Outcome of Bored

Oh yeah.... Sweetness...

Please don't think I'm posting these Dell-related blog entries because I need to toot some sort of horn. I sure as heck don't roll that way.

I post because this thing has me cracking up. This thing has been like an outta control feral animal! Just when I thought I had it... (the earlier blogs)... it all just crashed again on me! I about threw the sum-bitch outta my office, and down the stairwell! So rolling up my sleeves, I started muttering to it, and did the equivelant of what used to be big fun back in the day... Deleting The C Drive in DOS. Man, that used to feel sweet! Today... Not so easy, nor as fun... but it still felt good to slay this beast.

This thing could only have come from the basement where the Heir dwells.

So... we're hitting 8 pm, and finally linked to be able to download the REAL drivers for it.

I think it might make it!

Come on baby! Come on baby! Keep loading!

Will it... or Won't it?....

So far the repairs and reinstallation have been going along just swimingly. We'll see how things progress through the day....

The Battle Of Antietam

The sides: WE vs. THEM

Was actually a really nice day; weather-wise. The cold start led to some pretty comfortable conditions.

The original plan was to visit key Civil War (War Between The States for Chuckie) locations in/around Brunswick, MD.

I'm still not really sure what happened in Brunswick. I was there. I recall that, and some bricks that used to be part of a roundhouse, next to a few dead guys. (They were buried.) The bricks had a bell installed in them... I think it was one of those old things where a rope was run down into the graves of the adjacent dead guys, and if any of them weren't really dead yet, they could ring that bell and ..... we'd run like hell... cause frankly... some guy buried in a grave that got killed in a train wreck years before, waking up down there and ringing an emergency-casket-bell just isn't very natural. I'm thinking the guy that would be brought out of that grave would be fairly dirty (thus smell), and probably more than a little mad.

Ok... So that's what my head got out of Brunswick.

There was then a 90 minute break, while discussions ensued over where the next key point of the Civil War was in/around Brunswick. It was in that discussion that I first heard of some unknown location with a really long Indian "M" word. Apparently there's books on the place, and shit went down there back in the 1800's.

The decision was made (no.... there was no decision MADE! There never is!!! We just slowly gravitate places!) to head to Antietam Battlefield.

We were in two vehicles (not following each other), and both managed to get lost in some town called Funkytown. I think we were in Maryland. I really have no fucking idea where we were!

After what started to feel like some crazy urban driving game involving (GACK!!!) cell phones, we met back up and managed to find the battlefield.... along with 10,000 other pathetic people with no lives.

I mean geeze dawgs! 145 years later, and shit's still going down in Sharpsburg!

This was when the battle began.

WE vs. THEM

All that stuff before?.... No. That was what led up to the war.

Now the 2009 Battle Of Antietam mainly centered around The Bloody Cornfield. You can find it now by driving 1.4 miles east on 45 or 65 (or whatever the name of the road is that Dirtman happens to be looking at on his map at the time), then proceed to the south-west end of the north-east corner of the west woods. Just look for the sign. There'll be plenty of them. They'll point you to every fucking corner of those damn woods! .... .... Ain't really no woods there now... but man o MAN are you gonna know where they were!

So the battle was raging all around The Bloody Cornfield. Minor skirmishes erupted from all corners of the various woods. The Boy Scouts even launched their own probes. Ordering kids to their slaughter in droves; like Kamikazes, they were unleashed upon us. You can't have slaughter without laughter, and there certainly was plenty of that thanks to our whole group.

Strange people also felt the need to attack us in The Bloody Corfield. One unidentified soldier of the THEM side, conducted a drive-by, style attack; hanging out of the vehicle as his bitch hit the gas, screaming some strange battle cheer at us: "The Cornfield Walk!!! That's the Cornfield Walk!!!" They repeatedly attempted probes upon our position throughout the afternoon, but they were no match, and eventually fled from us around 2:30 p.m.

Dirtman was WAY too happy about pointing this out to us:

Just a little freaky, says I.

