Microsoft makes a funny

It’s good to know the evil geniuses over at Microsoft have a sense of humor. This YouTube video is a satire on the difference between Microsoft’s everything-but-the-kitchen-sink package design principles and Apple’s minimalist branding. The video started as an in-house joke but was leaked (or “leaked?”) to YouTube. Instead of getting huffy Microsoft ran with it, poking fun at itself. Wonder if a Microsoft version of iTunes would automatically include songs in your library from Paul Allen’s band?

So I know Microsoft isn’t all evil. But if only I could convince myself that the little Helpy Helperton MS Word Paper Clip guy wasn’t really one of Satan’s minions waiting for the opportune time to crash my desktop RIGHT before the auto save kicks in. I cursed the name of Bill Gates many a time back when, when I was a PC user.

Now I’m a Machead both at work and at home, and there’s little I can complain about, except that there are still many applications that refuse to loosen themselves from the Windows grip. Thus, I’m often left out of the loop of some streaming videos or cool Web sites because they aren’t compatible with Mac and its browsers (I LOATHE Internet Explorer!).

On the other hand, I do feel that Apple is starting to screw those of us in the ass who are slaves to design. For instance, why did I have to shell out $30 for a portable charger for my nano when that was free in the first-generation iPods? And after I save and save and spend on my iBook, I learn that the new Macs will be Intel-based, and therefore much faster. I shake my fist at you, Steve Jobs!

Oh well. I guess when it comes to electronics, you just can’t win. Everything is obsolete as soon as you buy it. On top of that, I get a third degree burn on my thighs every time I use my laptop on my lap, which is where I’m assuming it was intended to be placed considering the name. I guess I should take advantage of the lithium ion battery recall before I end up burning my pickup truck to a crisp.

If you just clicked on that NYT story, I think just as curious as the fact that a computer battery caused such apocalyptic destruction to poor Thomas’ truck is that Thomas actually owned a laptop. (Though what’s not as surprising is the fact that the conflagration was exasperated by ammunition in his glove compartment. And I love the fact that a cigarette is hanging from his mouth as he peers through the charred remains of steel and seat vinyl. Ain’t nothin’—neither a fiery truck explosion nor a New York times photog—gonna keep him from his smokes.)

Meet the real Leatherface

I encountered a man on the street last weekend that really epitomizes why I devised the acronym RCNY (random crazy New Yorker). I was walking past Washington Square Park with two friends when we saw a figure in black saying something to the folks walking in front of us. They ignore him and continue on. As we get closer, we realize why: The figure in black is a slight man dressed head-to-toe in leather: leather jacket, leather pants, leather hood, and I think a leather collar too, with various studs and spikes all over. That’s not such an unusual sight, particularly in the West Village, but he also had on a leather facemask. Except it didn’t really look like a particularly well-manufactured leather facemask; it sort of resembled a leather strip that he happened to Saran-wrap across his face, cutting out holes for his eyes, nose, and mouth. Oh, and he also happened to be carrying a mace (not the spray, one of those medieval weapons with a round, spiky ball at the top).

Through the mouth hole, he proceeded to ask: “Do you know where a leather store is?” I had several immediate thoughts that ran through my head rapid-fire: He’s a psycho killer who is going to spike me in the eye at any second; he’s some sort of submissive or dominant on his way to the dungeon who forgot some S&M essential; Is it Halloween already?; and—Doesn’t he have quite enough leather on? Is there really any need to buy more?

All of this simultaneous shock, terror and curiosity manifested itself in me saying, “8th Street.” I don’t know for sure that there is a leather store there, but I thought that would be his safest bet. He proceeded to ask me where 8th St. He was only a block a way, but then my shocked speechlessness kicked in, albeit delayed, and I found I couldn’t really talk. I pointed in the general direction as me and my friends scurried away, but I don’t think he saw me. He kept asking where 8th St. was, but we had already absconded and he was onto the next group of people, asking the same question, getting the same reaction.

I don’t know if Mr. Leatherface ever found the leather store, and part of me felt bad because I’m sure anyone he asked would 1) not know where the leather store was, and 2) would be afraid to stop long enough to direct him because of his insane outfit. (Though I suppose if one knew where the particular kind of leather store he was looking for was, they would not have found his getup particularly shocking.)

