The Manic Mechanic

So, my self-imposed one month vacation from LJ had a couple days appended to it. Didja miss me? I didn't think so either. ;)

I had several reasons for the hiatus, ranging from escaping drama to the capricious attitude the Russians have adopted regarding the current LJ users and communities. Add in having my everyday PC being wiped out by a virus and dealing with a return of severe back issues and the sinus infection that won't leave, and you have me not wanting to do anything online much less LJ. Even everyday life has been more or less stuck in neutral. I found more comfort and escape doing things around the house and garage, listening to music and watching cool stuff on PBS. Having some decent weather for this time of year helped a lot as well. I still would peruse my friends list and make comments occasionally, though, so I wasn't completely LJ-free. I'm sure I missed a lot. My new PC is still sitting on the floor unused. I am making do with my crappy lappy. I'm not much in a mood to futz with computers.

Something that I can't seem to escape no matter how hard I try also happened today. It was my birthday. The big one. The half century. 5-0, and not the one in Hawaii with either Jack Lord or pocket-sized Scott Caan. The doorbell rang several times today. A delivery of balloons. Then a delivery of an Edible Arrangement. Then flowers. Then the sender of all these goodies comes home early from work bearing lunch from McDonald's. We ate our little lunch, relaxed, I took a couple nice calls wishing me a happy day, then we went off to Romano's Macaroni Grille for dinner in the evening. All in all it was an awesome day, even with the back pain and sneezing. My Jeff is a thoughtful sweetheart, and he's the best birthday present ever.

I have to thank all those on LJ who posted happy birthday wishes. And a special thanks to my newest LJ friend designerotter, who drew a wonderful birthday card for me, featuring Kodi. It made my day. I think Kodi recognized himself!

Will I become a regular LJ user once again? I'm not sure. I had been surfing LJ at the moment my PC caught the virus. The various photography communities have been taken over by Russian users, and it seemed to be one of the photo hosting sites that might have done the nasty deed. The advertising and tracking scripts used here these days are increasing and I don't trust any of it, so I filter them out as well. There just isn't any inspiration for me to post here with all that crap going on, and I don't feel any sensitive information placed here is any safer that on Facebook. So, I might finally kick the crust off my Dreamwidth account and see if I will have any success at grabbing my entries here and importing them over. All my attempts in the past failed, and I don't see the operators of LJ cooperating in any way to make the process work smoothly. If I do anything, it will be a crosspost from DW to here.

One thing I don't ever want to lose in all of this is the friends I have made here. There've been a few clinkers, but so many of y'all rock my world. You are the gifts that keep giving all year long. :)

By the way, I didn't see my shadow when I scurried out from the Burrow of Mayhem. Y'all should have an early spring. You're welcome. =D

This sort of thing makes me chuckle and shake my head at the same time. In a case filled with metric tons of irony, it seems that Apple has accidently shipped a fair number of iPods with an extra bonus, a Windows virus, "RavMonE". It seems that the virus originated from a production line Windows PC which is most likely used during the formatting and setup of the iPods. That Apple's iconic device needing PCs during their creation isn't enough to jump the snark, lo and behold an Apple spokesman takes this time to dig at Windows' inherent security weaknesses:

The Cupertino, Calif.-based company apologized on its Web site for the problem, but also used the opportunity to jab at Microsoft, its operating system rival.

"As you might imagine, we are upset at Windows for not being more hardy against such viruses, and even more upset with ourselves for not catching it," Apple said on its site.

Lame, lame, lame. While I will be the first to agree with claims that Windows is a veritable culture dish when it comes to viruses, to blame the OS for becoming infected and passing it's payload into product is akin to Republicans constantly blaming Clinton for everything they do wrong. First of all, steps should be put in place to prevent malware infections. This is SOP for any respectable company using platform computers in manufacturing settings. Also, give some courtesy where it is due. The iPod owes it's bewildering success to PC users. It's generally known that the iPod is primarily a Windows device, Apple itself recognizes this fact. Add to that the iPod being the first Apple-branded item that most of their owners have purchased, windfall sales of Apple computers and other items to PC users benefit Apple immensely these days and have practically saved the company from being the next Commodore.

You dont bite the hand that feeds you. Admit you made a mistake, make good on your promises to deliver a quality product and perhaps even use this as a learning experience and not a chance to shove off your responsibilities on others. Otherwise, the spotlight ends up shining instead on poor quality control on your part.

Reactions from Microsoft and security experts were in this same vein. Ironically, McDonalds (yes, the hamburger people) ran into almost the exact same scenario only recently when a MP3 player given away to Japanese customers as part of some promotion also contained a virus, presumably infected in a similar fashion. McDonalds immediately sent out a link to a website hosting a solution to fix any problems with the device. McDonalds! Not who immediately pops in one's mind when it comes to computer perpherals and containing malware, but they did the right thing and did it immediately.

Okay, back to transferring more music onto my iPod. From my PC.