Rage Against the Machine

I tried to print something yesterday and it wouldn't print. I made sure the printer was plugged in and connected to the computer and tried again. It wouldn't print. I turned the printer off and on. Didn't work. I restarted the computer. Nothing. Then I got frustrated and took my anger out on the printer by hitting it hard-- that's right, I became aggressive with my printer. And it worked.

I usually find it amusing that people hit TV's, VCR's, printers, copy machines, etc. because in reality, while it is an act of frustration, there's a little part of you that thinks you're teaching the machine a small lesson-- well-- you're not working, you're fucking me over, and now you're going to regret it. But in this case, it seems that the printer was actually taught a lesson by being struck. Is it possible? There's really no other explanation-- if there had been a real problem with the printer, it clearly wouldn't have been fixed by being physically abused, so it must be that the printer, in this case, simply needed to be disciplined.

A few weeks back, I was in Italy with my girlfriend (yes, I have a girlfriend. No, she's not just an imaginary girlfriend this time. Yes, I'm petrified to write about her in this forum. No, I don't like being grilled like this inside this parenthesis. Please let me go. Please let me leave this parenthesis). It was the end of a great week, and we were in Lake Como for our last night. We had to catch a 6:30am flight out of Milan-- about a 3-hour drive from where we were (brilliant trip-planning on my part), and since it was pouring rain, around midnight we decided to start the drive to Milan. We got to the airport around 4am, and it was then that I remembered that I had to fill the gas tank, or the rental place would charge me 100 Euros to fill it. After picking up a crazy, crooked-toothed hitchhiker (Nikki was thrilled with me for this decision) and dropping her off in the city, I went searching for a gas station to fill up.

Every gas station around was closed, but most had an automated paying machine, so you could fill up 24 hours a day. I found a station, and pulled up next to the pump, and put my card in the automated machine. Some Italian instruction came up, and I tried my best to decipher it and pressed buttons accordingly. And then another instruction came up, and I took another guess, and then another, and another, and then it spit my card out. I tried again. And again. Each time, I tried something different, but I couldn't crack the code. So I got in the car, and decided I'd wait for someone else to pull in who spoke Italian and could help me. I waited for about 45 minutes and no one came.

Finally I said fuck it and decided to put cash in. I only had a 50 Euro bill, nothing smaller. So even though I probably only needed 30 Euro worth of gas, I figured it was my only option, and put in the 50 (about equivalent to $70). I saw the machine register that I had 50 Euro worth of credit, and I pulled the nozzle out. As I pulled it out I realized it was the diesel nozzle, and put it back, and reached for the normal nozzle.

But a funny thing happened when I put the diesel nozzle back. The machine reset, and showed my credit at 0. I took the regular nozzle out. 0 credit. I put it back. 0 credit. I pressed the buttons on the machine. 0 credit. I pressed more buttons on the machine. 0 credit.

And as I looked around and saw absolutely no one in sight, it hit me that not only did I just throw 50 Euro down the drain, I would also be returning an empty gas tank and would be charged 100 Euro by the rental company. The equivalent of over $200-- all because the machine ate my bill when I replaced the diesel nozzle. And naturally, rain was pouring on my head.

Now, you're asking yourself-- why did he just tell this long, drawn-out story during a post about hitting his printer?

Because I beat the living B'jesus out of that automated machine.

As the reality of the situation hit me, I began to hit the buttons harder and harder, and then began striking blows to the whole keyboard and the screen. Then to the sides and top of the machine. Then the kicking started. And not just normal front-kicking-- I was turning to the side and doing full high-kicks on this fucker. And I was cursing like a sailor. I think Nikki-- who had been sleeping soundly the whole time-- finally woke up the third time I screamed "FUCKING HELL!"

"What's wrong??"

I most certainly did not want to talk about it. I guess it's like they say-- sometimes you get the bear, sometimes you get in fistfights with a stationary metal machine in the rain at 5am.

There is, however, a bright side-- this picture of me with the hitchhiker:

The Big Return Post

How do you write the first entry after being gone for three months? How do you write the Big Return Post? I've been living with this fear for the past two weeks since returning home. Yet today's the day. Here I am, at the computer, hands trembling, nipple hair quivering, and I'm typing.

As for the subject of the Big Return Post, I refuse to put that kind of pressure on myself. There will be no central topic of this post. If you wanted a topic so badly, you could have come up with one yourself, instead of sitting there like a little prick expecting me to cater to your every need. Just be happy the title of this entry isn't something annoying, like, "I'm baaaaack!"

Look at this-- less than 100 words into my Big Return Post, and we're already fighting. My B. You just have to understand, it's not easy returning after 3 months.

