Bioshock Empty Box

Just went to Circuit City to get my first ever Xbox 360 game. Our new console came this weekend, and we've been playing all of our regular Xbox games to death. But no actual Xbox 360 games.

In comes Bioshock. Widely touted, well reviewed, awesome demo. Couldn't wait. So off we went. I was so excited that I started unwrapping the game out in the car on the way home.

Glad I did.

There wasn't a disc in the box. Sealed package, security tape at the bottom fully intact, "Xbox certification" seal slightly ragged, but no game. Huh? U-turn and head back to the store.

Get this - every box of the game in the store (a grand total of three) was completely disc-free. We got our money back (thanks, Circuit City) but it still miffs me. Is someone down in Mexico (where the discs are pressed) taking some off the top? Is there someone along the supplier chain that's handy with adhesives stealing the discs and then repackaging them? Is Microsoft acting like evil record companies of old, and inflating its numbers? The latter seems unlikely, since the game is selling like hotcakes and geeks everywhere are screaming its praises. If this was a widespread problem, I would have gotten more than a solitary hit on my Google search. So I don't think that whoever is pulling this scheme is working a large operation. Something small scale - a couple of dudes somewhere.

To those dudes - you suck. I wasted part of my life driving in circles for no reward because of you. I hope that you're happy with yourself, assmunch.

Silliness, Tron and Wargames

Did you know that some of the best movies are the ones about old technology? Well not really old - not 19th century old. Just older projections of where technology would go. For example, the all-seeing war simulator in Wargames (aka the WOPR, pronounced like the Burger King sandwich), the MCP in Tron or the super silent Caterpillar Drive in the Hunt for Red October. I mean, really, who moves a huge several ton vessel through the water with sound? Really!

(Brief aside, if a submarine could actually be propelled by sound I apologize. It does somehow seem to be the most immediately plausible of the above options...)

But people, watching Wargames is still huge fun. The learning computer - what could be more prescient? Not to mention the young Matthew Broderick. Drool... Tron? The sketches of the proposed cycles are engaging, and Jeff Bridges is The Man. Hunt for Red October has the super-yummy Sean Connery. Oh yeah, and Alec Baldwin before he got chunky. Yummy yummy to the tummy tummy!

Oh yeah, and did I mention Tron? The Bit! Yes yes yes yes yes... The Users are a myth, baby.

I'm a GENIUS!

Sometimes, work is just funny. Medicine takes a lot of training, but sometimes it's the simple stuff that patients really appreciate. Example:

Adolescent girl carried in by her parents after a fall. On exam, her right patella is waaaaaaaaaaaay out of place. If the proper place for a knee bone is earth, this sucker was having a picnic on Pluto. Luckily, reducing a dislocated patella is easy: put medial and upward pressure on the patella and then flex (bend) the knee. Pop! Right back to earth. So I reduced her dislocation, causing this child to scream, "Yeoow! (Pause) OH MY GOD, you're a GENIUS!" Needless to say, I was very gratified. Until the entire department started teasing me about my Einsteinian status. It doesn't help that I have a button on my badge that labels me "Jenius". Heh.

I love my job.

Apples are sweet

Posting from the Apple Store in the Galleria. Why? 'Cause I can. And 'cause this keyboard has a very different feel from mine.

I think I like mine better. No buyers remorse for me!

Yay!

The Woot has Arrived!

We just got our new Roomba Sage in the post today. Stupid FedEx delivered it to our neighbor across the drive in 302 Unit D, so I'm glad he likes us. Otherwise we'd be out a vaccuum cleaner.

I hafta tell ya, even sitting on its charging station, the Roomba is sexy. It looks like the future. Small, blinking, round and arthropod-like, it crouches in the corner near the continuously pouring cat bubbler*, just waiting to assault all the cat hair. Eagerly anticipating all the yummy crumbs on the floor. Fervently contemplating sucking up the crap tracked in from the garden. The FUTURE is in our living room.

Whodda thunk it?

(* Those of you who don't know what I mean by bubbler - find the nearest former or current Northeasterner and ask. They'll know.)

My new obsession

I love the woot.

Woot is a crazy website that offers one goodie per day. And sometimes the goodie is lame... but sometimes it's awesome. Like the other day, when I bought my Nascar crazy friend a race-band scanner. For, like, a crazy small amount of money. And then today I bought my hubbie and I a Roomba - 'cause we got mad scary cat hair problems and shit.

If you have a Mac, get the Woot Widget. Why? Endless amusement and occational excellent wedding gifts (see the Nascar goodness above.)

Happy shopping!

Okay, now I have tools!

But I don't have any idea how to use them. This awesome piece of computing equipment comes with software that should let me make this blog WAY way way mondo better...

The only problem is that I don't know how to get the stuff on this computer up to blogger. And until my husband gets www.becluelessfaster.com up and running, I'm kinda blogger dependent. Being that it's free and all. If I could buy a clue at Kmart, I'm sure that this wouldn't be a problem. Even though my hubbie has shown me how to write stuff in various web-creation programs (the one written by Macromedia, most notably) none of it ever sticks.

Hence, the need for a clue at Kmart. Altho I'm po' so I might have to go to the dollar store and get the discount version. I feel like I've gotten access to a supercomputer and I'm trying to get the answer to 2 + 2. Not that I could solve that anyway, but still. Afterall, those imaginary numbers are out to get me.

