Windows. I hadn't even tried to enter any such code. What in the world is going on here? Then it hit me.

R'uh r'oh. I'd seen this message before. Right before the first time the laptop's hard drive had decided to commit suicide. Taking with it, of course, everything I'd been working on and everything else that was on the hard drive, as well as dumping the OS itself.

Nah. Couldn't be. Not again. Not for the fourth time. I mean, this was a brand new hard drive, albeit proceeded by three other brand new hard drives and one brand new motherboard. The Muses couldn't hate me that much, could they?

Well, apparently they can. Within seconds, the laptop presented me with the proverbial Bronx Cheer. In a blaze of glory, the hard drive departed this vale of tears and moved on to whatever digital Elysium it is that such things go to when they pass on. Disbelieving, I watched everything I'd just done move irretrievably past my recall, an electronic diaspora dispersing itself forever.

Everybody, I guess, wants to be a critic.

I'm starting to get a complex, here. It's as if the laptop is commenting on my writing in the only method it feels is open to it, by killing itself. Words, it seems, really can kill . . .

Which would, I suppose, in turn make me a serial killer. After all, I have now apparently committed cybercide five times now. Which leaves me wondering if I should be worried about the FBI kicking in my door in the middle of the night, to haul me away for Crimes Against Computers. I'm afraid to go into the local Post Office, lest I see a poster on the wall with my picture on it . . . and, given my luck, the picture they would find to use would be one of those really unflattering ones that seems to haunt all of us in High School.

I'll admit to some trepidation when I walked into the local Best Buy to yet again deliver the mortal remains of my laptop into the hands of the Geek Squad. It felt as if every computer in the store was staring at me, pointing and chanting Killer! Killer! Killer! I do believe that, had they been able, those computers would have grabbed a rope and strung me up from the nearest display.

I felt the need to explain that it wasn't my fault, that I really wasn't persecuting this poor laptop or trying to launch a campaign of computer extermination. But what cyber jury would believe me after five episodes of laptop death, what mercy could I possibly find in the cold logic of the machines?

On the other hand, I could just be overreacting to the whole thing in a kind of anthropomorphism run wild. It may just be that this laptop that keeps exiting the world in the most dramatic fashion it can think of is just a worthless piece of junk, and Gateway a company that no one should ever buy a computer from. That, I suppose, is possible too.

I must also admit, however, that there is a part of me that just can't help being intrigued by what the laptop is going to pull next. We'll see, I suppose, if and when it returns from its next sojourn in the repair centre.

But if worse comes to worst . . . If you ever see a man in an electronics store, with a hunted look as he warily moves through the aisles, constantly checking over his shoulder as he passes through a sea of hostile computers, don't worry. That's just me, and I'm mostly harmless . . .

What Happened to the Democrats?

Is it over yet? The race to see who the Democrats are going to nominate as their Presidential candidate, I mean. I only ask because the whole thing just bores me to tears and, frankly, either candidate would be a disaster. For the country, that is, as I think the Democratic Party as a whole is beyond redemption, and that's a shame.

People who know me also know what my reservations about Senator Obama are. Despite what he proclaims, he has no experience, particularly at national-level politics. More importantly, he has the judgement of a radish. I'm sorry, one does not sit in a church for twenty years, listen to the kinds of things said by Reverend Wright and be, as the Senator now claims, offended by it, and continue to park your butt in the same pew Sunday after Sunday.

To be very blunt, Senator Obama is lying about that. As the old saw goes, actions speak louder than words. Hearing those sermons, for twenty years, he either agreed with them or didn't find the statements to be that out of line. Given the anti-American and, frankly, racist nature of the Reverend's statements, there's a huge problem there in the Senator's complicity in seeming to endorse them.

Then again, dishonesty, intellectual and otherwise, don't seem to be a problem for the Senator. Remember, two days before he held a press conference in which he stated that he found Reverend Wright's statements to be offensive, Senator Obama flatly stated in another press conference that he had never heard Wright make any such statements. Which leaves me to wonder which of the Senator's statements on that issue we should believe.