I wonder what The Sartorialist would have thought of his ensemble. Damn, I wish I’d had my camera!

I Heart NY

With all my huffing and puffing over Survivor and Men’s Health, I forgot to write about the fifth anniversary of 9/11. I wasn’t in New York at the time, but I still recall talking to my friends several days after it happened and hearing the complete exhaustion and despair in their voices. I was at home in the D.C. area, and I remember waking up late that day, around 10 am, to my dad entering the bedroom. I had finished grad school two weeks earlier and had been looking for a job in New York. My dad told me to turn on the TV, and then said, “I don’t want you to go to New York.”

From then on, I was glued to the television just like everyone else, watching the split screen of the gaping hole in the Pentagon and the planes crashing into the towers as soot-covered workers fled the streets. I had tried to call my friend, who worked near the World Trade Center, but of course the phones weren’t working. Thank God, that day she had gone to work a little bit late and hadn’t made it to her building when the planes hit.

Despite my dad’s plea, I think he knew and I knew that the events of that day wouldn’t stop me from job hunting in New York, and about a month later a friend of mine and I went up for a weekend to attend a job fair. I remember standing on the balcony of an NYU dorm room in the West Village and seeing the smoke rising from the ashes at Ground Zero, even all those weeks later.

I wasn’t close with anyone who died in the WTC, but my friend did lose her boyfriend (soon to be fiancé), whom we both went to school with, and a future former coworker of mine lost his wife, leaving behind her husband and their small son. To my knowledge, neither of their bodies was ever found. My friend had gone from triage to triage with a few other friends looking for her boyfriend soon after it happened, but never found him. The New York Times ran all these little write-ups on the people that died; I still recall reading his and remembering what he was like in college.

I remembered the most that he was a music lover. I visited his suite when I was a freshman and he was a sophomore, and I remember looking at his vast CD collection as he tinkled on an electronic keyboard. He told me that one of his favorites was In My Tribe by 10,000 Maniacs, which I borrowed and later bought. I had never really listened to them before. A few years later we sang together in an a cappella group, and though we had our differences I remember he had a nice voice, the kind that easily blended in with others and was pleasant to listen to.

In July I stopped by St. Paul’s Chapel, the church near Ground Zero that served as a refuge for volunteer workers during 9/11, and teared up when I looked at the makeshift beds that volunteer rescue workers slept on, tiny beds that could barely fit me, let alone a brawny firefighter, and topped with ragged stuffed animals. There were tons of letters pinned up everywhere, large crayon scrawl from elementary school kids, written to thank nameless rescue workers. Sometimes I can’t believe it’s been five years already; other times, it feels like it was ages ago. But it never deterred me from wanting to come back to New York, because as far as I was concerned there was nothing that could ever bring down New York’s status as the Greatest City in the World. The year after undergrad graduation, before I moved back home, I remembered being sick of the city—-sick of dodging people’s elbows as I left work in Times Square, sick of stuffing myself into the subway, sick of never being able to afford a room that wasn’t a closet. I left for home, closing a chapter of my life.

But I think I always knew that I’d be back. I think I needed that time away from the city to fully appreciate it. I still dodge the elbows. I still stuff myself onto the subway. I still live in a closet. At times this city is dirty, frustrating, grungy, scary, and downright rude. But it’s also the most vibrant, wonderful, and miraculous place I’ve ever lived. I see miracles everyday, see all the different kinds of people God created in His image, see all the different people who need Him and don’t know it, see those who work tirelessly for Him to make the city a slightly lovelier place to live. It’s true, in another town I’d probably be living in a bigger place, maybe own a home. Maybe I’d be a business owner. Maybe I’d be a wife. Maybe I’d be a mom. That’s a lot of maybes, though. The only thing I really know for certain right now is that there’s no other place I’d rather live.

Note to Jeff Probst: Mexicans and Canadians aren’t the same as Americans, either

I couldn’t believe it when I read this article in the Washington Post’s TV column. Was the writer trying to make Survivor host Jeff Probst look like an effing idiot? Are the producers offering him up as a lamb to the media slaughter by constantly making him answer reporters’ questions as an “Aw shucks, I’m just a white guy from Wichita, and I don’ know no better” mouthpiece for the controversial season? Or did he put his own big, fat, calloused-by-the-jungle-elements foot in his mouth by himself?

Whatever the reason, I’m seriously hoping that a lot of what Jeff said is out of context, such as asking his dentist “Where in Asia are you from?” and then being shocked that there are different countries that actually make up Asia, and no, we don’t all get along (and Jeff, we all don’t speak the same language either, which you probably thought was Chinese).

I’m sorry, but saying you’re from Wichita is not an excuse. By my calculations, this is the 13th year of Survivor, which means he’s probably lived in LA for more than a decade, not even counting his years as the host of Rock ‘n’ Roll Jeopardy. If you live in Southern Cal, Jeff, you have exposure to Asians, or you can get it. Drive over to Ktown, or Chinatown, or Little Tokyo sometime.

So I don’t think I’ll be watching Survivor: Cook Islands simply because I haven’t watched Survivor since the first season, but also because I don’t want to give in to the stupidity. I hate when Hollywood gets on its high horse about promoting interesting social experiments that are supposed to make a statement on some deep-seated prejudice in America. Get your heads out of your asses, Hollywood. You usually get it wrong anyway. Take the movie Crash, which was supposed to be a statement on racial tension in LA. The “let’s pat ourselves on the back for initiating racial dialogue” writers chose to name the Korean wife “Kim Lee,” merely combining the name of two well-known Korean surnames instead of doing the proper two seconds of research it would have taken to ask a Korean person what a real Korean name would have sounded like. Come on, you all go to the dry cleaners don't you? Or a bodega? And I know some of you went to Ivy League schools.

I think what’s compounding my outrage was an outing last weekend to Tribeca with some friends. As we were getting into a cab to go home, some drunk girl proceeds to shout that us “chinks should go back to our country.” Her friend quickly stated she was “not herself” but clearly she was just voicing more of herself than the outside PC world would let her state sober. My blood was boiling as the cab pulled away and I so wished I would have been outside so I could grab a fistful of blonde hair. Bitch.

Anyway, maybe I’ll be proved wrong. Maybe Survivor will be an astounding success. Maybe it will help everyone celebrate racial differences. Mostly, I’m hoping it’ll backfire in their faces. (I’ve already heard that some advertisers have pulled out.) I think they should rename it Survivor: Shameless Publicity Stunt.

Who’s the man behind The Man?

I’m not sure why I felt compelled to comment on this article in the NYT that ran about Dave Zinczenko, the editor in chief of Men’s Health, a magazine that admittedly I’ve never looked at, except to ponder that the covers sometimes remind me more of gay porn than of a health and service mag for straight, health-conscious, weightlifting everymen. I think what annoyed me about it is that more than once, Dave’s colleagues commented that “What he lacks in ability, he makes up for in charm.” Essentially, Dave seems to have made it to the top not based on his editing talent, but more on his charisma, charm, and maybe even his looks (described quite accurately as “handsome middle brother” by the writer).

Now, I’m no head-in-the-clouds idealist about climbing the corporate ladder or that talent is what gets you everywhere. But I guess it’s really only a third of what gets you where you are. I think the other two thirds are ambition and knowing the right people. Maybe I think that because lately I’ve been feeling like a bit of a workhorse at the office and feeling a bit jaded about the whole career thing. And I’ve never been the best networker; in fact, the word alone makes me want to gouge my eyeballs out sometimes. I just don’t feel that I should refer someone whom I’ve just met—and for whom I have yet to make a judgment call on about whether I want to pass along some good karma—for a job.

The other thing that irks me a bit about this article is that Dave pooh-poohs the whole idea of the “celebrity editor,” even though he dated Rose McGowan for two years and he’s appeared on the Today Show 17 times. It’s true the average joe probably doesn’t recognize him when he’s walking down the street, but as long as the important people know who you are, I think it’s safe to say you’ve become a celebrity, albeit a minor one.

I guess the one thing he is good at is being the face of Men’s Health to the cultural zeitgeist, and in the end I suppose that’s what the EIC of a consumer magazine should be. (I highly doubt Anna Wintour sits around pontificating headlines and captions for her photo spreads.) I guess that’s what the senior editors are for—doing the line editing and making sure a comprehensible product is produced for the everyman to read and understand and thank Dave for. I just hope that while they are sitting in Emmaues, Pa., while Dave sits in his Manhattan offices, that they are compensated and recognized for their work.