THE TECHNICALLY INCOMPETENT

Notice anything in what I ignorantly choose to call my "weblog"?

Well, I do. And it's called being technically incompetent.

I have never understood the mechanics of how these weblogs work
without having to take a Ph.D. in Computer Science. Not something
I have ever been the least interested in doing. I already own enough
vellum to wallpaper the National Library of Congress in Washington,
D.C. Or more appropriately, McGill University's library.

I don't know how to write code, I don't know how to do pretty things,
I don't know how to write proper "tags" anywhere, I don't know how to
link things to other things, but my worst sin of all is perhaps that
frankly my dear, I don't give a damn. Seriously, I don't.

I still write longhand, on yellow lined legal sized pads of paper,
and whatever else is at hand, and use my good old fashioned manual
Underwood typewriter, on which I can type 120WPM, no sweat.

On my very first personal computer, a cute little NEC notepad, circa
1987, Windows95, I had thrown in a copy of Microsoft's Office Suite
which came with, of course, a Word Processor. I still laugh about it.

The whole damned thing, in 1987, came to over four-thousand dollars.
Correct: 4,000$ ++. cash! Wonder what this in 2011 dollars?

I never got the hang of any of it, and the very first time I tried
using that Word Processor to write a poem, I soon realized how useless
the damned thing was for me. I didn't need Excel. I never excelled in
math. I still count on fingers and toes. Thank heaven for calculators,
or I'd need to grow more fingers and toes.

Ever try writing a poem in MS Word? It's a joke.

That was the end of my using any kind of word processor. Give me a
typewriter. I miss the sound that a typewriter keyboard makes. So
much so that I used to have a little app that added the sound of
a manual keyboard to my computer keyboard. It was neat and comforting.

I also find that computer keyboards are slower than typewriter keyboards
if you, like me, are a speed typist. Another thing that I have found
over the twenty years or so experience using computers is, that for me,
they cripple my ability to think creatively. There is something cold,
impersonal, and hard about a computer. Nothing but zeros and ones.
GIGO. Garbage in, garbage out.

Typewriters aren't like that. They adapt beautifully to their owners
over decades of use. My typewriter "talks" to me and smiles a lot with
every carriage return. My computers - four in all - never did any such
thing. Mostly they call me "stoopid". And they are right. I am when
it comes to computer software.

In order to anything really well, one has to have a passion for it,
and the patience that goes along with developing the skills required
to do it all well.

I have my passions and my skills in the those things that I am
passionate about. When I am good, I am a force to be reckoned with.
But when I am bad, for lack of interest, I am horrible. I balk, I
groan, I moan, I witch, I become obstructionist.

I have a Printer than can do everything but make my breakfast in
the morning. It sits right on a filing cabinet here in my office
right next to me. It isn't even connected. Oh, I used it a few times
only to discover that even in draft mode it ate up the National Budget
in ink. To heck with that! So it sits in glorious silence. I fondle
it and turn it once in a while just to see if it is still alive.

It is.

Carbon paper is so much cheaper. (laughing)

I have a new computer that would be a lot of people's dream machine.
It isn't mine. More like my worst nightmare. It came loaded with
Windows 7 Premium OEM - the damned think isn't backward
compatible with WinXP and goodbye Outlook Express, say hello
to Windows Live Mail. Get Win7 Pro, you'll be glad for my caveat.


That's where I end this, before I blow a gasket.

Oh Underwood...