Via direct message on Twitter, @SteelSeries had previously asked for my email address to see if there was something they could help me with, and I simply replied that somebody had already responded to my ticket. All I needed was a simple keycap replacement. Since they apparently could not find keycaps for replacement, they promised me a new keyboard. I was quite pleased. However, nobody had responded after over two weeks or so since they last made that promise.

Of course this annoyed me even more. I have very low tolerance for bad customer service. Businesses should revolve around customer service because it's the customer's money that they're taking. Anyway, I decided that I would try the Twitter route again.

This time, everything was set in motion. In fact, SteelSeries promised me a little something extra for all the aggravation I went through. Today, I opened the package to find a SteelSeries Siberia In-Ear Headset!

I was quite happy to say the least. SteelSeries went above and beyond to make a customer happy, and they have restored my faith in them as a company. To be honest, because of the complete lack of support, I was determined to never purchase SteelSeries again. I also stopped recommending them whenever anybody asked me to help them design a computer system. But today, I must say that money can buy my love. Remember, my old SteelSeries 7G was working fine and merely required a replacement key. They sent me a brand new keyboard, plus a nice shiny new headset to top it off. It was a simple gesture of good will, but by golly it sure as heck meant something to me. Then again, I'm not one to hold a grudge. I forgive very easily.

Thank you SteelSeries, for making things right!

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I've got on my wall
I've got you ten foot tall
I've got you on a colour slide

I've met you on the beach
You weren't too hard to teach
I quickly drew you to my side

We spent one day of love
One day of sun and sea
I can't forget your kiss

Or the thrill
When I felt you holding me

I said just for a laugh
I'd take your photograph
But now it seems like my laugh has died

And when I'm feeling low
I hold a picture show
I sit and watch your colour slide

We spent one day of love
One day of sun and sea
I can't forget your kiss
Or the thrill
When I felt you holding me

I've got on my wall
I've got you ten foot tall
I've got you on a colour slide

And baby it's a shame
I didn't even take your name
And now I've got my colour slide

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The Honeycombs — Love In Tokyo
Love in Tokyo
It won't let me go
Now I've got to know
Love in Tokyo

I've traveled far and wide
No one can keep me tied
But when I first met you
I knew
It was love in Tokyo
It won't let me go
Now I've got to know
Love in Tokyo

Love in Tokyo
It won't let me go
Now I've got to know
Love in Tokyo

I thought I've seen it all
I've never dreamed that far
But when you hold me tight
All night

It's love in Tokyo
It won't let me go
Now I've got to know
Love in Tokyo

Well it's love in Tokyo
It won't let me go
Now I've got to know
Love in Tokyo

As usual, with new songs, I obsess over them and listen to them a billion times. Absolutely love this song. One of the few that actually gets me to move with the music. I listen to this and though it's hard to conjures up images of emotions, I just feel free and upbeat with this song.

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Patrick Sullivan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) is a fireman from Astoria, Queens.  He had been dating a woman for five months and got engaged to her.  This woman, upon receiving advice from Dr. Lloyd, broke things off with him.  Some time later, his young neighbor friend helps him exact a little bit of vengeance.  With a little computer wizardry on the part of this helpful neighbor, Patrick Sullivan is registered with the state of New York as Emma Lloyd's husband.

Emma goes to find Patrick so that she can annul the current fluke of a marriage.  Being out for blood, Patrick doesn't make it easy for her.  In short, he makes her jump through a lot of hoops to get these papers signed so that she can legally move forward with her actual intended marriage.

Of course, the movie mixes things up a little bit and Patrick finds himself starting to like Emma as he holds her annulment papers hostage.  As he impersonates her real fiancé, the roleplaying serves to inadvertently bring out some latent attraction between the faux couple.

But here's the thing: you really have to question just how committed to marriage Patrick was if he's already starting to develop feelings for the woman who ruined his engagement.  And you have to wonder how committed Emma was to marrying Richard if she starts making out with Patrick in an elevator. There were also some loose ends. Richard seemed to be catching wind of the hacking that was going on, but didn't follow through with any sort of exposure of Patrick's scheme. Overall, it just didn't feel quite right that he would just lay down and take it.

