At 4:21 this morning, Gabby (Gabrielle) couldn’t hold on any longer, and let go of this world. Her purring and labored breathing faded away, and she died in my arms, after five hours of me holding her, and telling her what a good girl she was, and how much she was loved.

It wasn’t enough.

She was my very best friend. I could tell her anything. She never judged me, labeled me, or made me feel bad about myself. I can’t say that about many human beings I’ve met.

I can’t tell you how much it fucking hurts, losing a familiar.

-C

My cat is very near death. I wish I were kidding. I took the day off from work to take her to the vet today, and they ran blood tests. Preliminary guesses are cancer or a problem with her Thyroid. She has lost a lot of weight, and doesn’t have much energy. Somehow, the trip to the vet made her worse. Now she cannot stand up, much less walk, and she cries if I put her down. I really don’t expect her to make it through the night. As if this weren’t enough to worry about…

My car started leaking radiator fluid on the way back from the vet. I stopped at a local shop and they pointed out that my head gasket is leaking, and quoted me $1100 plus parts to fix the problem. I have found someone who will do the work for half that cost, which is still too much. Also, I am without a car till at least Monday. I called work and told them I will not be in tomorrow. Still working on how I am going to get to class tomorrow night.

Honestly, this rates right up there with the top ten worst days ev-ar.

I bought a ticket for the Powerball today. If I win, this day will almost break even.

Almost.

Blog on,
-CZ

…but only if you ask the sugar industry.

I’m sorry to disprove the findings of the site www.aspartamekills.com, but I have proof that aspartame does (in fact) NOT truly kill.

Because I drink 1.5 Litres of Diet Coke per day.

Before Lunch.

On a good day.

And I don’t have many good days.

So get a fucking life.

You

Gorram

Freaking

Idiots.

Say, how are those commodity shares doing, boys? Sugar prices doing OK with all that FUD you are spreading? Super.

Hey, go right ahead and tell the people aspartame kills you. I think that’s great, because it keeps the price of Diet Coke down. Long as I don’t have to buy it in an alley and inject it (because I totally would.)

Blog on,
-CZ

I was ROFL over this post about my friend’s recent grocery store experiences. I couldn’t agree with her more, but I can actually add one thing she missed.

I suspect the grocery store she frequents does not have the New-And-Improved-Employee-Replacing-Self-Checkout but if it does, this is a major complainable item, and the number one reason that I don’t frequent the large, chain grocery store in my neighborhood unless absolutely necessary.

If there was ever a device devised to slow you down and make your checkout experience as frustrating as humanly (now inhumanly) possible, it is the Self-Checkout. Before they arrived I would have agreed that the job of cash register clerk was one of the first jobs that should be replaced by a computer, (Right after the DMV, Post Office clerks, and the President of the United States)

But after experiencing the harsh reality of the self-checkout, I would rather have a 16-year old, slacker, high-school dropout wearing an Ipod scan my groceries. Why? Three reasons.

Reason One: Because real tellers don’t talk as much as that fucking machine.

‘Please scan the next item!’ ‘Please scan the next item!’ ‘Please scan the next item!’

HOW DO YOU SHUT THIS FUCKING THING UP?

I’ve done the self-checkout several times (Hmm, maybe I should rephrase that…) enough to call myself ‘proficient’ at it. I don’t need to be told to scan the next item, or where the credit card reader is, or to take my change. I don’t need an annoying BOOP audio cue to tell me the bar code was properly scanned – an on-screen visual of the item added to the list is sufficient. What I need is the ability to turn the damn speaker off, which should have been the second control installed on this million-dollar-annoyance, right after the ON/OFF switch.

Reason Two: Real tellers are better at scanning groceries than you are

Who do you think is faster at scanning a hundred items UPC codes? A 16-year old, high-school dropout who scans bar codes all day and plays marathon HALO deathmatch all night….or you?

