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As a gleeful summer of adventure, intrigue, mayhem, debauchery, love, beauty, and abandonment comes to a sorrowful close… and as a semester of coffee consumption, living in the library, coffee consumption, insomnia, and coffee consumption begins anew, I feel somehow compelled to start up this blog thing once more. I long to twist the throttle of this grand blogging machine… to rev the horribly inefficient wankel rotary engine of the blogmobile once again. Yet despite my enthusiasm, it’s difficult to know exactly how and where to pick it back up.

Regardless of the impending difficulty, here I am, reporting for duty. And wouldn’t it be nice to report back with the following statement… which, as we all know, is somewhat of a personal goal of mine: “Dude, I like couldn’t blog all summer, cuz I was like totally in jail.” Regretfully however, I did not spend the summer in jail. In fact, my summertime run-ins with the law were nil… excluding the casual “Hey, how’s it going?” to the stray crossing-guard here and there. Disappointing, I know.

But yes, here I am. And I know the real reason why I’m blogging again. I’ll get to that in due time, though first I’d like to share my rationalization/justification for hopping on the blogwagon again: Blogging keeps my my brain from atrophy. It provides me with an opportunity to flex my vocabulary while simultaneously broaching important topics that are deserving of… nay, entitled to blog-o-spheric attention (like my Keens… which are quite possibly on their last leg (last foot?)). Now that the semester is gearing back up again, it’s high time I attempt to gear up too. That dusty ol’ lump of gray matter has lain dormant for far too long. Brain, awake from your summer’s hibernation! Arise and think again! I can feel the neural synapses firing already… either that, or I’m undergoing accelerated brain-rot. Well, it’s still more brain activity than I’ve experienced in an entire summer… so I’ll take it!

Okay… acceptable? Good. Now, here is the real reason that I’m starting this blogging thing again: PROCRASTINATION. Yeah. With the onset of gobs upon gobs of more important things to do, (like homework, reading, studying, etc…) I feel drawn back to the blog. Back to the distracting, intellectually devoid, yet pleasantly time-consuming realm of sam bot dot com. And not a moment too soon. Less than an hour ago I was sitting attentively in my first class of the semester. There, we were assigned hundreds of pages of reading, much writing, and some intense thinking. Yet here I sit with coffee in hand (lovingly swiped from the faculty lounge). Blogging. And hot-damn!, does it feels good.

Today, on my 28th birthday, Apple released the widely anticipated MacBook (sans the “Pro” suffix). Clearly, this is a birthday gift to me. “Happy birthday, Sam. Here’s something to lust over.” And lust I will… cuz this ‘book is da bomb! (Look… I’m old now. I’m not even going to pretend like I’m still (as if I ever was) hip, cool, or in-the-know. My elevated age entitles me to say things like, “da bomb.” It’s my right as an adult. Roll your eyes if you must, but know that one day adulthood will come knocking at your door too. And if you choose not to answer (like I did), adulthood will bust though the wall like the Kool-Aid man. Although instead of saying “Oh yeah!” and relieving thirst and boredom with brightly-colored sugar-water, he’ll be brandishing a briefcase and a box of Fiber Flakes and be shouting something bland like “Buy low, sell high!” while day-old office coffee spills from his voluminous yellowed pitcher body. Yep, the UnKool-Aid man will come for you… in the night. And you’ll never be kool again.)

So anyway, the new MacBook (remember? That’s the topic of this post… geez, I’m so distractible these days. It’s an irrefutable sign of my age, I suppose) comes in a very slick and very evil black shell. And if that’s not incentive enough to purchase one, then I just don’t know what is. Anyway, I won’t bore you with all the specs… just the new and notable ones, like: This MacBook has a 13″ widescreen with a glossy display. The base model clocks in at 1.8 GHz with an Intel Core Duo processor. There’s an iSight camera built in, iLife ’06 is included, and it comes with that cute little remote thingy for Front Row. Additionally, you got the MagSafe power feature and this ‘Book supports an extended desktop (not just display mirroring) when you connect up an external display. All this for just $1100 ($1050 if you’re a student).

That’s hot! Me want.

Well, the semester is over. It was grueling. But it’s done. And now there’s finally time to concentrate on some other, more important, passions. Like my fondness for all things dead. Yep, I like dead things. I like ’em so much that I think I’ll start a new blog about ’em. Let’s call it ILIKEDEADTHINGS.com, and let’s read a bit from the intro:

It’s true. I like dead things. In fact, the deader the better. And why? Well, it’s really quite simple: I’m a disturbed young man.