(They're after me! The ride behind me in large white vans carrying flyswatters. Flyswatters, I tell ya!)

Happiness and Computing

So we sold my car. Very sad... but also quite good. I had a 2002 WRX. It looked something like this -

But mine had more dents and less miles. Her name was the Folley, 'cause I bought her when I really really really should have been conserving my cashflow.

Ripshit fast, and able to carry $800 of Ikea furniture home in one trip. How cool is that? Alas, she needed to go to a new home, so we listed her on Autotrader and she sold in less than a week.

She went to a good home... I think. He's a student in College Station, TX and his Dad's a cop. If I find out that he wraps her around a tree while drunk, I'm gonna find him and open up a can of whupass! Then again, I'll probably have to get in line behind Daddy dearest, but that's fine with me.

Anyway, with all of our new moolah, we'll actually be able to afford the final steps of making me a doctor. There are fees inside of fees, people! If I had known (I guess they told me about this cash hemorrhage... ONCE... when I was an INTERN and couldn't see past the next call night, let alone three YEARS into the future) I would have been saving pennies for a while now.

But I didn't. 'Cause I'm dumb. Hence, the selling of the car. But even the State of Texas and the American Academy of Pediatrics won't be able to spend the entire sale cost of the Scoob. Yippee!

So guess what I got. Just guess. You get three tries...

Okay, no, that's not it.
Hint: It weighs about 5.6 lbs and is Energy Star compliant.

No, but you're getting closer.
Hint: It comes in a sexy black box.

Almost!
Hint: It has a 2.16 GHz Intel Core Duo processor.

That's right, I scored a totally sweet MacBook Pro! And 'cause I live with a computer super-God, he insisted that I trick the sucker out. Maxed out the RAM, the good graphics card, the second largest hard drive, the three year protection plan... Super Duper Sweet! The damn thing even has a remote. WTF? Why does a computer need a remote? I don't know, and I don't care! It's just freaking cool.

Next on the list with our cash... garage door opener. Not nearly as sexy. But useful.

Meanwhile, I'm gonna keep playing with my new toy. Ciao!

The power of the Palm

So I recently discovered eBooks.

They're freaking great. I no longer need to lug a clunky old paperback (or wrose yet, hardback) around with me. Now I can simply pull my Palm out of my pocket and start reading. So, so nice. No headaches. No eye sore. Nothing - just the fiction of my choice.

I gotta tell ya, people, if ya have a relatively new palm, download Adobe for the PalmOS and take it from there. And yes, I know I know, the actual authentication process for opening a book for the first time is a pain, but dude, it's worth it!

***

In other news, I'm still deeply depressed that the White Sox ran over the Astros like a train over a penny. But hey, there's always next year.

My husband lusts after my blog

Seriously. He needs the content management software or something. There was talk of a news release?

I dunno - computers are strange and mysterious things. When he talks about work, I basically just smile and nod. He speaks of codes and screens and accessibility (websites for the blind - whah?) and layers and tables. I cannot, for the life of me, form a mental picture of what he does with his time during the day. This leads to problems - I definitely don't seem to mind interrupting his work day with totally inane phone calls. Maybe if I could understand how he spent his time I wouldn't be so prone to interrupting his day.

It isn't like I haven't tried. I've asked him to explain knowledge management software, why Cold Fusion and dynamic web content are better (which I sorta kinda maybe get) and why he absolutely needs more than one monitor at work. I've asked multiple times.

And I just can't compute. (Heh. Get it?)

Then again, he's told me that he does the same thing with my work. But hey, people have reality TV shows with doctors in action to watch. How hard can it be? I mean really. I talk to patients and parents, do my exam (deep breath, where is your heart, which ear should I look in first, say ah, follow my finger with just your eyeballs), write orders and do paperwork. And then some do some more paper work. Repeat as necessary, with occational breaks for nagging nurses, placating parents and double-checking patients. You can envision that, right?

But what happens when you stare at a screen all day? It must be work, and it seems to be creative, but I just cannot imagine doing that all day.

But then, he can't imagine doing my job all day. I guess we each found a good fit.

Welcome

I'm a doctor, I write a lot.

But not really. What I scribble on a daily basis looks more like a bowel of alphabet soup than writing. Before medical school, I could string words together into a narrative understandable to normal humans. Now the symbols emerging from the end of my pen look like something produced by a monkey on crack.

I'm starting this blog to improve my own writing. I also hope that someday I'll make a stranger laugh, and maybe improve my spelling. We'll see.

~~~

Have you ever noticed that when a public computer breaks, it stays broken? Then someone complains about the broken computer, but doesn't actually do anything about it. Has anyone actually witnessed one of these complainers on the phone with information services? And if not, why is everyone suprised that the computer stays broken? If I was the computer-fixer-upper I'd want to kick the complainers' asses.

There should be a rule - one can only complain if one has attempted to fix whatever has gone haywire. Examples:
- No one who didn't vote can complain about an elected official. (Incidentally, I voted and I complain a LOT.)
- No one can complain about the commute to work unless s/he has actually tried public transportation.

There would be, of course, exceptions to the rule. I complain about the transvestite hookers having sex on the hood of my car, but I'm not going to interrupt in the middle of coitus. Trust me, those johns are scarrrry!