As with most romantic movies, we never really see the emotional motivations of the characters to break their current engagements.  We never see that pivotal moment between the characters where they fall in love for each other.  So often, these moments are told to us, but now shown.  I imagine a great scene that has a moving score, powerful imagery, and beautiful cinematography could pull this off, along with great acting.  But most of the time, this scene is explained to us rather bluntly with some dialogue.

I find it silly that Emma would throw away all of the advice she gives to others.  There is a much potential for some good drama, but Emma doesn't seem to have any real issues with physical and emotional infidelity.  We don't see any internal conflict that convinces us that she isn't just some big hypocrite.  The movie paints Emma as a woman who is just swept away with a surprising spark of romance.  But she's really more of a flip-flopper.  Her decisions do not have any grave consequences, and without the weight of the severity of her actions, it's hard to see anything meaningful.  Richard just simply lets go and forgives her.  In my opinion, the real hero in this movie was Richard Bratton.  He was big enough a man to graciously set her free. However, it'd be far more dramatic if Richard didn't just give up his engagement. In fact, Emma doesn't exactly seem remorseful of her dissolution of her engagement with him.

It seems like the message to be read from this movie is this: Girls, you can read all the books and magazines you want, listen to all the experts' advice, but when true love strikes, when you recognize the real thing, drop everything and chase it down, regardless of the consequences. An irresponsible and seemingly stupid lesson if you ask me. Of course, the movie is ultimately enjoyable, although it certainly does not surpass the very low bar that modern romance movies have set. As usual, there is a high potential for drama, but it fails to deliver.

This is actually a very old draft that just never got published. It was originally written on 12 NOV 2009.

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The movie tries to establish Julie's life as a loose reflection of Julia Child's life. Julia Child climbs her way from government clerk-turned housewife to author of a cookbook. Julie's story starts off with a strong energy and establishes a solid base of emotion that explains what could motivate her to adhere to such a disciplined regimen of cooking. But later, the emotional momentum seems to taper off and we're left with what seems to mostly a straightforward narrative account.

Because Julie and Julia doesn't have any particular cinematographic merits, the attention is focused primarily on the narratives. The two stories are quite hopeful and entertaining. But they fall flat in terms of an emotional payoff. Julie's triumph that comes in the form of her book deal doesn't seem to be all that rewarding.

Instead, the screenwriter seems to be more interested in creating a biography delivered in an entertaining format. It doesn't quite achieve any dramatic breakthroughs. I found the attempted allusions to Julie and Julia's lives to be weak and uninteresting. There is nothing profound about the similarities between their lives. It is perhaps serendipitous, but certainly nothing to write home about. I could easily make my life seem rather similar to any number of my personal heroes.

Then there's Eric Powell, Julie's husband. About an hour and twenty minutes into the movie, the seemingly happy couple have a major breakdown out of nowhere. Eric starts ranting about how the blog has turned her into a narcissist and proceeds to storm out of their apartment.At no point did we see any particular stressor to this scene.We never see any of this tension building up. In fact, in the previous scene, the two were laughing heartily at a parody on television. Eric is portrayed as unsupportive, sarcastic, and essentially a prick. It is entirely uncharacteristic and unfounded. How it happened in real life is irrelevant: from a screenwriting perspective, it's sloppy. Another point of sloppiness appears near the end. The movie makes no attempt to explain why Julia Child does not care for Julie's blog. It seemed to be a little extraneous detail. It feels like the screenwriter just decided to throw in bits and pieces of the real account out of whimsy.

I expected to see how Julia Child affected Julie Powell's life in a profound way. Instead, the movie is essentially nothing more than an entertaining and well-structured amalgam of two different lives in two different times. This isn't to say that the movie wasn't enjoyable. Meryl Streep's performance is a joy to behold, and seeing her 5'6" frame appear as a significantly taller 6'2" is an enjoyable illusion to entertain. And although the task of weaving two narratives together is no small feat, the movie would have done better if it focused on either story rather than both. I personally left wanting to see Julia Child's ascension to iconic homestay of the domestic life, but I guess Julie & Julia will suffice.

