It's cold outside

So I take cameras to the 'cons or what have you thinking I'll snap tons of photos of freaks but end up chickening out because I start feeling like such a prick for shitting on what generally are a bunch of people just goofing off and having a good time.

But I found that even I have limits.

What devotion! ... for me to poop on! So what were all these folks doing in front of a computer store on a Monday night in January? Another new video game console? Some Apple product? Perhaps a DVD release? A game or game expansion pack? Celebrity appearance?

Not really.

The swearing starts at 10:01pm The little crusade I went on for the Wii over x-mas, which involved way more standing outside in the cold than I'd care to admit, was probably among the most degrading experiences I've been through. But for my troubles I knew I'd be rewarded with amusements well-documented in the press and expressed by the lucky colleagues that managed to get one themselves.

But an OS upgrade??? Even in the best cases, OS upgrades are huge, tedious ordeals that require re-entering settings, file copies, installing new hardware, resolving driver issues, patching software conflicts and incompatibilities, and restoring the functionality that often took years to establish. To stand out in the cold for even an hour in anticipation of this seems a little nuts to me. And yes, I include the beloved Mac in all this -- it's a lot less painful, but a chore no less.

The analogies abound. I'm most reminded of those times when your prof didn't have his act together enough to assemble your midterm for you, so he had you queue up and pick up sheets of the test in sequence and staple them together yourself.

Anyway, things being as they are, I'm sure Vista will find its way onto a computer near me eventually. I'll have these poor saps (all of which were Asian, which struck me as interesting) to thank when I go on google searching for the solution to those obscure problems that are never properly documented anywhere.

Godspeed, you nerds. Godspeed.

DISCLOSURE:

As to why I was there in the first place, I was out trying to pick up a USB 2.0 card. The new video iPod I just upgraded to over the weekend won't sync over Firewire.