In actuality, however, I’m very well-adjusted. I am. Really. Just ask my Mom (she’ll also tell you that I’m handsome and quite a catch. Hi Mom!). It’s just… well, I’ve always had an obsession – no, let’s call it a fascination – with elements of a darker nature, yet I’ve never been one to take this fascination too seriously. My unyielding love of zombie movies, for example, is a prime illustration of this characteristic. The zombie movie, while exhilarating in every sense of the word, is just a movie. I heart zombies. I really do. But I also know that they’re not real. And you know what else? They’re kind of cute too… in that helpless kitten sort of way. All they want are some brains or flesh to feed on. Is that too much to ask? Wobbling around and moaning… they’re just hungry. Anyway, my point is that zombies, while decaying desecrations of death, are pretty darn delightful. Wait. Is that my point? No, I think my point is that as I maintain this blog, I will strive to keep one foot firmly planted in reality and will always attempt to have my tongue firmly positioned in my cheek. And so, despite my love of all things zombie, I know that, realistically, there is no legitimate reason to worry about a zombie outbreak (in my lifetime, anyway. My housemate has always said, “When it comes to zombie infestation, it’s not a matter of IF, but more a matter of WHEN.” Ahh… bless her paranoid little soul).

Fine fine fine… So you like dead things. I get it. But, what does your unhealthy obsession… er, fascination have to do with this blog? I mean, what the heck is this thing about, anyway? Well, I’m glad you asked. I LIKE DEAD THINGS is about all things dark, disturbing, and… well, dead. Posts will range in topic, but every entry will be united under one universal theme: creepiness. Yep. No blogging about the Care Bears on this site… unless they’re mutant bizaaro Care Bears that come alive during the night to collect human eyeballs. Yeah, that’d definitely be blog-worthy. But, it’s important to note that, much like my fascination with elements of a darker nature, I LIKE DEAD THINGS will never take itself too seriously. It is my intention to find the humor amidst the creepiness, and blog about it without remorse.

Let’s recap, shall we?

1. I like dead things. It’s true. I do.

2. I’m very well adjusted. Just ask my Mom.

3. Zombies are delightfully cute.

4. This blog is about all things dark, disturbing, and dead.

5. Despite the morose theme, this blog will endeavor to find humor amidst the death… and it is there. It may be at the bottom of a pool of blood, but it is there. And I’ll find it. I’ll wade through blood until I stub my toe against it. And then, of course, I’ll blog about it.

And there you have it. Enjoy… if you can.

So, please take a gander at my newest blogging endeavor:

I LIKE DEAD THINGS

It’s sure to make you pleasantly nauseous.

As a general rule, no story, anecdote, or blog entry has any remote chance in hell of being interesting with a title that reads, “The Other Night in the Library.” Unfortunately, this post is about events that transpired the other night in the library. So, in a half-assed attempt to provide an excuse for a half-assed blog entry, I opted to keep the title as accurate as possible. And maybe… just maybe, this stimulating post will help to eradicate the stigma that hovers around anything whose topic is library related. Let’s break down the walls of stereotypic oppression! The library isn’t just a place of academic introversion! No sir! It’s a thrilling realm of adventure where excitement can be found around every bookshelf… umm… see, here’s the problem. Excitement can be found around every bookshelf!? Typically, “bookshelf” isn’t part of an adventure exuding vernacular. The word “bookshelf” kind of lends itself to… well, more of a library-esque atmosphere.

And here we are. Right back where we started. So, I give up. Sigh. Anyway…

The other night in the library… I think it was Friday night (I can’t really remember. The last couple of weeks seem to have been smooshed into a blurry torrent of coffee consumption, writing, and librarying). I do, however, know that it was 2 a.m., because I was the only soul in that place. It was a pathetic new low for me. While the entire campus was out doing whatever the cool kids do on a Friday night, I was in the library… doing whatever the uncool kids do on a Friday night. No, not Dungeons & Dragons. I was being a studious grad student. Geez…

The icing on this particular cake of shame, came when the lights in the library decided to turn themselves off. My immediate thought, of course, was that the library had closed up around me and I was locked in and I was going have to eat my own leg to survive the cold dark night alone (at which point, consisted of a short six hours before the library staff opened up in the morning. But still…). As I stood up in the darkness to confirm my doom, the lights turned back on. It occurred to me at that point that the lights were controlled by some kind of motion-sensing apparatus. I had been sitting so perfectly still that these library light robots had thought me to be either dead or furniture. Either way, I felt comforted by the fact that the library automatons considered my nocturnal existence to be of such little consequence that even light, a fundamental staple of life, was an excessive indulgence and really, I should be able to get by just fine without it. Oh wait… did I say, “comforted?” I meant demoralized.

