Oh, shut up already.

Normally, I just stay out of the computer wars, since (a) Mac people tend to be so vehemently evangelical and since (b) – even though I’ve been using ’em since my dad bought a TRS-80 back in the day (on which I used to play the hell out of a game called “Sword of Zedek,” which for some reason I can’t find anything on the web about )- I’ve never been much more than a moderately informed user (which, in blog circles, makes me ridiculously uninformed.) That being said, every time I catch one of these annoying new Apple ads, I become ever deeper entrenched in my fondness for PC’s. “Using my PC was like being stuck in a bad relationship?” Please. Like I want to wait an extra eighteen months for new games to get a Mac port.

While I did have an Apple IIc as a kid (Mmmm…”Old Ironsides,”) I didn’t really use Macs until I was forced to in high school and, to cut to the quick, I thought they were crappity crap. When a PC goes down, even a rudimentary user like myself can try to ascertain the problem in DOS. When a Mac went down…well, you were stuck looking at that stupid icon. It’s a glorified calculator. It’s no doubt true that the Windows OS is and has been a complete facsimile of the Macintosh, but I’m kinda hoping we move past GUI’s eventually. Ok, I’ve probably betrayed my ignorance a few times over in this post already, so I’ll close it up. Suffice to say, those Apple ads irk me to no end.

The Supreme Court’s War on Kids.

So much for Independence Day. “The majority opinion in Earls reflects some of the worst results-based decision-making we’ve seen since Bush v. Gore. And like Bush v. Gore, it is rooted in panic, expediency, and a twisting of prior precedent to fit the facts.” Dahlia Lithwick excoriates the Supreme Court for their recent decision to force urine tests on high school kids.

The Rocket’s Red Glare.

Happy Independence Day to all the fellow Americans out there, by the way (even those oppressed in DC…thanks, Genehack.) After spending yesterday in nearby New Haven catching up and playing music with some old friends, my 4th plans probably aren’t going to extend very far beyond Internet Scrabble and a late-night poker game. At any rate, be safe out there, kids.