"The meaning of progress" toilet paper

Fedora mailing list it's boiling over about the launching preparations for Fedora 11. I hope it will not be like my previous marketing endeavours.
My love with marketing departments goes way back when I was a layouter for a small newspaper. The marketing guy would come and make me do a stupid layout with a lame idea bossing me around just because the cleaning lady and I were the only persons that listened to him. The frustration of having a fancy job name but actually being a driver/secretary (until recently called so) would transform any reasonably dim person in the perfect reason why my unbrevetted chef-d'oeuvre invention would be a success: "The One Shoot Office Gun Dispenser".
Years later, when I was boss enough, it was my favourite pass time to fuck them over and watch them vomit a learn-by-heart Kotler phrase to justify why their idea is better than the one the doorman passed me that morning. I'll always end the argument with "ok you deserve your salary now go and mimic some more work".
What's bothering me most are the overly "catchy" but meaningless slogans like "The future of Quality" for a chocolate bar or "The meaning of progress" for some toilet paper. Trying to appear smart, slogans end up being just words put together without any semantic relevance. If you have a toilet paper why not "Wipes your ass" - dammit, this is what it does!
And of course there is the meeting dynamics! Gustave Le Bon, Durkheim and Baudrillard would be in experimental study heaven in any marketing meeting. The boss, trying to conceal that he has no idea what the meeting is about and didn't even opened the documentation listens to the marketing babbling and goes something like "Yes, and we also have to convey the idea of progress and how young and fresh our company is". The marketing jumps on the wagon with "Of course, we thought of that. We want to go with 'progress'" (he's mental abilities allow him to remember only the first word mentioned). And then, the recently fucked secretary, proud of her new cunt power starts climbing the organisational ladder: "Yes 'progress' is good". The joke of the hangover-plagued design guy goes unnoticed "What is the meaning of progress?" so the sales, now knowing where the tides are turning, seal the faith of progress: "'The meaning of progress', yes, that's good, we can go with that. I have a client that has for his stores 'shopping for progress', he would like that".
People, please, if you really need them (for whatever reason that might be) please, please, please, don't make them "smart".

Memento mori

It starts like any other casual mirror check-up. You walk past a mirror, catch a glimpse in the corner of the eye and stop to see who's there. Straighten the posture, suck up the belly, up the chest and there you are. The same, everyday, you. It's the perfect opportunity for some nose picking and soul-searching. You come near the mirror to frown upon the rate your new beard grows and try a charming/sarcastic smile. On the verge of discarding the embarrassing narcissistic moment with "I need a bath and a haircut" it strikes you. First, one near the temple, than more on the hair line, everywhere. I have grey hair! I will die. But no, it's not that easy, first I will suffer all the indignities and incontinences, continuing to fear the future, glorifying the past while carefully avoiding analysing the present shit I am in. I remembered Philip Roth's Everyman, a book that scared me senseless. I swear to read it again at 60 and commit suicide if it doesn't make me laugh. It probably won't. I probably wouldn't.

Linux support is better

Why is it better? Because one asking say "My mouse it's not working in Fedora" will never get the infamous "It seem to be a problem with your mouse, please contact your wall socket vendor"
You get honest answers, human answer, like "Dunno", "Go away", "Fuck you", "Go there and read". I prefer this any day over the lines learned by heart by some idiot in a support centre whose job is to get rid of me as fast as possible without telling me anything. If I ever go into politics I'll have my speeches written by a guy from a phone line.
More over, since installing linux you already made a statement about what you are ("I'm willing to learn something new"), the experience of going through forum threads to find that others have the same problem will actually be positive, we'll make you feel you're not alone. In opposition, with commercial products, where you get to forums as a last resort when you are already angry so, reading endless posts of "I have the same problem", will only get you even more frustrated and revengeful.
And lastly, you get a decent option of "Up yours! I have 2 university degrees, so treat me like I don't know command line code not like I'm a retard". In a corporate support centre you don't get this option because your interlocutor IS a retard so it wouldn't be a fair argument.

