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.

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.

a song for no particular reason

Garbage:You Look So Fine

You look so fine
I want to break your heart
And give you mine
You’re taking me over

It’s so insane
You’ve got me tethered and chained
I hear your name
And I’m falling over

I’m not like all the other girls
I can’t take it like the other girls
I won’t share it like the other girls
That you used to know

You look so fine

Knocked down
Cried out
Been down just to find out
I’m through
Bleeding for you

I’m open wide
I want to take you home
We’ll waste some time
You’re the only one for me

You look so fine
I’m like the desert tonight
Leave her behind
If you want to show me

I’m not like all the other girls
I won’t take it like the other girls
I won’t fake it like the other girls
That you used to know

You’re taking me over
Over and over
I’m falling over
Over and over

You’re taking me over
Drown in me one more time
Hide inside me tonight
Do what you want to do
Just pretend happy end
Let me know let it show

Ending with letting go (3x)

Let’s pretend, happy end (4x)

It’s Midnight. It. Is. Time.

For Devo:

For the record and just to warn the universe on general principles, it is now eight minutes after midnight on July 4th and the moronic bumblers working on the garage gates of our apartment building are STILL AT IT WITH THE FUCKING POWER TOOLS, sixteen hours after they started and six hours after the bylaws say they have to stop. I tried calling the noise bylaw hotline: it’s open from 9am-4pm, Monday to Friday, and there is NO VOICE MAIL.

If they really want to see a power tool up close and personal, just let them keep this up till my bedtime.

Thus: the Devo. I am self-medicating with New Wave.

Although in Operation Global Media Domination news, I note with great pleasure that my post on Ashley Kaufman at Lolebrity is on the front page of Google. The post on Gawker got kilt; wonder why? Ah, well, less competition!