Reason Three: Real tellers are easier to work with and cost the same

If I am going through the self-checkout, shouldn’t I be getting some kind of discount on my bill? Aren’t I doing the checkout for the store, so they can lay off some poor kid making minimum wage?

Why don’t they tie brooms to the bottoms of all the shopping carts, and I can sweep the fucking floor for them while I make my rounds, and they can lay off a janitor while they’re at it….

Blog on,
-CZ

To: KARE 11

What is WRONG with your evening news? Who made the decision to show recorded video of a woman and her child being hit by a car in a parking ramp? That is fucking sick and wrong.

Precursoring the video with an announcement that it ‘may be disturbing’ does NOT give you the right to show shit like that. And showing it over and over again was classy. Way to go.

If people want to see graphic violence like that, they can go to the movie theatre, pay for it, and watch it on their own terms.

What makes you think that’s news anyway? Ask yourself if broadcasting that video made the world a better place or worse.

Please do Minnesota a public service and find someone intelligent enough to filter and focus your news content. Or simply change your call letters to CRAP.

You sick (and stupid) bastards,

Sincerely,
Conrad Zero

Just to set the record Straight (pun intended) I am, in fact, Heterosexual. Homosexuality between men? I don’t understand it, but help yourself. Homosexuality between women? I don’t understand it, but can I watch?

I feel the need to bring this up because I recently wore white pleather chaps and a matching vest for Halloween, and if nothing else, it should prove that I am secure in my masculinity.

Thanks to Bob Mould for his timely link to a drug called Hetracil, a so-called ‘Anti-effeminate medication.’

Seriously.

What does it do, make you want to putter around in the garage with power tools? Does it make you want to watch old, black-and-white War movies? Subscribe to Soldier of Fortune magazine? What happens if you overdose?

Is there a reverse drug that could make you a homosexual? What if terrorists slipped that drug into Minneapolis’ water supply? Do we all turn into pooftys?

And who knew that Homosexuality was a disease that could be ‘cured’ with medication? Makes one proud to be an American, doesn’t it? Is there anything we can’t cure with pills? Maybe we could come up with some pills to make people a little fucking smarter? Oh, I forgot, then they wouldn’t fall for crap like Hetracil….

Sorry folks, I have to stop, but this is too easy, so I leave the rest to you as a homework exercise.

Blog on,
-CZ

Back some 6 years ago or so, the University of Minnesota wanted to cash in on the untapped ‘Adult Learner’ market. Remember ‘University College’?

“Hey adults, come get a degree in your spare time! Take night/weekend/internet classes to fit your busy schedule!”

Now, some six years later, the University of MN is up in arms because it’s  ‘taking too long for students to graduate.’ Huh?

And now, they have implemented a ‘minimal credit payment.’ Students pay for a full credit load no matter how many classes they take!

That’s a great deal for kids right out of high school, still living with their parents who flip the bill for 13 credits while their kid takes 20. But it completely screws over working adults taking the odd evening courses, trying to sneak in a class or two when they aren’t working 60 hours per week. Now if they want to take three credits they have to pay for 13? As if the tuition hikes over the past two years weren’t bad enough!

This is surprising for a University where the word “diversity” is implanted into every speech and publication, until it is overused into meaninglessness. It doesn’t seem very diverse to me, to impede the ability of adults with jobs and families to take classes and get a degree in their free time.

I would expect more intelligent decisions from a group of people running a learning institution.

My suggestion to the University of MN is to either discontinue your use of the word “diversity”, or bring back the University College, without the mandatory minimum credit bullshit, and time limits for graduation. Return some fairness to the system for people who did not just step out of high school. What’s the harm if it takes them ten years to graduate?

Sincerely,
-CZ

Because you loaded Weatherbug you idiot!

