Bringing this pile closer to critical mass than ever before, a ThrustMaster T2 steering wheel was added to the pile this week, thanks to the fact that several members of this household are racing fans, with NASCAR being the preferred discipline around here. So far, I haven't been able to figure out how to keep my car off the wall at Martinsville, but I have Talladega down pretty well...
This week marks the twenty-fifth issue of The Sledgehammer, although there are a few weeks when procrastination won over. For those of you who came late to the party, despair not. Next week, the official Sledgehammer 25th Anniversary Edition will be available for download, containing all twenty-five issues (for offline reading), some previously unpublished material, as well as a surprise or two. For the hardcore Sledgehammer fan, this is one not to be missed! Only $19.95 plus 3 dollars shipping and handling. Or, if you're a cheapskate, go ahead and download it from the Web site. The Sledgehammer, bringing you hard-hitting commentary for just about twenty-five weeks! (Forgive me if I just started sounding like one of those guys from an infomercial there, but the Annversary edition will be available next week.)
Also this week, it appears that Leslie Goff of Computerworld Magazine has hit the stopwatch on my fifteen minutes of fame. This turned out to be a total surprise for a number of reasons. In the article, which can be seen here, The Sledgehammer barely edged out I HATE COMPUTERS! as their choice (although I am sure that Tom Fasulo, the writer of IH8PCs, would probably argue that the reviewer had been brainwashed by their computer. It is amazing how many sticky situations one can use radical conspiracy theory to get out of...) For one thing, I figured that I had used up those fifteen minutes of fame many years ago when I won the school Spelling Bee, and to find that they were still there came as a complete and total surprise. Now if only I could remembre how to spell...
Second, I found out some interesting things about myself in this article. For example, I didn't know that I was a contract programmer... It seems that since this article was written, I have developed almost instantly the ability to program in C++, at least enough to create a hosed system or two (ok, so I still can't program, but I just had to find some way to sneak in the word "hosed" in here somewhere. For those of you who want hosed systems without all of the trouble of programming, I would suggest loading AOL 3.0 for Win95.) For the record, I am just your average run-of-the-mill sarcastic computer geek who happens to work in tech support and write a weekly humor column on the Internet. I also found out that I have cutesy names for the systems on my "home-office LAN." I am wondering if I should rename my systems "Genghis Kahn," "Napoleon" and "Atilla the Hun" to remedy this problem? I also wonder if I should ever get to implementing my plans to upgrade from a LAN to an intranet? That way, I would have vicious names on my home-office intranet. Don't you think that has a better ring to it?
Anyway, that aside, me, my dad and two brothers all went to the US Hot Rod Association "Monster Jam" last weekend at the concrete chamber of horrors that we Seattlites like to call the Kingdome. "Metal Carnage" was the order of the nighyt, and there were 10 different monster trucks there, including Bigfoot, Grave Digger and Snake Bite (lovely names, aren't they?). I actually found this to be a rather thought-provoking experience. WAIT! Before you cart me off in a straitjacket for calling the privilege of sitting in a packed dome filled with smoke that has no means of escaping, less than fifty yards from ten 120-decibel car-crushers a "thought-provoking experience", let me explain here why this was the case:
First of all, I noticed that Bigfoot and Snake Bite were each sporting a Microsoft logo decal on their sides. This makes me wonder if this has anything to do with an otherwise inexpressible desire to crush the competition like a bunch of junk cars? Microsoft seems to have something with monster trucks all of a sudden, so I wouldn't be surprised to hear those very words come out of Bill's mouth. The other thing I noticed was the fact that Bigfoot's front bumper now sports a URL. There are few things these days that a URL can't be found on, most of them natural (although I can be sure that a few wackos out there have had their home page tattooed across their forehead.) I can just imagine some archaeologists announcing that the tombs of ancient Egypt have been found with URLs among the heiroglyphics, all of them pointing to web sites that went down thousands of years ago. It kinda' makes us wonder where society would be at this point without the miraculous invention of DNS resolution. Just imagine what life would be like of all of the TV commercials were putting cryptic IP addresses like 204.157.237.61 near the product logos. Webvertising would be one pratfall after another. Just like it is already.
Although the monster trucks were obviously the big draw, there were a bunch of other things on the side. One of these was "Quad Wars," a race between two teams of guys (and one gal) on four-wheelers racing with no rules (which leads me to wonder why there was a yellow flag during the race.) All in all, the whole Quad Wars thing was about as convincing as a WWF match (I am sure they could have made the whole ending to it a little less cheesy.) Kinda' line the demo versions of some programs we see out there (Yes, I know, that's kinda' stretching it for an analogy, but that's the best one I could think of right off the bat.) Mark Hager, the resident lunatic for the USHRA, also went for the world record for the longest jump in an indoor stadium with accompanying explosions on the first Saturday in January. I'm not quite sure, but I think he may have actually got the record too. The explosions of the two mortars rocked the Kingdome for almost ten seconds. According to Ken Bering when he was trying to get the Seahawks out of Seattle, such a temblor would have reduced the Kingdome to a smoldering pile of concrete debris. If it had actually done so, it may have still taken days for anyone to notice.
The best part of the night, however, was the demolition derby at the end. As 21 cars slammed into each other, filling the air with a thick cloud of smoke (with nowhere to go in the enclosed stadium), the msot inspiring thought of the night came to me. The scene of the demolition derby is perhaps the best representation of the computer industry in it's current state, except for one thing: If it were really a true representation of the industry, Bigfoot, sporting a very prominently displayed Microsoft logo, would come over and reduce the warring land yachts, station wagons and other junkers to sheet metal.
Finally, as I departed from the scene of such carnage, I continued to ponder. Would there be some way to duplicate the chaos of the demolition derby using computers instead of cars? After some more brainstorming about the thought, I began to wonder if you could pack a whole domed stadium with geeks to watch a bunch of 286s and Mac SEs strapped to office chairs and ramming into each other, with the last one being able to boot being declared the winner? And if that weren't enough to keep the geeks entertained, we could bring in the monster trucks to smash a pile of obsolete systems to little, insignificant pieces. At least with crunch cars, they can be sold as scrap afterwards. I know of quite a few people who would pay to watch a pile of old Macs reduced to splinters under the tires of a monster truck.