One bourbon, one scotch, and one mav

I am now blogging from my phone!!!1111oneone

I know this isn’t exactly breaking news. About two weeks back Radio Shack at Blue Lakes & Filer closed down. I really miss it already. For me, Radio Shack *always* was the Rat Shack at Filer & Blue Lakes. Everything else (especially that blasphemous mall Rat Shack) was a cheap imitation.

I bought my first SPST switch and spool of wire from there.

I bought my Armatron there.

I bought my first computer there.

I remember when their checkout system was as sophisticated as a reciept pad, a calculator and a drawer that doubled as a till. A time before they asked for every single piece of identifiable demographic information so they could send you tons of junk mail.

I remember when PC-LINK was a big deal.

I remember when they actually sold radios of all shapes and sizes.

I remember standing in RS, staring endlessly at The Mind’s Eye playing on one of their TV’s, and wondering if we would ever be able to do that sort of thing on our desktop PC’s someday.

I remember Lotus 1-2-3 for Deskmate.

I remember CGA.

Part of me is happy it’s gone. It’s really not possible to go back to the small electronics and computers store that they were. It’s just not practical, there’s no mass market anymore for a store that sells nothing but electronics parts and arcane phone/radio/AV accessories. The only way to pull it off is to do what Fry’s did, and basically add electronic bits as an add-on to an already successful Best Buy/CompUSA/Circuit City model. The era of the little electronics store is over, even if the era of the electronics hobbyist is starting a retro-style comeback. There’s just no way to make it work in the era of Wal-Mart.

Still, there was always something so comforting about walking in that door, hearing the PCM-generated piezo door chime ring, and having the manager behind the desk say “Hi Brian, what’re you up to this week?”

I just ran into one of the funniest daily Internet features I have ever seen. the show with zefrank is fucking great. As an example check out this one and this one. Also this one is crazy awesome. You need Quicktime to view (which you should already have installed, fucktard. Duh.)

I know I in particular love to think that I am somehow exemptfrom this, but thenI go out and buy DVDs like they are going out of style. If you want to see a real example of what greed, ruthlessness and marketing can get you, check out this 20-year-old article about DeBeers, the diamond cartel. They basically redefined the way men and women interact with their aggressive and merciless advertising campaigns. There was a time, long ago, when girls didn’t even know about diamonds, let alone consider themselves friends. It’s difficult to see that a concept that is so ingrained in the culture is basically a huge marketing ploy and that we are all suckers.

Unfortunately, that article ends by saying basically that if DeBeers ever loses their grip on the world diamond market, or on the consumer, the whole market falls apart overnight. That’s why artificial diamonds scare them so much - much in the same way that the MP/RIAA is terrified of electronic distribution, due to its low cost and overhead. The difference, of course, being that instead of extorting small-time musicians, DeBeers uses slave labor in African mines, price controls and mass marketing campaigns.

Sorta like Wal-Mart.

I’m going to fall back to my traditional substance here for a few minutes, e/n. Why? well, I haven’t been posting much about current events because they have been pretty depressing: the first net neutrality vote being a sound defeat (COPE act), thepiratebay being raided, South Central Farm being bulldozed flat, etc. Seems like community isn’t safe, in the real world or in the electronic one. if you try and build an independent, functioning entity without having a large corporate backer and half a dozen intellectual property attorneys, you’re already fucked. Net neutrality (or the lack thereof) will eliminate the Internet as a form of free expression, mark my words. Within 50 years, it will be nearly impossible to express an idea that doesn’t intrude on someone else’s intellectual property, so ideas will become contraband. Neat, huh?

As for me, I’m not doing so well. I feel like I’m pretty much completely inept, all the time. I’m putting in some reasonably long hours, and never really feel like I’m getting anything useful done. Pretty much everybody on my team is smarter or brighter than me, I’m really beginning to feel like the only thing I bring to the table is a really messed-up sense of humor and the faint scent of burning Dremel cut-off wheels. Add to that the fact that we have little to no external support (we are an island, basically) and that I can’t seem to get excited about Microsoft tech no matter how much I try. I really thought I could. (I keep coming home wanting to work on my Linux box, but feeling guilty that I am not working on some Windows thing or another for work, so I end up browsing SA and watching South Park and Venture Brothers reruns all night.) It sucks feeling useless but having no real desire to change it. If anybody can help me discard my apathy, please help. I don’t know what do do anymore. I’m horrid at faking it.

I’m sure some of this has something to do with my dismal success rate - I have a hugely difficult time getting excited over things I suck at, which is probably why I could never get into WoW. My fix/fail average seems to be about 50/50, fixing just enough shit to keep ahead of the stuff I break, none of my projects are even remotely useful or visible, and I just keep thinking of the end of What Kind Of Day Has It Been, wondering if something will happen so I can get my fucking mojo back.

Software support sucks really, really bad when you’re no good at it. It’s like having a horrible dream where you kill your friends over and over again. You want to do anything but that, but you just can’t fucking fix it, no matter how much you want to. It is one of the most singularly depressing things I can recall doing.

And that’s why I haven’t posted in a while.