Windoze Ate

Well here we all are back on the 'funway'. It seems that the boys in Washington have a new toy for us. I am at the very least shy to try it; and for good reason. It was designed for someone else; that someone who likes purty party lights and shots of Tequila followed by 16 ounces of real Budweiser; not that watered down garbage...real man beer...for the real beer gut. Folks like this buy every new game that comes along and also follow the leader on the web going from location to location to play the latest and the greatest. Finally, the PC comes into its own. It is a machine which can play games. The days of crunching numbers, making estimates, keeping track of inventories, writing novelas, poetry, and F U letters ....well maybe not F U letters..... have drawn to a close. 
Windows 8 is pretty. And that is that. Useful, it is not. Helpful, it is not. The brain trust at Microsoft has already decided that the public will be goaded into purchasing screens which can be swiped with various combination of fingers to do what the mouse STILL so admirably and easily does. Things we took for granted are hidden behind waves of incomprehensible doorways which must be negotiated just to uninstall a file..... What is this?
Ubuntu Linux, even taking into account that the latest disribution has an interface which many users do not like, is thousands of times better than Windows. And Ubuntu Linux is faster, easier to use, more productive, and can read books, play music, and get you into Netflix such as never before. To this day, however, and to its detriment in the minds of game frenzied space maggots there are still no games such as those available on WINDOZE. WHO CARES?
This last build I have put together to take the place of my HTPC running Windows 7 in the living room uses the new A series chip from AMD. The video is part of the CPU; such that GPU and CPU use the same small space. And it works. It works very well. And it does a fantastic job on HD movies and videos on my 50" LG Plasma. The screen is still. The colors accurate. And the resolution is right up there. The only thing wrong is that it is running Windows 8 as a favor to my wife. The machine exiting the living room is going to my son in Nashville. It is running Windows 7. I wish I could keep that one. No use crying over spilled milk. This experiment is showing me that Windows has not come a long way. It is still stuck with the same old add on architecture it has been dragging along for all these years. There are more holes in Windows 8 than can be found in a round of Swiss Cheese. Horrible pop up ads appear everywhere. And even when one asks for a download of a given program, it drags along all kinds of commercial garbage it can find along the way. Funny, Linux programs are generally all free, and are free of tag-along advertising. Isn't that what we were trying to achieve with the ALL PAY Microsoft computing system? 
The opening screen in the new windows is a wall of colorful blocks. It makes me think that the producers of the software feel that we cannot work above the age of third graders and need to be talked down to at all times. It doesn't get any better. The cute backgrounds continue with lots of movement and ever-changing headlines. There are no paragraphs of written material; only short sentences which beg one to touch the screen for the rest of the story. But don't tarry, they only last an instant. My attention span is a lot longer than that folks. I am not a second-grader. I don't like information in bite sized pieces. This Windows 8 is garbage at any price. 
I know that I am not alone. Great business aggregations are NOT buying Windows 8 because it does not fit in their workplace. Windows is cute, not production driven. I used to work at Unemployment for the state of Florida. A touch screen would have been completely useless and a real waste of time in our workday. Some of them will transform their systems to Linux; not many, but enough to prove that Linux has grown up so much that it is workable with its handy GUI in the day to day workplace. And then, the user at work will realize that the file system is so logical, and easy to use that there will be no need for the Windows crazy system of music files all over the place. In Linux it is root and branches and that's it. The same name can be on a folder in several places in Windows. That's not confusing? 
I had purchased two Windows 8 home versions from Tiger Direct at an incredible discount. This one will stay on the machine. The other will go up for sale on EBAY. I can't sit down at the computer only to have to do house-keeping and inane searches all night looking for help when the same thing might be accomplished on a Linux machine in a much shorter and happier time. That's it. That's all. Dump Windoze. 

Here we are skipping into May, la-de-da and other such, and my latest Atlantic Monthly arrives with the news that we may NEVER run out of oil. Isn't that grand? Here we have all been worrying, well not the absolute right wringers (hands and such dontchaknow),that everything would come to a stop in the Western world and our red capitalistic friends in Peking (I still think of it as a duck) manage to get along with smog the thickness of Carvel, and a penchant to create a car which runs completely on coal. It could happen.....
So I, to get out of Hellando from time to time, take the South Korean SUV on the road to the home of country music several times a year. At least in Nashville, there are seasons which change on a regular schedule. It's nice to say that one is on the verge of planting and weeding again and to have a Spring which lasts more than a day or two. Mind you, Hellando has two definite seasons; one hot as Hell and the other not so much. That makes the 'city beautiful' (for real ... ask the chamber of commerce) home to all the n'er do wells of the U.S.A. and several other countries for most of the year. Hellando and its' environs used to be pretty. Now, with the onset of Mickey mania and Universal days in the water and upchucking after a flight on the Hell mobiles (better known in my time as roller coasters), there is no place safe at all in this state. We are governed by a man who calls himself Rick Scott. What happened to real names like Grover Cleveland, George Washington, and Samuel Adams....oops....he became a pricey beer.....
There is no hope for this state. I lived in Mexico as a child and speak English almost as well as Spanish. Florida needs to move all the WASPS north of Gainsville, and give the rest of the territory south therefrom to the keys to the new state of Miami. That makes sense. As one approaches Miami on I95 one can scan the AM dial and find that the Cuban radio stations come in more clearly than some of the fire and brimstone religious outlets broadcasting locally. Down in the keys I imagine that with the help of a good outdoor antenna system, on a HOT as HELL summer afternoon, one might enjoy that pina colada and Cuban baseball on the tele......but that's for the future. All the Puerto Ricans who cannot back their own 'isla de encanto' for complete statehood will surely find something to do in the new state of Miami. There will be jobs created for those seeking to work as border guards; and of course, the legions of Limbaugh fans can get jobs erecting the wall of separation between the white breads and the bean eaters. Sharpshooters will be needed. That will make the NRA happy.
 My wife asked me yesterday what neutral country was I thinking of moving to....... I'll tell you a secret..... With Spring in Hellando coming on.....all I can think of is escape. Two things are for sure. Wherever my wife and I manage to go to retire there will be more than two lousy seasons, fewer crowds, more trees and hills, and you can bet your bottom dollar that I will not divulge the location. Signed....TeaGee .... Ticked Off