DatingJosh

I sat in on the conference from hell this afternoon. Did I say hell? I meant the poke-toothpicks-in-my-pupils, somebody-pull-the-fire-alarm, please-god-let-there-be-an-earthquake meeting straight from the asscrack of darkness!

I am forced to listen to this one cooly arrogant New England type who, by the way, pronounces “Northfolk”, VA as Naaahwfollk, drone one in this cracked monotone at a volume so low I can scarcely hear him over the hiss of the ventilation system at 8 feet away! If a roach cut a fart it would a) drown this jackass out for 28 seconds as the soundwaves reverberated off the walls, and b) would be about 3.6 times more interesting than the actual point of the conversation. The whole time I found myself sitting on my traitorous left hand so as to keep it from taking unilateral ninja action and slicing the tip of this dude’s nose off with the nearest piece of copy paper!

Then it gets better because the guy sitting immediately to my right, midway into crunching on the Fritos by his left hand at MAXIMUM VOLUME decides that shit, all this salt is making him thirsty, and moves to crack his way into a 12-ounce can of Coca-Cola.

Have you ever met a retarded professor type? You know what I mean – a guy so freaking smart he could simulaneously integrate nested trig functions and modify Newton’s gravitational theory to fit the anomalies occurring deep within Einstein-Rosen bridges, all without coming within 10 feet of a calculator? Well, this is the very same guy who would stare at a TV set full of snow for 3 hours because freaking screwing the loose coaxial cable back onto the jack is paradoxically beyond his powers of reason! Imagine this guy trying to open a can of soda with a dented top and you will come close to understanding the events which transpired over the next 3 minutes or so.

Retarded professor pops the ring top on the can. But because of the dent on the top of the can, he can’t pop open the perforated opening. He proceeds to rock this thing to-and-fro several times, which only serves to completely drown out Mr. Baahstaan’s monotone with the squalling shriek of aluminum grinding aluminum.

Realizing his ineffectiveness, and driven by a burgeoning thirst the likes of which I can only imagine, he shifts tactics, inserts his little finger into the ring on the pop-top and begins to pull. Miraculously, the pop-top somehow does NOT spring free of its tiny anchoring nubbin, as would have happened to any of we other humans had we attempted the same maneuver. Instead, unbelieveably, he robs me of the sublime entertainment of watching the pop-top let go with a sharp “snick” and his hand smash into the side of his face with a dull “plop” from the force of his effort, when the top begins to tear inexorably down its center in two spreading wings of metal! Had I not seen this transpiring WITH MY OWN EYES, I never would fucking believe it!

So now this potzer has managed to tear a one-inch, jagged, gaping gash in the aluminum Coke can top, in THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION of the piece that’s supposed to pop out so you can drink the damn soda in the first place! At this point, everyone in the room has an eyeball on this brobdingnagian effort, and everyone’s eyebrows simultaneously raise with the same unposed question, “what the hell is this freak gonna do next?” Well, I am happy to report that our friend did not let us down.

Mad with thirst from the treacherous Frito Lays, the last shreds of his common sense crumble like cigar ash in a light breeze. He lifts the can, studies it for a moment, and begins to move the vicious, jagged metal wings towards his face, ostensibly to somehow suck the soda out of the rent in the top!

After giving this some thought, I have come to these conclusions. Either, 1) he was trying to give himself a quick and cheap root canal, or 2) the speaker’s grumbling, gravelly monotone overcame his will to live and he was attempting to slash his carotid arteries from inside his face!

Needless to say, after an attempted sip, the razor-sharp aluminum lacerating his tongue finally convinced him that, yup, probably not the brightest idea he has had today, and he obtained a cup and carefully poured his soda into it.

The entire room jumped to its feet and ripped off an ovation!! Just kidding. But I bet they wanted to. I know I did.

I look at it this way – at least laughing at my fellow man made the meeting more interesting!