Not for reading

This post doesn't say anything. It's for verifying that the keyboard really has a problem or I'm just typing wrong for a reason or another (most likely because I'm an imbecile!!). Yet no typing problem just the usual orthographic misspells that I'm already used to and will be screened by the computer for me (because it is sooo much smarter than me). The thing is that I'm finding myself often typing in the wrong places (a few lines up and few words to the left or write or just in another box altogether). It feels like somebody is pressing behind my back Tab, Up, Down and other such keys. Well it's now a few lines and nothing happened so probably it's just me not being used with the Vaio keyboard.

By the way I would like an add-on to the spell check that puts a explanation to the word that it's suggests. Something like this can be than avoided by analphabets like me:

Spell Checker
I halve a spelling checker,
It came with my pea see.
It plainly marks four my revue
Mistakes I dew knot sea.

Eye strike a key and type a word
And weight four it two say
Weather eye am wrong oar write
It shows me strait aweigh.

As soon as a mist ache is maid
It nose bee fore two long
And eye can put the era rite
Its rarely ever wrong.

I've scent this massage threw it,
And I'm shore your pleased too no
Its letter prefect in every weigh;
My checker tolled me sew.

iBook my love

As I switch to KDE from gnome I tried to update my drivers for my graphics card so I can enable desktop effects. Big mistake! I downloaded the file from ATI and installed (with sh /"file" at the command terminal). Reboot and... black screen and PANIC!!!
Boot from Fedora DVD, choose restore, read the screen, and after the chmod /mnt/sysimage I get in the command mode. The aticonfig --initial -f I write down from the end message of ATI driver installer doesn't work. Now what?! Now we go to the good'oll iBook and come the internet for a solution. Found uninstall command for ATi driver and we are back in business. Than, with desktop environment back on, I could find this which worked (almost) like a charm. I gone on with the first steps but had the devine inspiration to do new-kernel-pkg --mkinitrd --update $(rpm -q --queryformat="%{version}-%{release}.%{arch}\n" kernel | tail -n 1) BEFORE restarting X11 with init 3 (witch crashed my system). After reboot dough everything was fine and I get the awesome KDE desktop effects. Still the hero of the day is iBook. It was my first apple laptop (my second all time) and I give it to mom 3 yrs ago after 2 yrs of using it myself. It still goes so it deserves a picture!

My briliant plan works perfectly!

At least the part about insanity. I managed to get fired from volunteer work!
It's not necessary surprising, just amusing. I'm smiling through this madness because I don't give a shit any more. Yesterday I went to Bucharest to finalize the sale of my office and I bought a huge LCD TV. I wonder what miracle happened so I didn't drop it out the back of the car or install it facing the wall.
I'm so out of sinc with everything that I keep having deja-vu's. Reminds me of "Adam and Eve" - a novel (Rebreanu?) about an impossible love repeated in it's tragedy throughout multiple reincarnations. I hope it's my way to cope, not the start of some mystic phase or grand epiphany. I still need to think that people can control their destiny. I'm not ready (yet) to give up and blame everything on fate. I'll be a little longer the small lab rat that tries everyday to take over the world. The delusion of The Brain and his little help Pinky it's still more appealing than fanatic faith and bigotry.

Recap day 6

All my life has been a obstinate daily struggle to avoid the conclusion that I'm an imbecile. Lately my weapons are getting blunt, my self-esteem armour shatters and my will to fight slips away in face of the overwhelming power of evidence.
I'm reading a book called "Java in 21 days". At firs I said "I'll do it in 7". Now, 5 days later, at day 6, I'm getting a day off for recap because last night I've started to read only the words without understanding anything. And whatever you might think reading my so-called English was not because of language issues.
I'm down to Lennie Tristano witch is only a step away from Keith Jarrett / The Koln Concert - the bottom of musical depression in my charts. Speaking of music, I hate that lastFm doesn't work and I'm afraid to search google to find that I have to "yum - shit" than "su bash some more shit I don't understand" All the good intentions and high moral standards of Fedora and others pales when you're deprived of music. Like this for example: