Oh, Bother - or - when your BP become 150/110

 

Forward and Forewarned, Apple users, I know you love your system. But crowing about how flawless it is isn't going to make me feel better.  Unless you plan on buying me a factory-new Apple desktop, keep you IOS to yourself. Kisses.

Well, it was too good to last. 

After a year of running flawlessly, a Microsoft Update (the one for March 2023) destroyed my Windows 11 operating system. 

Cookie doesn't visit sites that he shouldn't, doesn't open emails from people he doesn't know and doesn't click on links, or run programs he shouldn't.  And cookie keeps his antivirus updated and runs frequently. 

But that update from Microsoft brought down my desktop. Thank our Lord in Heaven, Jesus Christ Almighty, but Cookie had the brains to install a secondary drive to keep all his doc and photos on. So the angels sang out "For verily, you followed our instruction, all is well on that front."

Working with Dell Support was a dream. They couldn't have been nicer, and it was worth the extra money when I bought the system. They even call you back to make sure everything is copacetic. 

BUT what Cookie didn't learn is when you buy a PC from Dell and pay for Office Home and Student to come preloaded, they do not send you the activation code. 

How can this be? Trust me, "It be" because everything they do is handled on a peer network connection with Microsoft or some such other malarky, but they don't send it.

Which means, you, the consumer, has to go back to Microsoft and have them activate the Office Suite. 

And guess what that means? 

Sisyphus has a better chance of rolling that rock up that mountain than you have in reaching anyone, in any department that can help you.  Why? Because there is no such thing as Microsoft Support, except online, and the links to get to that are better hidden than the mystery of life itself. 

The bottom line is this - once you buy something from them, you are dead to them.  

Now think about this.  Money doesn't grow on trees where Cookie dwells. 

This of course raised Cookie's stress, anxiety, and blood pressure to dangerous heights.  Seriously, trying to get this resolved through Microsoft literally made me throw up. 

If you follow the online links to get help, you either reach a dead end, a circular link, or a telephone number that tells you all support has moved online.  In other words, there is no honest way for a law-abiding, license-owning person to resolve this.  You can reach a human through chat, but they want to sell you Office 365, which gets expensive at $100/year.  And if your internet connection goes down? You are shit out of luck.

My only option was to buy a second copy of Office.  Bad enough I paid $150 when I bought the computer, but now I was shelling it out a second time.  But this time I have the activation key. 

And Cookie blames this Microsoft's CEO, Satya Nadella, who is a fuckwit. 

This is the same fuckwit who crowed about Bing having the first AI Engine available to the masses.  The same fuckwit who disappeared when that AI Engine started developing personality problems and began issuing all sorts of troubling answers. 

At least with Bill Gates, Microsoft functioned like a normal evil empire, but under Nadella they issued Widows 11 will all sorts of retrograde engineering that the ability to control the operating system meant you couldn't customize even the basic toolbar. Worse still, once you buy it, there is STILL no refund, no support. 

So now, and a week after the failure, I am just getting up to speed. 

And oh, yeah, tonight I am eating meatloaf in honor of Nadella.

UPDATE: The meatloaf was delicious!  So were the mashed potatoes and gravy.

Beware the Ides of March, or Put That Dildo Down Casca!

 Well, its the Ides of March, ladies, and gentlemen.  

It certainly wasn't a very good day for Julius Ceasar. The Roman Emporer met his doom on this day when he was stabbed in the back, and chest, and neck, and then the back again, and etc., etc., etc.

I understand that they never could get all of the blood stains off the marble.  Not even Bon Ami could work that kind of magic. 

The picture above is from Julius Ceasar, the 1953 movie that crowned Louis Calhern as Ceasar. Marlon Brando was Mark Antony, James Mason was Brutus, and wielding the knife character, Casca, is actor Edmond O'Brien.  The film even includes John Hoyt, the man in the lower right (face partially blocked) looking up at Ceasar.  Hoyt always looked very old and frail to me - he seemed to get more roles the older and trailer he got.  Flinty, and with the bluest eyes, Hoyt had an amazing build and tight muscled body into his early 60s.  

But let us take a look that that dagger about to be employed into Ceasar by Edmond O'Brien. It only appears in the briefest of flashes, and then it's die, die, my darling when it is plunged into Ceaser. 

But let us look really closely at that prop dagger:

It looks a bit like a dildo. 

Of course for safety's sake, it has to be rounded, and not something that can hurt a real live person.  I mean it is Julius Ceasar and not Rust thank God. 

This was first pointed out to me years and years ago when I was looking at a Hollywood prop auction catalog with a long-gone paramour. 

"If you squint, you can see the pee hole," said Jeff. 

But every time I see this showcase for Brando, the dildo knife makes me giggle.  Not his death, but the spring-loaded dildo-looking knife. 

I often wonder what happened to the dildo-looking knife, and if the person who bought it bought it because it was a prop knife, a prop knife that looked like a dildo. 

Well, I hope that nothing foul happens to anyone out there, today.  May cooler heads prevail. And look forward to this Sunday when we bid adieu to that old scorn winter, and the first day of spring follows on Monday. 

And we all know how Cookie revels in spring. 

Someone just wild about Dick.

 

And not any Dick.

But a certain Dick. 

Cookie, too, sometimes thinks about that certain Dick.

Not a Rick, Rich, or Dickie, but Dick. 

And who amongst us hasn't welcomed Dick at some time or another?

Personally, I think it's wonderful that she has her mind on a certain Dick.  

I mean, people will talk. 

But evidently, this Dick she can't seem to forget is a powerful Dick. After all, Dick is enough to make her Whirlo.