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Railing at Dell

Have you ever looked at the inside of a Dell? I added a new 60 GB drive to mine this morning. No screwdrivers are necessary to do this — all you have to do is slip a couple of rails on the drive and slide it into the bay until it clicks.

At least, that’s what happens if you have drive rails. Without the right rails, you can’t mount a hard drive because there are no screw holes anywhere inside the case. They did, however, generously include two spare rails for a 3.5″ floppy drive.

Thanks Dell. Naturally, if someone upgrades their computer, they’ll add a second floppy drive. Good thinking.

In half an hour, with the aid of pliers, a pen knife, and twist ties, I adapted (read: brutally mangled) the floppy drive rails so that they’d hold the hard drive. Mission accomplished.

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Appetizers

On the weekend I visited Granville Island Market. At Duso’s, they had some delicious-looking little appetizers — squid stuffed with crab and shrimp. Aren’t the best foods are made by stuffing one animal with another animal?

I think tonight I’ll have chicken stuffed with beef, pork, squab, and goat.

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Phhht

Is it a bad sign when you turn on the computer and it goes phhht and smells of burnt plastic? If so, then I’m sorry Sabine, but I think I just killed your computer. Oops.

rest in peace. 1995 - 2003
Rest in peace. 1995 – 2003.

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Things that bug me

In an effort to practice for being a grumpy old man, here’s a list of things that bug me.

  • People driving in front of me who signal a turn after they enter the intersection, and then take a very long time making the turn.
  • Those smooth and extra-slippery plastic chopsticks that you get at cheap restaurants. Can’t they afford the wooden ones?
  • People at the chashier who don’t take out their wallet until they actually hear the price read to them. And then they take forever to find it. Was it a surprise that they needed money for the cashier?
  • Microsoft Windows.
  • People who make a turn using both the turning lane and the one next to it.
  • Those cretins who break into my obviously empty car.
  • Daytime TV.
  • People who take daytime TV very, very seriously.
  • People who want to use nuclear weapons to prevent other countries from developing WMDs.
  • Mindless flag-waving.
  • Mindless flag-burning.
  • The fact that there’s probably a way to do what I want with XML, but it’s probably excessively difficult and geeky.
  • People who use their blogs to write inane lists of things that bug them. Like anyone cares! Grow up already.

So there you go. One of these days, I’ll write a list of shiny, happy, fun things that make me feel all warm and fuzzy like a little fuzzy bunny tralala et cetera et cetera. Until then, piss off.