Post-Modern Drunk: The Computer Has Been Drinking, Not Me
Okay, that's not entirely true. Well, not true at all. In fact, I'm currently in the middle of a drinking game. It's a game for one person, much like those games that are tied to watching a TV show or reading happyrobot. It's pretty simple. It's called "Drinking." Every fifteen second or so I take another drink. If I successfully do that, I get to take another drink fifteen seconds or so later. If I fail, well, then I have to take a penalty drink in the next fifteen seconds or so. So far, I've been winning...though I'm not entirely confident in my long term chances.

Technically, it's probably time for me to review obscure, crappy, or gimmicky kind of alcohol, but I've been feeling uncreative and consequently haven't picked one out yet. So I thought I'd put it to a vote. Let me know what you think I should be drinking, and I'll give it a try. Try not to mention something too horribly expensive, since I might have to use my tax return for a new computer (more on that in a bit) rather than bottles and bottles of booze, like I'd initially planned.

But for tonight, I'm stuck on rum and coke. And I've been wondering, what's the plural for rum and coke. Is it "rums and coke." Or "rum and cokes." Or "rums and cokes." How about vodka tonic? "Vodkas tonic?" Does it work like "passers-by?" I have a degree in English and Humanities! How come they never taught me this stuff? Oh sure, it taught me how to make lots of rum and coke, but it didn't ever teach me how to properly explain that I was making lots of them.

Complicating matters, of course, is the fact that the way I mix drinks means every drink should probably be referred to in the plural.

Sigh.

That's all a side distraction for the real thing on my mind (which is of course what alcohol is for), which is that my computer is an donkey raping piece of rancid horseshit that would be tossed out of the nearest window if there weren't child-protection bars on it to prevent anything larger than a cigarette from being thrown out of it.

There are probably more polite ways to say that, but fuck it, I'm not feeling very polite where this goddamn machine is involved. I'm going for succinct, not polite.

Anyway, the problem is so obscure that I don't even know where to start. My computer occasionally and without warning suddenly becomes absolutely convinced that I'm leaning on the Enter key, and nothing can be done to fix it. So I'll just be typing away and suddenly everything starts

t
o

l
o
o
k

l
i
k
e

t
h
i
s
.

So I'm dealing with a computer that wants me to be the next E.E. Cummings. Which, at certain points in my life, I would have found very cool. Why should I complain about suddenly being transformed into my favorite poet?

Because it's irritating as hell, that's why! Good. Glad we got that out of the way.

To make matters worse, everytime this happens, I wind up having to do an emergency shutdown of my computer (because it starts trying to open an infinite number of whatever program the cursor was resting on on the desktop--and who wants 50,000 copies of Notepad open?), which does wacky things to iTunes if it happens to be open--which it always is, since I'm an iTunes addict. Well, just one wacky thing. It erases my entire Library. Doesn't delete the files or anything, just erases them from the library, along with all the playcount information and rating information. Which, when you have 4,000 songs, can suck up a lot of time to replace.

Only to be erased the next time this problem comes along.

Of course, this problem is so weird that I don't even have the first clue how to fix it. It could be anything on the computer; the only thing I've ruled out so far is the keyboard, since the problem persists even if I disconnect the keyboard. Not that disconnecting the keyboard is a really valid solution to a computer problem, since it's one of those indispensable components.

So I'm in the mood to gut the next computer programmer I see and dance around in his entrails. Hopefully this feeling will fade before my roommate, the web designer, comes home.

It's amazing how quickly your good mood can be so efficiently demolished by computer problems.

Oh, and just to make matters worse, and as a tidbit for all those people who were curious, not only have I not talked to the cute silhouette across the street, I haven't even SEEN her since last Sunday. Which leads me to believe a) she already has a fella, who she spends most of her time with getting sweet sweet loving, or b) she's fallen for me and my Pixies-playing so incredibly hard that she can't bear to come to the window or even turn on the lights, for fear that the unfathomable gap between us would overwhelm her and she'd be forced to throw herself out the window rather than endure another moment of sweet agony. Those are really the only two possibilities I can think of. Either way, I hope someone is taking care of her cats.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have a drinking game to win.

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fidel castro lives just down the block from me				how i learned to stop worrying and love my computer

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