Of course, there are also the Senator's deliberate misrepresentations of Senator McCain's statements about Iraq. Now, one could simply excuse those as just being politics, except for one thing. When Senator Obama first stated in a press conference that Senator McCain wanted to continue the war in Iraq for a hundred years, he was called on it by a reporter. If you remember, what McCain had actually said was that he saw no reason why, if it was mutually agreed to, that U.S. troops could not be stationed in Iraq under a SOFA, just as we presently do with Germany, Japan and the RoK. The reporter did, indeed, point that out to Senator Obama, and to his credit, the Senator did agree that that was what his notional Republican opponent had said. To his discredit, however, a day later he was back to saying that McCain wanted to continue fighting in Iraq for the next century.

Then there were Senator Obama's statements about troops in Afghanistan being so under-supported that they had to take weapons and supplies from the enemy just in order to be able to fight. The good Senator was even kind enough to cite both the news report and the Army officer he claimed to have spoken with that support that charge.

Problem is, that is neither what the report nor the Army officer actually said. Oops. Yet that didn't faze Senator Obama, and he continued to repeat those charges. It may just be me, but I can't help thinking about someone else who once propounded on the efficacy of the "big lie."

Now, don't think for a moment that I am in any way comparing the Senator to that individual. I am not. But I am questioning the Senator's character; you can not make contradictory statements, nor can you deliberately distort issues, and then claim that the nature of your character is beyond reproach.

Then there is Senator Clinton. Quite aside that I believe having a former President take up residence in the White House again is just a really terrible idea, and one that would make the Founding Fathers roll over in their graves, her character is even more suspect than Senator Obama's. Sniper fire, anyone? If she had told that tale only once, I might be able to buy into the explanation that she merely "misspoke." But she didn't tell it just once; she stated that story as fact on numerous occasions. I can only suppose that she somehow forgot about all the news cameras recording her arrival in Tuzla.

Then there is her dogged determination - which, at least, is in step with the majority of her fellow Democrats - to declare the fighting in Iraq a disastrous failure. Now, make no mistake, the campaign in Iraq has been seriously mishandled, from the very beginning. Yet, even with the mistakes, we are winning. She, along with others, predicted that the troop surge would be a failure, and she was wrong. And she is equally as wrong to, as we are succeeding in stabilizing Iraq, to insist on an "immediate" withdrawal.

I'm wondering what happened to the party of John F. Kennedy. It seems to have gone from "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country" to "Ask me not to do anything that might inconvenience me." It would appear that we have indeed seen the torch passed to a new generation, one which firmly believes that if we just pretend nothing bad can happen to us, then nothing will.

Senator Obama proclaims that he would solve all the ills of the world by simply negotiating with those who are hostile to us. But how, I wonder, does one negotiate with people who are willing to fly aircraft into buildings because they believe God is telling them to do so? Senator Clinton, it seems, would rather base her national security decisions on what the liberal intellectual elites in Europe would have us do, rather than on what our nation's actual security needs are. Both would, it seems, rather base their economic policies on what the Democratically-aligned PACs want, rather than on what a healthy and vital economy requires in order to remain that way.

Not that the Republicans don't have their own problems with these issues, but those are subjects for another blog.

The GOP, at least, is not as beholden to its extreme elements as the Democratic Party is to theirs. There is, in fact, very little room for a "middle ground" in the contemporary Democratic Party. Someone like a Sam Nunn, for instance, could not exist in the party today. This is the same party that has given us Jimmy Carter, who now embraces organizations like Hamas, and condemns their victims. How is it, I wonder, that the priorities become so twisted that the terrorists are the victims, and the victims are the oppressors? And is this really the legacy that the Democratic Party desires for itself?

It seems that the Democrats have lost their way. Questions and debate are a good thing, a healthy thing, in the body politic. But, under the influence of it's more extreme fringes, the Democratic Party no longer seems interested in that. Rather, it tries to shout down those who disagree with them, as if by denying a voice to the other side of the argument somehow validates their own beliefs. The only thing that says, however, is that no opinion matters or is valid, except there own. They seem to forget that people of goodwill can disagree, and that it is a very dangerous assumption to make that your ideas are the only "correct" ones. More things have come to ruin from an excess of hubris than anything else.

There are some good ideas within the party, but those ideas have to be tempered with the realization that government is not the answer to everything, that there is such a concept as personal responsibility. When you remove that from the equation, then people will not be responsible, because no one is holding them accountable. That leads to anarchy and a welfare state, and would lead to a fundamental change in the nature of the United States that no one would find very palatable. It's called the law of unintended consequences.

What happened to the Democratic Party?

Questions of Absolutely No Importance . . . Except to Me

Okay, fine, I'll admit it, one of my (I think rather harmless) quirks is that I like video games. And, yes, all you young'uns, one fine day you, too, are going to discover that you are in your forties and still playing with your XBox 360 (or PS3 . . . or both, for that matter, for all you spoiled little brats . . .). Then again, I also still play with model trains and little hunks of pewter that look like tanks, too . . . What can I say? He who has the most toys, wins.

Anyway, as I "died" for the thousandth time today in exactly the same place in a game, it occured to me that I have a few questions - and observations, I suppose - both for those who make games, and those who play them.

First of all, for UbiSoft and Rainbow Six: Vegas 2 . . . since when do handgrenades bounce off walls like rubber balls? I mean, yeah, I could plonk a grenade off a wall a foot or so, but your grenades come bouncing back at you like superballs. Come on, I've heard of "relaxed" physics, but that's overdoing it more than a bit.

Oh, and you do realize, right, that real CT teams consist of more than three guys? More importantly, you do realize that the other guys on the squad actually do more than soak up bullets? Honestly, I've seen more responsiveness out of the inhabitants of a graveyard . . .

I've also got to ask, just when does it get fun when the enemies never miss? Sure, I suppose you've got to find some way to make up for the fact that they tend to charge blindly straight into your sights, but really. If I can empty half a magazine into some guy standing five feet away from me and have him laugh it off because presumably my aim off, at least do me the courtesy of saddling them with the same sort of aiming difficulties.

Speaking of enemies, is it really that difficult to ensure that once they are dead they stay that way? Okay, getting shot in the back by someone you just killed is kind of funny the first time it happens, but really aggravating the next six hundred times. And why do you think it's terribly fun to have one guy going up against, oh, a few hundred enemies? Particularly when they never miss and seemingly can shake off headshots like rain drops . . .

And for those of you who have played and mastered both Rainbow Six: Vegas and Rainbow Six: Vegas 2 and froth on and on about how "realistic" the games are . . . If you really think that the games have given you a taste of or mastery of CT operations and CQB, I can only suggest that you never look into that as a possible line of work. As a matter of fact, please don't even pick up a real firearm, you're just going to hurt yourself.

Ah, Call of Duty 4. I love that game . . . but talk about enemies who blindly charge into your line of fire and who never miss . . . Oy. At least when you shoot someone in that game, they stay dead . . . most of the time. But, really, what's with the automatic spawn points for the enemies? I ask because it seems that, if you and your "platoon" (for you do have a lot of A.I. buddies alongside for the ride) secure an area, it should be a no-brainer that enemies can't appear there. Especially when they appear a foot in front of you and empty the entire magazine of an AK-47 into your face. On the bright side, though, at least the grenades don't go bouncing around like tennis balls . . .

As I said, I love that game, but if anyone out there thinks it is even remotely like a real battlefield, I would advise against ever joining the Army (or the Marines, since the Army doesn't make an appearance in Call of Duty 4), because you'll be in for a rude shock. If you tried to do in a real firefight the kinds of things you do in a videogame firefight, the only thing you'll earn is a ride home in a box with one of those letters from DoD that starts off "We regret to inform you that your son is dead because he was stupid . . ."

Now, for the game that's currently giving me fits, Ace Combat 6: Fires of Liberation . . . Look, Namco, a long time ago, I was a fighter pilot. And I can accept that I can not do in a game the same things I used to do with a real-life high-performance jet fighter. No problem. Still, for a game that bills itself as being so ultra-ralistic, there are some things that should still be the same . . .

How about this as a for instance? When a jet is "down in the weeds" and using terrain-masking in a nap-of-the-earth profile, i.e. below five hundred feet of altitude, and zipping along at a thousand miles an hour (and, look, a jet that low can't travel that fast, but . . .), it can not be shot down by another aircraft or a SAM. That's the whole reason the tactic was invented in the first place.

An enemy aircraft certainly can't get below you, and if it gets in front of you, you're going to blow past him before he has time to do anything . . . unless he likes mid-airs. Any enemy pilot who manages to get in behind you is going to be too busy avoiding imitating a lawn dart to worry about anything else. The only approach angle you have on an aircraft flying NOE is from above, and that just isn't going to work. Here's why. First off, the approach angle is too steep; I can guarantee that you can dive down on the target, but you're never going to be able to pull out of that dive before you hit the ground. Second, your aircraft's radar can't track something that close to the earth; you're going to lose the target in the ground clutter. Even a pulse-doppler radar with a variable PRF isn't going to be that helpful, because it's only going to "see" a target that is moving directly away from or directly at you; if it's moving perpendicular to your course, the radar won't "see" it at all. Third, the guidance-systems on your weapons won't be able to track a target that close to the ground . . . nor will the guidance systems on a SAM.

Oh, speaking of SAMs, every one of the blessed things is controlled and guided, at least initially, by the battery's radar unit. If you take down that radar, SAMs are pretty much useless. Sure, you can blind-fire them and hope something wanders close enough to the proximity-fuse to set it off . . . but I wouldn't go betting the farm on that.

Before I forget . . . avoiding SAMs and, for that matter, AAMs . . . It would have been nice if you included chaff and flares in your game, because all combat aircraft have those systems. Sure, sometimes they work, and other times the missile still bites you, but it would have been nice to have them. But at least you did include breaking to avoid missiles, even though that seems to rarely work in the game. Look, I've got to tell you, it's a really exciting maneuver and not for the faint of heart, and the timing has to be just right, but . . . The maneuver works because a missile, be it a SAM or an AAM, can not match it. With a SAM, you point your nose at the weapon, wait until the time feels right, and then break hard in whichever direction looks best to you, and the missile can not make the turn to follow you. It will fly right on past you, at which point you can cease worrying about it . . . unlike the SAMs in the game. The same with AAMs; a good, hard break can succeed at evading the weapon.

Speaking of the AAMs, I really have to admire how, in the game, sometimes the "tracking" works and sometimes it doesn't. I mean, nothing is quite as fun as having a target locked up in the pipper, but for some odd reason the missile refuses to lock on, or even acknowledge that there's an aircraft out there with a huge "KILL ME" sign painted on it . . .

Oh, yeah, and one generally doesn't have to wait thirty seconds or so from the time a control input is entered until the aircraft actually responds. Just thought I'd point that out . . .

Finally, I have to ask again, just when does it get fun when you find yourself confronted with a 1-v-30 (because, no matter what you tell your wingman to do, he only responds with helpful comments like "Watch out! They've got a lock on you!" instead of doing something actually useful like, oh, engaging the enemy) where your missiles refuse to track and you can't hit squat with your gun? And since when can aircraft reverse direction in, like, no time or space at all? I mean, I've seen aircraft in this game pull off maneuvers that even the nimblest UFO couldn't match . . .

Maybe I'm just missing out on something, but, really, I believe a game should be fun and not punish the player. Is that too much to ask for? Or perhaps I should just take up cribbage . . .

Bend Over, I’ll Drive

I should have known this day was coming. Well, actually, I did know this day was coming . . . or, I should say, coming again. And yet, I feel so violated . . .

There comes a day in every man’s life where a visit to the doctor’s office suddenly and dramatically changes, and nothing is ever the same again. You leave the office feeling somehow cheap and dirty, desperate to appear as if everything is normal, but given away by the furtive, worried glances and the snickering emanating from the nurse’s station.

The conversation, of course, starts off harmlessly enough. You wait in the little room for a while, and finally the doctor comes in and she asks you how you’re feeling. Why, just fine, you reply, lulled into a false sense of security by the complete normalcy of the conversation. No complaints?, she asks. Nope, you say, just here for my physical . . . and then it hits you, as you realize what she is doing as she is speaking. Uh, say, doc, what’s with the gloves? . . .

R’uh r’oh.

Time to drop the pants and bend over the table, the Flying Fickle Finger of Fate wants to introduce itself. It wouldn’t be so bad, I suppose, if she didn’t take a full wind-up first, like a major league pitcher getting ready to smoke one over the plate. Except, of course, someone is sticking their finger what feels like halfway up into your intestinal tract from the wrong end. Talk about an awkward situation, and you just have to stand there while it feels like someone is tapping out a rag-time beat in your anus. And you just can’t help but notice that the conversation flows along the lines of something like, "Does this hurt? Aside from my finger being up there, I mean." Well, I suppose that, as long as someone is going to be poking around down there in such an intimate fashion, the least they can do is be polite about it . . .

