I don’t really see the point of wasting time pointing out that someone is “an ego-driven, biased individual who spreads fear, hate and misunderstanding”, when it’s readily apparent to anyone that’s going to listen to what you have to say anyway. But Sweet Jesus, I Hate Bill O’Reilly, International has an excellent domain name.

I’m back…

But back from where, or whence, or whatnot, you may wonder.

Well. I wasn’t really anywhere in particular. That’s not really of much importance on this world wide interweb, since it is, after all, world wide. On the other hand… even if you can look at web pages from Antarctica or orbit or whatever other unfortunate, desolate, lonely place you happen to be (I, for instance, am in Indiana), those files still have to live somewhere. And mine were killed. One day I woke up, and my website wasn’t really anywhere in particular either. Good thing I had a backup.

Now, the thing about backups is this… You don’t often think to back them up. You start backing up backups, and you don’t know where to stop. Should you backup your backup? Maybe. But should you backup the backup of your backup? Or the backup of the backup of your backup? You get carried away, so sometimes it’s best just to stay out of the whole argument. One was good enough. Right? Yeah it usually is. But not when there are people around stupid enough to move your laptop out of the way, and directly onto very large magnets. Computers and magnets have never really gotten along.

That’s okay, though. Screw the website. Nothing I could do about it. Don’t know who killed it, didn’t know who to kill. I was kind of sad that my computer didn’t work anymore, though. Took it into Best Buy. A few weeks later, they were able to tell me with some authority that it didn’t work. Uh. Thanks. I had kinda noticed that little problem. They tell me that they can’t get anything back, but I think they are damn liars, because even I had managed to pull some stuff off of it. But since there was nothing terribly important on it (or at least, nothing worth many many of my dollars), I just asked to have them replace the DVD drive (never did work properly) and the hard drive.

Now, Future Shop is owned by Best Buy. They look the same, they sell the same shit at the same prices, and I read some stuff a while ago about integrationary boogaloo between the two. Apparently they aren’t very integrationated so far, though. Because I had to send my computer to Canada to get fixed. Come to think of it, maybe it wasn’t a Future Shop vs. Best Buy problem. I think the problem was that my computer used the metric system and was set to spell many words with superfluous U’s. The language differences must have been too much. Whatever. Who cares. Sending it to Canada was inconvenient, but at least it would be fixed.

And it was. Hooray! They even got some data back. Good deal. Then it came time to send it back to me. Done. And then it came time to receive it. Er. Okay — so it got held up at the border, hm? For er… three weeks and counting? Somewhere in there, we began to think that there might be a problem. Later on UPS found my box. They did not find a computer in that box, but damn them, I wish they had at least had the courtesy to at least deliver to me my empty box! So there I was. Computerless. Boxless. Headachelessless.

Fine, though. If the universe is going to inconvenience me, it had better have fun doing it. Good joke, universe. Ha ha ha. Was my website really that bad, or what? The thing about acts of god (or big meany UPS employees who subsidize their measly paychecks with a little grand theft every now and then), though… You can insure against them. So there, universe (or thief). They might have gotten my computer (I surely hope that the large melted spot on the cover hurt its resale value), but soon I would have enough money to buy a much better computer. The one that was stolen was over a year old, so to hell with it.

I would have this money because the package had been insured. The package had been insured, because insurance had been paid for. I don’t think that UPS should be in the habit of allowing one to purchase insurance for things that are uninsurable. Apparently, this includes shipments that cross the border, unless they are business related. Or something. I didn’t get to argue any of this myself — the sender got to deal with it. But, UPS is full of whores. The computer WAS business related. Obviously, the universe was just grabbing at straws now. This was a fight it could not win. Eventually (eleventy-seven months later), I got the money, and UPS cried and cried and cried.

After all of that, I thought that buying the new computer would be the easy part. The fun part. And it was. After THAT, I thought that having the new computer arrive on my doorstep would be the even easier part. The even fun…ner part. And it was. After two months or so. Why is anything I ever order backordered until the end of time? I don’t think this “just-in-time” inventory thing my business textbooks keep raving about is necessarily so great.

But anyway. After a million and a half years for shipping, my new computer came. And after a million and a half more, I worked up enough motivation to put my site back up. But now I am several hundred million years old, and everybody I once knew online is long dead. It is a sad story, is it not?

A few shelves in the local grocery store usually contain a number of items that clearly do not belong there. This happens throughout the store — somebody with a limited amount of money makes the decision that they really can’t afford everything they’re carrying, and drops a few things off regardless of where they’re standing. But nowhere are dropoffs more common than the beer aisle, and nowhere do they consist of more basic items. Dropoffs in other aisles might be candy or cookies, things that someone didn’t really need. But the shelves in the beer aisle often hold bread, fruit, milk… I can just see somebody standing there with a sixpack in one hand and dinner in the other, trying to decide between the two and choosing the beer. Good old beer.