7.28.06
6:58 PM
Saw something on the train today that made me think better of the future: two little kids playing Rock, Paper, Scissor. Despite the fact that kids today can download before they can read, can play all three leading game systems and no musical instruments and understand all the rules to Yu-Gi-Oh but fail to grasp the basics of polite society, they still play Rock, Paper, Scissors. Warms my heart.
And speaking of technology that I don’t understand, I bought an HP external DVD burner today. I have yet to burn anything because I am getting a runtime error. A fucking goddamn runtime error. Jesus Christ do I hate those motherfucking runtime errors. Only about 3% of the world understands what the fuck that even means. By the by, I am excluded from that 3%. Goddamn fucking 3%. Wish they’d give me a call and explain everything in layman’s terms. Or even better, Paul-is-a-stupid-asshole terms. Yeah. That would be ever so helpful. Fucking 3%.
As the problem progressed, I had a terrifying moment of recollection. My very first external CD burner (from my freshman year at Fordham) was also an HP. It worked maybe 5 to 10 percent of the time. In order to successfully burn a CD with it, you had to shut down EVERY other application on your machine and then (this is my favorite part) make sure nothing touched the surface the burner was resting on. After the 43rd error message (accompanied by the 43rd shattered semi-blank CD-R) I decided to call the help line. I had the guy on the phone for a while, 15 or 20 minutes, and he walked me through everything from uninstalling to reinstalling to running diagnostics right up until I hit the “burn” button. Then he said, “Now we see if it works”. I was confused and asked how can he say that? Isn’t CD burning an exact science? “Nope,” he responded, “if it works, it works, if it doesn’t it doesn’t.” I was furious and vowed never to purchase an HP product again, however, that was seven years ago and it isn’t the burner giving me a problem…yet. I haven’t even gotten that far. I am still trying to figure out why the fuck Nero Express Vision 3 keeps giving me fucking goddamn RUNTIME ERRORS.
This is just making me angrier.
Fucking asshole technology.
Maybe Ray knows what the fuck is wrong with this filthy piece of dog shit…

7:50PM
Okay, Ray didn’t pick up his phone (he might be scrumping) so I tried Will. He told me all about runtime errors. It seems that a runtime error is an error that occurs during the time a program is running. The sad thing is: that is EXACTLY what a runtime error is. Goddamn it.
So, I never read the paper and never watch the news. I happened to catch a snippet of a teenage girl missing since Monday or something a few days ago. Today I saw the headline of whatever paper was left on the switchboard that had the story about how the naked, raped and strangled corpse of this missing girl was found concealed in a suitcase in a Dumpster in New Jersey. They had the whole story about how she was drunk and left her friend unconscious in an impound lot on 38th and 12th and then saw some drug dealer following her around 12th Ave. so she called her boyfriend who told her to get a cab. Turned out the cabbie took the drunk 18-year old back to a hotel in New Jersey where he raped and killed her. They caught him because he used her cell phone to call some people after he’d killed her.
Two things; first, I hope this guy will get ten times the rape and fifty times the fear and pain he has caused this girl and her family when he arrives in prison and second, this is yet another clear example of why I do not read/listen to the new