Anyway, the point is that this semester, while grand and wholly edutastic, needs to be over. Right now.

Yeah, yeah… Apple did the 17 inch, Intel MacBook Pro thing yesterday. Yee-haw! It’s got a whole boatload of great stuff, including blah bliggity blah blah blah…

Look, it’s a nice machine and all, I’m just not terribly excited about it. Firstly, it was inevitable. No surprises here. Nextly (okay… come on now, spell check! Nextly!? That’s not a word!? Are you sure?)… and I should note, the following complaint isn’t really targeted directly at the new 17 incher. No, it’s aimed at the entire population of 17 inch behemoths. Really people, these things are like the size of a coffee table. Slap some legs on these suckers, throw a few magazines on top and you’ve got yourself one hell of an over-powered piece of furniture… not to mention costly. Yeah, I come from the school of thought that any piece of furniture can (and should) be constructed entirely out of milk crates and plywood. And if you want to “jazz” things up a bit (you know, to impress the ladies), just staple on a few towels. Not only does it provide an added layer of comfort, but you can wipe your hands on it too.

Okay, where were we… ah yes: Nextly, it’s one big mofo. Doesn’t that sorta, ya know, defeat the whole portability thing? It’s a laptop. Shouldn’t it be able to fit on one’s lap?

Anyway, I’ll be impressed when the li’l 12 inchers pop out… or maybe the 13 inch wide screen version. Yeah. That’ll be hot.

I received spam today. It somehow bypassed the otherwise exceptional, Mac OS X Mail spam filter, and landed straight in my inbox. While this, in and of itself, is nothing to blog home about (as I’m sure we’re all fully aware, however, I’ve been known to blog about much less. Much, much less. So this really shouldn’t come as any surprise. But I digress…), I found one certain component of this unsolicited email to be particularly eye-catching. The sender of this spam, who unabashedly asks the question that’s been haunting us all, “Tired of low-quality Chinese and Indian medications?” goes by the following name… a name of such ultimate coolness, that I feel compelled to put it on its own separate line. Ready? Peep this:

Motorcycle H. Satanic

Now if that’s not a power name, I don’t know what is. Motorcycle H. Satanic… try it out. It rolls right off one’s tongue like a delightful bit of drool. And gosh… I just want it to be my name. I want to be Mr. Motorcycle H. Satanic. I want my business card to read “Motorcycle H. Satanic, Professional Wrestler (or whatever).” I want to hear, “Mr. Satanic, your gold-plated, diamond-encrusted battle droid has just finished its detailing session. Care to take it for a spin?” Ahh… with a name like Motorcycle H. Satanic, the world would be my oyster. My gold-plated, diamond-encrusted battle oyster.

The blogosphere is abuzz with an overabundance of banter about Boot Camp (ahh… alliteration. I feel like a MacAllen brother). Clearly, there are those who are more qualified then I to talk about Apple’s controversial decision to allow the devil (a.k.a. Windows) to coexist on Mac hardware. It’s just that my Macintosh punditry, while self-proclaimedly (okay… self-proclaimedly!? That’s definitely not a word) insightful and glorious, is fueled largely by half-baked ideas, under-researched facts, over-caffeinated enthusiasm, and a deep-rooted, passionate love of a company that can do no wrong (unless they release an iPhone). So, I’m sure you can easily find a plethora of Mac bloggers that actually substantiate their writing with verifiable facts. And I support that… I really do. I just don’t employ that particular tactic myself. No, I prefer to proliferate the rumor mill by adding preposterous fuel to the fire. “So, how ’bout that Apple PDA that’s set to be released next… etc.” But you know what? I have no problem with you straying and reading their well-crafted and thoroughly researched insights. Hey… all the more power to you. And all the more power to them… with their fact-checking intern monkeys, or quick google searches, or whatever. If they’ve got the time to fact-check, then let the bona fide facts fly! All I’m saying is, it’s just not for me. I’ll make up my own damn facts, thank-you-very-much.