So what's been happening since last we spoke? I've been to hell and back, that's what. Or maybe it's to heaven and back and heaven's just a lot more intense and horrible than I would have imagined. And I'm not going to expand further. Not now. Later.*

For now, I'm going to limit this post to a bunch of disjointed, mildly entertaining thoughts currently dancing around my head.

--I came back after 9 weeks away and gasped hideously when I saw that my computer was on, and had been on since I left. This was almost as bad as the time I woke up to find the freezer open. Who the hell leaves for the summer and forgets to turn their computer off?

--The news about Pluto is devastating. Absolutely world-shaking. And frankly, I refuse to accept it. There are 7 days in a week, 50 states in the US, and 9 fucking planets in the solar system.

--I had left Winston, my turtle, at a friend's house for the summer, at 2 inches in diameter, and picked him up last week, at 3 inches in diameter. I hate this. Part of the fun with him was the fact that he was miniature. I had always fantasized about having a 1-inch tall person to hang around with and keep in my pocket, who would be exactly like a normal person except he'd be the size of a match. Buying a miniature turtle partially satisfied this lifelong desire. And every month, he's getting less and less miniature. Suddenly, I own this, just, normal turtle. Who the hell wants a normal turtle living in their apartment with them. He's still somewhat miniature, but I don't like where this is going.

(On a related note, I was reunited with my tiny fish as well. I can't believe the little dude's still alive. How does something the size of pen cap live for 8 months? Every day, I keep waking up and assuming he'll be dead, and every morning, there he is, still kicking, swimming around his 3-inch space as if life is damn good. I guess he has plenty to eat, and nothing is trying to eat him, and for a fish, that constitutes the good life. He lives in and breathes his own feces.)

--I can't figure out why you have to sign your name on the back of the credit card. Shouldn't the point of signing a receipt be that if a card is stolen, a disputed claim can be settled by looking at the signature? If the signature is not consistent with all the real ones, the purchase was made by the thief-- if it matches, it was made by the owner of the card. There's no way someone is ever going to guess how someone else signs their name-- unless, of course, the owner's signature is on the back of the idiot card. It should say underneath, "Thieves: make sure to master the above signature before buying products with this stolen card."

That's right, I'm ranting about the little signature on the back of credit cards. And I'm not finished yet.

I understand that the intended purpose of the signature is for a cashier to verify your signature with the official one on the back of the credit card, but 1 out of 20 cashiers actually does that, and even for that rare time when the cashier verifies the signature, what kind of retarded thief would have trouble with a basic forgery. On that note, I thoroughly enjoy the times when I come across that rare cashier who takes their job so seriously that they refuse to give you your card back until they carefully verify the authenticity of the signature. Sitting there, on their little cashier stool, they are the Guardian of the Register, a master detective of sorts-- and they want that to be very clear to you.

--At various points over the past 6 months I've had my camera, iPod, phone, and laptop stolen. At this point, I'm convinced there's something bigger happening here. I'm trying to think back 6 months ago to a time when I stole money from a homeless blind person, or dodged the draft, or lied about my taxes, or something that would have brought this hideous stretch of karma upon me, but I can't. I was in Asia about 6 months ago, but Andrew was there with me and was very adamant that "what happens in Asia stays in Asia," so it can't be anything that happened there. I didn't light the menorah at all last November. That couldn't be it, could it? Is it possible that I'm being fucked with by the Jewish gods? Are there even Jewish gods? That doesn't sound right. I didn't do anything sacrilegious involving sports, like bet against the Patriots in the playoffs or something. I bought my turtle and fish about 6 months ago-- could it possibly be that one-- or both-- of them is cursed? This is intriguing. The thing is, though, even if they are cursed, combined they have about a tenth of a brain, so I doubt any curses associated with them would be very powerful. I can't figure it out. And I'd like to say it's over, but last time I said that my laptop was stolen shortly after. I really needed that laptop. I'll keep you posted.

Cursed or not, I've returned to this silly place. And yet again, while you procrastinate at work, you can hear what I'm thinking while I procrastinate at work (or whatever the hell what I do is called). And now I'm trying to end the Big Return Post, which I'm learning, the hard way, is basically as hard and pressured-filled as starting it. I'm just going to end it by writing this sentence explaining how I'm going to end it.


*Why am I being such a retard right now? Excellent question. It's a combination of the fact that I did actually have a crazy last few months that I won't get into now, last week's Red Sox-Yankees series, the fact that I'm overly exhausted at the moment, and the fact that it is kind of ridiculously hard to post for the first time after 3 months away.