the swag report: the email totality

Oh yes, I have my Zune. I got my Zune on Monday. It’s now Friday. I still haven’t gotten my Zune to work.

Why?

System Requirements Windows XP

My system? Windows 98.

I do own a laptop. It does run. It does, in fact, run Windows XP. But it cannot get online.

You see, the Ethernet/dialup/anykindoflandline connector is busticated beyond repair and, while the gracious, benevolent and decorative Kendra took me out and bought me a wireless doohickey for it, alas I have only a cable connection and there is no free wireless in my apartment building. I am exactly one block too far East and South.

And, you see, the Zune will not operate until I download some software onto my computer. And no, they didn’t send it on a disk. Maybe I should ask Lori to burn it onto one and mail it to me.

The Zune didn’t even come charged!

Steve Jobs, methinks, would have gotten that right, no? To take something out of a box, to press the button, and to have it just turn on (maybe with a song preinstalled? is that too much to ask?) would be teh ossum.

Instead, we have teh roadblock.

So, tomorrow I shall be carting the laptop (along with the five-pound cord with solid lead transformer thingy, because the battery, also, does not work) down to the Waves cafe and trying to get this thing to work. Presumably, I’ll have to charge it first.

BTW including only online conversations about the Zune, I have a total of 65 so far: chats and emails back and forth between me and my friends and me and Matchstick and me and Chat Threads and me and other people from Chat Threads. But it seemed rather pointless to go fill out all the forms before I’d actually gotten the Zune.

By the way, it took so long to get here I had almost given up. Lori had hers long before mine arrived, and when it did FedEx had an odd knack of arriving when I was either in the bathroom our out on the patio, where I could not hear the phone. So although it arrived last Thursday, it wasn’t till Monday I got my grubby little tentacles on it. Why do they insist on delivering things between 8am and noon, when all decent people are abed? I fear they know little of the ways of bloggers.

Additionally, it’s been a rather crazy week, what with work, starting as Lower Mainland rep for the BC Federation of Writers, trying to get the paragraph-form mailing list into a more easily-utilized form, trying to host the Shebeen Club in a city without electricity, learning the new job, preparing to install my own independent WP blog, attending WordCamp Fraser Valley out in deepest, darkest Langley, and getting over this full-body infection from this bizarre bug bite, I haven’t really had the time to make a special field trip to get this Zune working, however much I want to get that Amy Winehouse album on it.

Ah, also, most of my music is on the desktop computer, the one that can get online but cannot connect either to the laptop or to the Zune.

And all my musical friends have moved away. Lori suggests I toss it on a Greyhound and send it up to her so she can load it up for me. I’m seriously considering it. We shall see how tomorrow goes.

And this concludes your boring, verbose haircut blog post for today.

quiz: how many cannibals could your body feed?

I’m so lazy I’m seriously considering this instead of a proper dinner party. WAY less work!

How many cannibals could your body feed?
OnePlusYou Quizzes and Widgets

There is also this, in case they weren’t cannibals but zombies. Remember, no matter how cute they are, DO NOT FEED THE ZOMBIES!

How Long Could You Survive Trapped In Your Own Home?
Created by OnePlusYou

Stolen from iubika who asked a question in the forum.

CHARO! Espana Cani! The New Single!

CAN!

YOU!

TELL!

I’M!

EXCITED?

God, could I possibly love Charo more? No, no I could not.

Here’s a slideshow of images from her live show in Laughlin (and WHY is she not headlining Vegas, baby?) to the accompaniment of her gorgeous flamenco guitar. Remember, however hootchie she may be, she’s a talented hoochie!

The Gossip Blogging Industry Summed Up in One Sentence

Superstar Hits!

Superstar Hits!

From WebstersIsMyBitch:

I’ve been hard on Jake Gyllenhaal and Reese Witherspoon for a few months now because those assholes don’t make sex tapes, don’t cheat, don’t drink to excess in public, and don’t murder people, which makes my job a lot more difficult.

Precisely. This is why people with their shit together can make great actors, but lousy celebrities. THIS is the true Amy Winehouse Principle.

I have a theory that when someone recognizes your work before your face, you’re an artist; when someone recognizes your face before your work, you’re a celebrity. This came to me one day when I passed BB King‘s tour bus and said to my friend “I don’t think I even know what BB King looks like” and I didn’t notice BB King standing right there because, you see, I didn’t know what he looked like.

Sorry, BB. All you had to do was play a note and I’d have genuflected. BB King and Bono are perfect examples of each side of this equation, although they are equally talented.

Olive Riley, World’s Oldest Blogger, Goes Home

RIP Olive Riley. You found your way home.

The Unstoppable Olive Riley

The Unstoppable Olive Riley

Olive Riley, unofficially, but probably, the world’s oldest blogger, died on Saturday at the age of 108.

Olive videoblogged and blogged from her hostel home and recently updated everyone on her move both from her self-hosted site to Blogspot and her move from more independent living to the nursing home in the same building. In her last weeks she complained of a bad cough and distress, but remained in high spirits, giving an impromptu concert for her new roommate and friends.

You can read her last post here. An excerpt:

Penny, who’s in the next bed to mine, had a visit one day this week from her daughter, who’s a professional singer. Guess what happened! She and I sang a happy song, as I do every day, and before long we were joined by several nurses, who sang along too. It was quite a concert!

Olive’s main blog is down at the moment, no doubt due to overuse, but it is located at The Life of Riley, http://www.allaboutolive.com.au/