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Then come the icons. I spent a good amount of time creating them, especially the folder icons. At first they were just folders sitting in my dock, and then had a great idea to create a floating tabbed dock. There weren't any blank/transparent docks that came with ObjectDock, so I made my own. The little black square is the "custom tab" that I actually have to keep there if I want to be able to drag the dock around. I also had to make little boxed variants of the folders.

There's this nifty little "serial number" thingamabob that I created too.  It's basically a random three digit number plus the date and time mushed together into one string.  It updates every minute.  Presto, you have a custom serial number for your desktop!

I'm still trying to figure out how to create a RAM meter that looks like that sectional bar underneath the week counter. But I might just give up on that because I've got better things to worry about.

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"…it's so hard on the survivors."
"It hurts so much to see someone take their own life."
"Suicide is a very selfish thing to do."
"Nine years ago I lost a very dear friend to suicide via hanging. It's a painful thing to inflict on others."

It is a painful thing to inflict on others? Really? Really!?!? People are very good at demonstrating how self-absorbed and selfish they really are.

This was my response:

I don't mean to rock the boat here, but for all of you who say that suicide is selfish and that it is painful to those other than the one who committed suicide, I would like for all of you to read up on suicide.

Please, take a step back from yourselves. Saying how suicide is selfish and painful to the victim's loved ones is, when you think about it, in fact a self-centered thing to say.

The person who commits suicide is in so much pain and suffering. Imagine if you were suffering the worst pain you can possibly fathom, and the only solution to ending it was to end your life: would you be thinking of how everyone else feels? Even when you are simply having a terrible rotten day, do you think of how someone else might feel because of your nasty attitude? Magnify that a thousand times and you may begin to understand how some suicidal people may feel.

I'd like to take this opportunity to remind all of us that we should be more conscientious towards those we love. We never know when they will leave us, so treat each day as an opportunity to show how much you love them.

I just want to expand a little on my response, which was not as well written as I'd like due to my morning rush (hence my writing of this piece). Actually, I've decided to rant.

People, WAKE THE FUCK UP. Do you REALLY fucking think that someone who committed suicide GIVES ONE DROPLET OF SHIT about what the fuck YOU'RE going to go through due to their death??? TAKE YOUR HEAD OUT OF YOUR ASSHOLE YOU SELF-CENTERED PIECES OF SHIT. That person was suffering through an immense amount of pain, and ultimately ended their life in order to escape that pain. Do you REALLY THINK that people WANT to fucking die? They have NO OTHER FUCKING CHOICE. They have nowhere to go. Their spirit is crushed, and the pain they endure cannot be endured any longer.

Blaming the suicide victim is absolutely fucking absurd. It's one of the most ignorant and selfish things I have ever heard. Here, you have someone who took their own life. They ended their life. It's a permanent thing. There's no turning back. And you have the fucking gall to make it about YOU?

I didn't notice any "survivors" of suicide (I mean the people who were close to the suicide victim) say anything like, "I wish to God that I could've done something about it." Instead, they blame that person for causing them grief.

Outfucking standing. This is precisely the type of shit that is part of the reason why I wish to withdraw from the world…

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I want to share with you my fantasy. In this little idealized version of my future, I've written my masterpiece. I have a decent amount of money, just enough so that I don't have to worry about how I will live very modestly for the rest of my life so long as I work a little bit here and there. I live in a very small split-level house with lots of sunshine in a place that is usually moderately cool but never bitterly cold. It rains on occasion, usually a gentle drizzle and maybe a nice thunderstorm or two in the summertime. The supermarket (which has a very decent butcher and delicatessen counter) is a short walk away, there is a little green park nearby where children play. The neighbors are warm and congenial, quiet and respectful. And most importantly, I am detached from the world I live in. I have become, for the most part, a recluse observing suburban tranquility at arm's length.

Mr. J.D. Salinger died a recluse. Only God knows why he decided to exclude himself from society: the rest of us can only guess. But I know why I would want to.