Now, I have been told that there is a certain etiquette to this whole procedure. Wiggling around is frowned upon, but a few moans here and there for the performance are apparently appreciated. "Ooo, yeah, doc, right there. Oh, you’re the best doctor I’ve ever had . . ." You know, that sort of examination talk. Of course, the one thing you don’t want to do is inadvertantly moan and then murmur your old doctor’s name. That tends to break the mood and can really make things awkward. Talk about embarrassing . . .

Of course, the humiliations don’t end there; no that would be too easy. After the finger is removed, with the same kind of popping noise a champagne bottle makes when the cork is removed, you’re handed a wad of paper towels to clean up all the lube - and, trust me on this one, there’s no such thing as too much lube in this case - and, well, other things, that may currently be working their various ways out of your ass and down your leg. Yeah, nothing like wiping with company present to make your day. But the bigger problem is that you notice the gloves are coming off, only to be replaced by another pair. So, just when you thought it was finally safe to put your pants back on, you find out it’s time for . . . a testicular exam. Oh, joy.

First of all, I want to make it very clear that it was cold in that exam room. In such circumstances, shrinkage is inevitable. Even more so considering a digit was just inserted and took a short tour in a place where no self-respecting digit has any place going. Such things will make any gentleman’s, er, appendages seek refuge, let’s all just be real clear on that. Back to the point at hand, however, you’re now in a position where all you can do is stand there, stare at the ceiling, and wonder which is worse: the finger up your ass, or having someone playing ping-pong with your balls. My vote is for the finger up your butt . . .

In any other situation, having someone basically play with your nuts is a rather enjoyable situation. Unfortunately, I rarely seem to be in those situations. Call it another fantasy shattered, although I somehow feel much closer to my doctor than I did before . . . Hey, it’s not like having my fantasies destroyed hasn’t happened before. I mean, I used to have one where I was lying naked on a table surrounded by three really hot nurses. What I failed to anticipate that time was that they would be shaving me in preparation for an angioplast. So, no, no happy ending there, either, just a reminder to be careful what you wish for.

Still, I can’t help feeling cheap and dirty and, well, used. Like I just want to take a shower and put the whole sordid affair behind me, so to speak. I mean, after all that, the least my doctor could have done was buy me breakfast . . .

I Heard Him Say It, So It Must Be True

Once again, Senator Barack Obama has firmly stuck his foot right in his mouth. I would like to give him the benefit of the doubt on this one, and say that it was merely a case of letting campaign rhetoric get the better of him, but I can’t. This is yet another example of him baldly lying.

"This," for those of you who may have missed it, is his recent statement that Senator John McCain wants to commit the United States to continue the fighting in Iraq for "the next hundred years." Now, that’s a spectacular statement. McCain also didn’t say anything of the kind, as Obama was forced to admit when a reporter, in a rare act of intellectual and journalistic honesty, pinned him down on the subject.

What Senator McCain actually said was that he saw no reason, if both the Iraqi government and the U.S. government were amenable to the idea, some sort of security relationship - including the stationing of U.S. troops in Iraq - couldn’t be continued, and he drew a direct parallel to the stationing of U.S. troops in Germany and Korea. For those of you who haven’t been counting, we’ve had troops in, and security relationships with, Germany for over sixty years and Korea for over fifty years.

*Sigh* But that isn’t what Obama said that McCain had stated. Nor would he have said anything other than "McCain wants to fight for a hundred years in Iraq" had he not been almost immediately called on that. Not that it matters, because you know what people are going to remember and continue to spread, even though it is untrue?

"John McCain wants to continue the war in Iraq for a hundred years."

I understand that Senator Obama wants to be the President. I also understand that there are enough issues, including the current Iraq policy, that divide the candidates which can be debated without resorting to blatant falsehoods. Nor, I think, does deliberately distorting positions and outright lying speak much for the good Senator’s judgement, which he claims as a cornerstone of his candidacy.

There is a sickness in American politics that favours form over substance. The thirty-second sound bite reigns supreme, and if it sounds good, run with it. Who cares if it’s true or not? Except that we do a profound disservice to ourselves every time we play that game. Why is it that we, as a people, place a sacred trust in our elected officials, but allow them at the same time to abuse that trust in order to get to the office they seek?