Hmm... You know.... I wonder now. ... Perhaps Dirtman was actually siding with THEM. Working behind the lines as a double agent, he would shoot us off in deadly directions, only to utilize modern technology to further thwart any sense of order with his disinformation.

Oh yes.... In this picture below, he appears to stand there bravely like a stone wall; right on the edge of The Bloody Cornfield itself! Intelligence confirms that he utilized his communications to contact another WE soldier.... ONLY to place an ambiguous order for a bizarre chicken dinner.

A WE soldier wrote, "He charged fearlessly right into THEM. He was trying to reach some corner marker in the field. We yelled to him that THEM was the ones that put that marker there to fool us. Still he went out there. My buddy yelled to us, 'Look he's standing there like a Corn-dog!' So that's how we came to know him." Corn-dog Jackson would go on to fight other battles that day.

However, I submit this to you, dear historian: Why would a WE soldier march so bravely upon The Bloody Cornfield, in the full face of THEM bearing down upon us, and order a chicken dinner? Disinformation, or just strange hunger patterns? You decide.

As thirst and alcohol withdrawal started to kick in, monuments started to take on a different feel. You know shit's going south when you stare at a Irish Brigade monument and start drooling at the thought of an Irish Pub.

Luckily, since Johnboy punked out of purchasing a "Best Of Antietam" CD (that you play in your car while touring numerous interesting points - like the west edge of the northeast south side of the north woods, across from the Drunken Church), we ended the little pamphlet tour and ended up being routed out of Sharpsburg.

They won.

We were pushed back to Middletown, VA where we bivouacked at the Irish Pub!

The Watch, The Bitch and The Battery

This is actually a continuing saga. Apparently (as is predictable) I end up with a watch that takes some rare alien battery size. Repeated attempts at CVS and Rite Aid have been uneventful.

CVS even suggested I visit Anderson’s Corner (the local rip-off jeweler) when I visited them the first time and they appeared out of the one I needed. I drove there practicing lines I would use in case that same old guy I dealt with last time said, “Did you try Anderson’s Corner like I told you two weeks ago?” or “Why don’t you try Anderson’s Corner?”

“Well, because I’m in HERE trying to buy it! Perhaps I don’t care for Anderson’s Corner! Perhaps one of the employees ran over my son while he was riding his bike through town! Perhaps I got a skin disease off their toilets once!!! Now just sell me the fucking battery if you have it!!!”

They didn’t.

He wasn’t even there. No one said anything to me. That lifted my spirits some.

I hit the local Rite Aid next. I didn’t expect to find it there, and wasn’t let down in my expectations.

Still unwilling to succumb to local pressures, I hit the internet. Duracell’s site didn’t seem to have the battery, though I found a cross reference… So I called them.

They, like every computer company, also seem to have support over in the Middle East. I could hardly get the receptionist to understand the numbers I was giving her.

HELLO?!!! Isn’t this business sort of fucking DEPENDANT on their staff being very thorough with numbers?!!!

I think I got through to her and was then put on hold. I can’t even picture this lady doing anything with my information. I still don’t think she understood me!

Oh… but I was waiting on hold! If I was still sitting here at 9:00 at night… I wasn’t hanging up (as long as the connection remained).

She did come back…. 12 minutes later.

She said something like, “I’m sorry sir, but we find no record of this.” (Add a really thick accent, and poor volume.) I think those were her words. I really couldn’t tell you. I just know she didn’t find any relevant information for me.

So irritated I say, “Oooo K. So Duracell doesn’t have any idea what crosses with their own battery. (pause… no reply… some noises… what? … was she having sex over there or what?) Fine. Ok. Look.. Thanks. Goodbye.” I could hear her finally saying something as I was hanging up the phone.

I went back to the WEB and finally found some crazy jeweler site that had a Ray O Vac battery that matched the crossed numbers.

I ordered it. We’ll see if it works in a week or so.

Jeweler wanted $15.00 to put one in (at Sears, 2 years ago.) The cost online was $2.80.

… Yeah I’m paying shipping, but it’s the point! It still only came to $10.98 total.

Product support! Come ONNNNNN!!!!!!

Finally... Someone got it right!

The Man!