My ass is up watching “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” right now because I can’t seem to get to sleep. Fuck! Insomnia sucks it. Welcome to life in your 30’s – foot hurts when I run, back hurts after standing all day, and periodic bouts of sleeplessness. Next thing I know, I’ll be pissing myself and dribbling mashed potatoes down my face!

Oh wait – I do that every weekend I get drunk!

The French are at it again. In an act of hubris as calculated as it is blatant, the National Assembly is attempting to bend a United States corporation to its whim. I am speaking of the bill the Assembly passed 286 – 193 on Tuesday which has powerful, long-ranging effects on DRM software.

That’s right. Apparently the French legislators believe wanton socialism should extend to overseas corporations doing business in their country. This bill is a direct slap in the face of Apple Computer.

For those of you not living on this planet, Apple’s iTunes Music Store is the hottest online music store the world has ever seen. Having recently sold its BILLIONTH song, iTunes sells 3 million songs a day worldwide.

As you also may have heard, Apple’s iPod digital music player, now in it’s 6th year and 5th generation, is the coolest, baddesd-assed digital device you could hope to own. I have 2 myself! Apple once again has led an entire market by looking years into the future and designing a damn-near perfect system, one that meets a need so basic, so important, that it leaves us wondering how we ever managed without it.

The best thing? The synergy. Oh the sublime synergy! The entire system, iPod, computer (Mac or PC, but preferably Mac!) via iTunes, and music store work seamlessly together. I swear, sometimes I think the thing reads my mind!

The issue at stake, the issue which has driven the french fou, is over iTunes using a proprietary DRM code, called FairPlay. FairPlay only works on iPods. In addition, there are restrictions to how many different computers and iPods a piece of FairPlay-encoded music will work on.

It is warranted to mention here that numerous other companies have proprietary management systems in place. Sony has ATRAC3, Windows(ugh) has WindowsMedia, just to name a few. Hell, RealPlay video clips do not play on QuickTime, a fact that occasionally causes me consternation when browsing for porn, um, I mean news clips…

This proprietary format both discourages piracy and promotes further interest in and revenue growth for Apple. The French are pissed because, 1) an American company is making money in France, 2) the online stores Fnac.com and Virginmega.fr are getting their asses kicked, and 3)well, they’re French.

I gotta be honest, I have no problem with Apple’s business practice. They are being smart here. Why shouldn’t they protect their capital investment? It enables them to offer them products light-years ahead of anyone else’s. If Fnac.com wants to develop a proprietary DRM code to work on only one player, no one is stopping them. And nobody was complaining and passing laws when they tried, and failed miserably, in shoving a CompactFlash card every which way into a Sony digital camera – Sony was using its huge market share to protect its proprietary digital storage format!

And don’t even start with the monopoly crap. Do not confuse huge success with monopoly. There are over 50 brands of digital music player and over a dozen online music stores. Plenty of options exist. Apple has the lion’s share of the market because they pioneered much of the technology and made it cool. If they were compelling the record industry to sell tracks on only their site and no one else’s, well then you would have a case of anti-competitiveness.

So the inscrutable French National Assembly passed this bill. If the Senate passes it, it becomes law. You thought the riots across the country a few weeks ago were bad? Wait and see what happens when apple shrugs, says “bite me” and simply pulls the plug on iTunes.fr and stops shipping iPods to the country! STORM THAT FREAKING BASTILLE, BABY!!!

France, you simply cannot win. Your law will either be struck down as invalid, it will be appealed and overturned to the EU, or all the teens and young adults within your borders will create a massive groundswell of backlash. My advice? Just as Kennedy had McNamara buy every Cuban cigar in D.C. the night before he signed the embargo into law, download as many copies of R.E.M.’s “It’s The End Of The World” as you can before passing the legislation, ’cause after that, it’s lights out.

And while you’re at it, maybe you should increase your rail capacity through the Chunnel. You’re gonna need it to accommodate, oh, half your population’s regular forays to the U.K. to jump online and buy iTunes music!

C’est ce bon!!