October 1st, 2008
Say I’m working at N.S.A. Somebody puts a code on my desk, something nobody else can break. So I take a shot at it and maybe I break it. And I’m real happy with myself, ’cause I did my job well. But maybe that code was the location of some rebel army in North Africa or the Middle East. Once they have that location, they bomb the village where the rebels were hiding and fifteen hundred people I never had a problem with get killed.
Now the politicians are sayin’ “send in the Marines to secure the area” ’cause they don’t give a shit. It won’t be their kid over there, gettin’ shot. Just like it wasn’t them when their number got called, ’cause they were pullin’ a tour in the National Guard. It’ll be some guy from Southie takin’ shrapnel in the ass. And he comes home to find that the plant he used to work at got exported to the country he just got back from. And the guy who put the shrapnel in his ass got his old job, ’cause he’ll work for fifteen cents a day and no bathroom breaks. Meanwhile my buddy from Southie realizes the only reason he was over there was so we could install a government that would sell us oil at a good price. And of course the oil companies used the skirmish to scare up oil prices so they could turn a quick buck. A cute, little ancillary benefit for them but it ain’t helping my buddy at two-fifty a gallon. And naturally they’re takin’ their sweet time bringin’ the oil back and maybe even took the liberty of hiring an alcoholic skipper who likes to drink seven and sevens and play slalom with the icebergs and it ain’t too long ’til he hits one, spills the oil, and kills all the sea-life in the North Atlantic. So my buddy’s out of work and he can’t afford to drive so he’s got to walk to the job interviews which sucks ’cause the shrapnel in his ass is givin’ him chronic hemorrhoids. And meanwhile he’s starvin’ ’cause every time he tries to get a bite to eat the only blue-plate special they’re servin’ is North Atlantic scrod with Quaker State.
So what’d I think? I’m holdin’ out for somethin’ better. I figure I’ll eliminate the middle man. Why not just shoot my buddy, take his job and give it to his sworn enemy, hike up gas prices, bomb a village, club a baby seal, hit the hash pipe and join the National Guard? Christ, I could be elected President.
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August 1st, 2008
I set my computer playing music really loudly while I was getting myself lunch. I was warming up leftover chinese food. Daniel Powter’s Bad Day comes on and starts playing. It was almost a foreshadow sent from above.
Part way through the song I notice discontinuities in the music. Sometimes it’ll pause for a moment, as if it dropped a bit or moved to a lower bitrate. Then I noticed that every time this happened it would replay parts of the song. It is a very odd sensation when a computer starts skipping while playing a song. There is absolutely no reason for this to happen.
So my food is done and I bring it back to my desk. I am now sitting six inches from speakers that are blasting music so of course I immediately reach for the volume controls on the front of my laptop. Nothing happens. I try the pause button. Nothing. Mute? Nothing. So then I try opening the media player and I realized that my computer was frozen. Now things are starting to make sense. I’m trying to regain control of my possessed machine and it goes to a blue screen. The infamous BSOD. Mind you, while moving here, my computer started repeating one part of the song at a very high speed. It was as if there were several chipmunks screaming out, “bad day, bad day” over and over again. The only choice now was to press and hold the power button to turn it off. But I couldnt do it. The last time this happened my hard drive failed. Yes, my computer crashing while playing music very loudly has occurred before. Eventually, the chipmunks had gotten far enough into my head that it had to be stopped, regardless of the result. The computer turned off. I pressed the power button again to turn it on. It was possibly the most intense half a minute of my life as I sat there and watched the Windows boot screen. I almost wet my pants every time the progress bar ever so much as flickered. The computer booted. I heaved a sigh of relief and took a bite of my chinese food. Somehow, for some reason beyond my understanding, one more time the chipmunks screamed out “bad day.” The computer had been rebooted! There was no way it could have retained data. But it did. And as the chipmunks warned me once again, I closed my jaw on a full bite of uncooked sticky rice.
Believe me, I will never doubt a chipmunk again.
~Aman
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