You see, I've just about had enough of people and society. Everything just feels wrong. The rich get richer, and we have this condition called middle-class poverty. The educational system has become a travesty, no longer even worthy of being called a system in which one becomes educated. Ignorance and hate pervade society. People turn their backs on each other in times of need. Dishonesty, infidelity, debauchery, and selfishness is no longer a shock; in fact, one should expect as such. People are slaves to the dollar. Men abandon their bastard children, women cuckold their husbands, children lose their innocence before they should… And don't even get me started on the realm of dating and marriage.

The world no longer has any love or romance. It has become (or perhaps always was) a cold and impersonal place, a system where the ruthless succeed through rampant self-promotion and selfish acts. As far as mankind seems to have advanced, we seem to have lost touch with what it means to be human. What good is it that we can live until we are 90 if we must spend that time on this earth? Why would I want to spend my entire life in a world where the good and just are punished and the dastardly reign freely? Where is the pleasure in living in a place where instead of love and happiness illuminates, darkness prevails with only brief punctuations of light?

I cannot create my own nation. And I cannot wipe the slate clean with a flood of the earth. Nor can I cure the maladies of society. I do not wish to be a participant in this sort of world. And though I have strong desires to have children, to believe that I could raise them to be strong enough to resist the influence of this world that I so desperately despise would be entirely foolish. As out of touch with reality as I may be, as disillusioned as I certainly am, a fool I am not. The only course of action left to me would be to remove myself from society; to take solace in what little pleasures I can still find while surrounded by the dreariness of a hopeless humanity.

Alas, this is but a mere flight of fancy…unless it becomes reality, I will have no choice but to continue to participate as a member of society. I will have to, until my very last breath, suffer the idiocy of the insipid and the folly of fools. Perhaps I will have to simply turn my despair into an amusement of the dismal destinies that people carve out for themselves. All I know is that I had better get to work on my novel if I wish to stand a chance against all that ails me.

Thanks to Eastop for his photo: I used it as the thumbnail for the featured gallery.

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A Rainbow of Moleskines

I ran my eyes across the vibrant fan of colorful Moleskines. It wasn't the little notebooks I was interested in. Rather, it was the beautiful colors.  Somehow, it just seemed magnificent the way it was arranged, the way the bright red faded into a gentle pink, the lime green and the loud cyan.  It brought me back to a time that has long since been lost…

Do you remember when crayons were an absolute joy and delight to use?  There was a time in my life long ago when I felt happy coloring and drawing with those crayons.  They were little wax sticks of childish wonderment.  It was such a pleasure to open a new box of Crayolas, to hunt down the goldenrod yellow crayon so that I could draw my sun's rays, and then later using it to draw a lion.  Finding the perfect green for the grass, tossing away the weird blue-green one that looked funny…those were days of happiness: pure, innocent, simply happy.

I realized just how unadulterated that happiness was when I tried to write about the emotion.  I thought of various ways to say it, tried to find a flowery literary string of phrases that could express that childhood satisfaction.  But I realized that the best way to describe it is with a single simple word: happy.

Who of us can really say that, as adults, or even young adolescents, are truly happy?  The reality of the world takes its toll on us.  The realm of money, grades, jobs, it all takes the purity of happiness away.  We begin to find different forms in happiness elsewhere.  We find it in our favorite foods, in our favorite music, in our best friends, in our lovers.  But that state of happiness is mostly elusive.  We may be able to fool ourselves that we are content and satisfied, but the truth is that our emotional state is in constant motion, a tumultuous sea of maturity.  Only as children do we seem to be able to find that Zen-like state of simply being happy.

It's beyond my literary capabilities to express the purity of childhood happiness.  I think it's beyond any writer's capabilities.  We can try to capture in words the fleeting glimpses of what it is like to be a child again: the wonderment, the joy, the love, the smiles and virginal bliss of a spotless soul.  But I don't think words do it justice.  Instead, try to remember the beauty of a child's innocence.  Try to find that memory of the truest of joys in your childhood, and for a few minutes, draw out that child in you and be happy. Simply happy.

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