Phew… now that that’s out of the way, I do have one last Boot Camp related thought/complaint/idea/confusion to bring up… and then, I promise sam bot dot com will return to its regularly scheduled rambling mayhem:

So Apple released this Boot Camp software thingy that enables Intel based Macs to natively run Windows. And this is okay and legal. Microsoft isn’t complaining and much of the computer using world is happy. So then, what’s stopping a company like Dell from releasing their own version of Boot Camp… essentially a piece of software that partitions the drive and enables their hardware (through new drivers and such… just like Boot Camp) to run Mac OS X? In other words, if Apple is able to say, “Sure, run Windows on our Macs,” then why can’t Dell say the reverse, “Sure, run Mac OS X on our Dells”?

Clearly, Windows is not licensed to run on any singular piece of hardware. I mean, you can find a copy of Windows putzing around on any generic beige-box PC out there. But, is Mac OS X legally and exclusively bound to Apple’s hardware? Can anyone who legally owns a legal copy of Mac OS X legally install it on any legal PC hardware… legally (assuming, of course, they have the technical know-how)? I just don’t know.

See, this is why I need my very own fact-checking, unpaid, intern monkey. Well for this, and of course to provide me with a constant and steady flow of coffee. That’s what internships are all about, right? Getting coffee for your superiors… maybe lunch too. Eh, whatever. It’s like a rite of passage. A sucky, not-unlike-slavery, working-for-nothing, lowest-rung-on-ladder, I-wish-were-dead, is-this-really-what-it’s-like-in-the-real-world, craptacular, rite of passage. Yeah, I definitely need to get me an intern monkey.

This Windows on Mac announcement really came out of nowhere. Well, I guess that’s not entirely true. The Mac rumor mills have spat this one out before… but of course, they’ve also reported that Microsoft is going to buy Apple, Steve Jobs is a robot, and that Apple is making an iPhone. The point is, it’s hard to know what to believe… and doubly so concerning rumors reporting some kind of Apple and Microsoft amalgam. Come on now… Boot Camp!? Who woulda thunk it?

Right… so, it’s called Boot Camp… and Apple is the first to admit that it’s only a working title. Boot Camp, in essence, allows a Mac OS X user who’s rocking an Intel based Mac to install and run Windows XP natively on their hardware.

(If this were a podcast, I would definitely insert that corny sound effect of a record needle being pushed violently off of a spinning record. You know… that sound signifying that someone has said something so completely nonsensical and absurd that it stops the party dead in its tracks… as all the happy party-goers turn and stare in horror. Yeah, you know the one I mean. Well, it’d be so appropriate here… don’t you think?)

Is this a good idea for Apple? Will it get more people to buy Apple hardware? Shit if I know! What I do know is that it definitely sweetens the deal a bit. My only question is whether the consumer, who knows that they can now natively run Windows on their Mac (legally and Apple authorized!), will assume that this merger will inevitably lead to a Mac OS that runs natively and legally on PC hardware… maybe. In short, if Windows can now run on a Mac, it’s logical to assume that Mac OS X will, in time, run on a PC. So, will the consumer simply wait for the release of Mac OS X for their PC… so they can install it on cheaper PC hardware?

Regardless, this Apple Authorized dual-boot is intriguing. Especially now, considering the fact Apple is the only hardware manufacturer that can claim that their computers can boot both Mac OS X and Windows (natively and legally). That, in itself, is huge.

Well, let me tell you: My nose is encrusted with those crusty crustules of dry, raw skin that form from the excessive blowing of one’s nose (despite the addition of Puffs Plus to the flu fighting arsenal). My body aches, and my eyes won’t focus. My voice is all but gone, and I’ve switched fully over to tea instead of coffee (how am I expected to be productive without coffee?). There’s piles of used tissues surrounding me… a wall of ill-health keeping the sickness in. I am constantly dehydrated. And the mucous… oh the free-flowing gallons of greenish goo… I’ll spare you of that one.

But, I am feeling better than yesterday. And I suppose I’ll feel a bit better tomorrow. And perhaps a bit better the following day. And, with some luck, I’ll be at 100% awesomeness for the weekend.

In the mean time, however, feel free to share in my misery. In fact, let’s all enjoy this sickness together (after all, sharing is caring). Let’s revel in the gross noises, the gross fluids, and the all-encompassing grossiosity that is this flu. Let my grossness be your grossness. It’s a celebration of disgust. And a gift from me to you.

Aren’t you glad that you asked?

Oh this vile sickness,
Filling the hollow of my soul.
It scalds the walls of my throat,
Digging spurs deep in the red raw flesh,
Escaping with a savage violent cough
That shakes pieces from the sky.

This is the sickness that dwells within me.
Vile, raw, savage.
It has found its home,
For now and forever.