Alright, for those who don’t know, I am (among many other things) ‘The I.T. Guy’ where I work. And Lo, it came to pass, that on one particular 25th of April in the Year Of Our Lord Two-Thousand-And-Six, that I found myself sitting between two identical computers. Twins from Dell that have never been more than ten feet apart since their manufacture. Here are the stats for those who care of such things:

Hardware: Dell Optiplex GX100 666MHZ PIII 128MB Ram, WinXP SP2 Blah Blah Blah
Software: Acrobat Reader 7, NAV 10, and MS Office Pro 97

These are Light Office Use machines, handling little more than internet and e-mail. Same hardware, same software (or so I thought).

So I’m updating the antivirus and tossing another 128MB memory in each, when I notice a significant difference in speed between the two machines. At least a fifty percent decrease in the speed of one of the computers for common tasks like startup and launching Outlook That’s a big difference between two machines that are supposedly the same. What do you suppose the difference was?

The difference was User1 had not loaded any software, but User2 did:

• iTunes
• Adobe Photoshop Elements 2.0
• Yahoo Toolbar
• Cubis Gold
• Weatherbug

That is all. But that’s all it took for User2′s computer to open the door for the Adware.180search spyware to crawl onboard and hose the works.

No, little freeware programs that run in the background *aren’t* supposed to have any measurable impact on system performance. Sorry, I meant they aren’t *supposed* to have any measurable impact. But they do.

Realize that when your IT person walks away from the initial setup of your machine, IT IS NOT GOING TO GET FASTER. Like when you drove that 1978 GMC Gremlin off the showroom floor, that is the most power, speed, torque, acceleration, etc, you will get from it. Loading Windows onto the computer is like installing a ball hitch and pulling a trailer from the back of it. Every application you add is going to fill up that trailer and slow down the works (unless it removes other applications…) So if you load Weatherbug and i-tunes, and every gorram toolbar for Internet Explorer, you will soon end up pulling a trailerhome full of shit.

And then, when you complain to your IT person, “My computer is So Slow! Whatsoever could be wrong with it?” That IT person goes and blogs about how stupid you are.

Now you know.

Blog on,
-CZ

In case you didn’t know, Real Networks, Inc. is Real Evil. Their intense desire to strongarm all known audio into their proprietary Real Media formats is only matched by the legendarily suck-tastic performance of their products.

Please do not endorse this company or their products.

Thankfully, you don’t have to use Real Player to play Real Media files:

Real Alternative will allow you to play RealMedia files without having to install RealPlayer. All RealMedia formats (.ra .rm .rmvb .ram .rpm .rv .rp .rt .rnx .smi .smil) are supported, including streaming content and RealMedia content that is embedded in Web pages

[Jan 2010 Update: C-Net calls Real Media the "Biggest Disappointment of the Decade" and the "Prince of Crapware and Annoyance" in their  5 worst downloads of 2009 article.

It makes me happy to look back on this post from 5 years ago and realize that finally, there was a Bad Guy in the real world who didn't eventually win through their own evil perseverance.  I'd like to think this blog post played some small part in the demise of Real Networks.

Also, I've changed the Real Alternative link over to download.com although if you run across any Real Media files beyond the year 2010, you should send the website host a scathing e-mail.]

-Z

Coke releases fad product with half the calories and all the marketing bullshit

I’ve little sympathy for stupid people, and all those who kneel at the altar of “carbs are the devil” are stupid people.

But if it weren’t for stupid people, marketing people wouldn’t be able to pitch products like the new “C2″ from Coca-Cola.

Since C2 contains both the artificial sweetener aspartame, AND  the natural sweetener ‘high fructose corn syrup’ I’ll bet I can guess the secret formula:

C2 = Coke + Diet Coke

Much like the “Clear” fad that brought us more sillyness in the form of such products as “Crystal Pepsi“, C2 will be gone just as quickly, once the Atkins crowd come out of their low-blood sugar comas.

Now, if all the C2 in the world got mixed up with all the C4 in the world and given a good shake…

Well, it would be a hell of a mess, that’s for sure but it would raise the average IQ quite a bit.

Blog on,
-Z

[Jan 2010 Update] C2 was eventually replaced by Coke Zero, a zero calorie equivalent which tastes more like original Coca-Cola than Diet Coke.