I caught you a delicious bass...

We finally got a big dump of snow yesterday. Immediately there were snowplows out on the street, clearing paths even while the white stuff was still pouring out of the heavens. But now, sitting in my living room tonight, I swear I have heard about 12 plows go by. Jeeze, I hope they're just on their way somewhere - my street is all taken care of, thanks.

I just don't get it.

...you should just point folks in that direction. As such, please read this most excellent holiday story from the good people over at Tear It Down. I was going to rail about this yesterday but then I read what Mike had to say and he had summed it up rather nicely.

I really liked Popeye, MASH, The Player, and Nashville. Steady on, Mr. Altman.

I just spent a few days in Chicago. It was a pretty amazing city and since two of my favourite movies of all time take place there, it was an all-the-more special experience.

However, being in the USA is always a little bit of a wake-up call. Even though we are so much the same, every time I go south of the 49th (or west of the 141st) I am reminded of just how different we are. I started compiling a list of all the things I saw that were ridiculously different and thought I'd document them here, but in the end I decided not to. Rather, I thought I'd just relate two funny things that were said by a policeman in a bar. I admit I was eavesdropping, but come on, it was a POLICEMAN, in a BAR!

1. On the war in Iraq - "...and if we pull out now, what about all the people who died over there? It's all wasted! All for nothing! What about 9-11 and the twin towers and all that?"

2. On anti-war protesters - "all the chicken hawks and pedophile chasers and thieves..."

I also got to do some Native Aping which is one of my favourite things. Even better was when someone asked me for directions on the street, and even better than that was when I actually knew what they were looking for. Still better than that was when it happened a second time. I could SO live in Chicago.

I also got to add 2 ballparks top the list of places I have seen and even touched (though have yet to witness a game at).

I own an iBook G4 which I like very much - big fan of Apple. I also own a 4th generation 20 gig iPod. The computer works very well, but sometimes the MP3 player breaks down. When it does, there is simply nothing you can do to revive it. None of the fixes from Apple work since I can't actually get the thing to appear in my computer in the first place.

So I did some research on line. It turns out lots of people have this same problem, always accompanied by a "1418 error" message. There's no explanation of what a 1418 error is, but it seems that finally, millions of pissed off people was enough to get Apple to finally publish a fix for the Nano, or the Mini, or some other iPod which I don't own. And they published it for Windows users. But nothing for OS X users of 20 gig iPods, so I'm still screwed.

Then I found The Whack-A-Mole theory. Apparently it is the only salvation for people like me, and I ain't alone out there. And, it works.

It costs more to fix an iPod than it does to buy a new one - Aldous Huxley would be proud. However, ending may be better than mending, but shitkicking seems to be the most effective in terms of both immediate results and financial investment.

The satsifaction I derived from beating the shit out of my iPod today, after three hours of trying to find fixes for it, was simply unquantifiable. The fact that said beating actually made the thing come back to life was just a bonus.