Author: kenwheaton

Dear manufacturers of electronics devices. I know you think your device is so intuitive that a drunk baby could figure it out. And I appreciate those six-page quick-start guides that let us–especially the guys–just fire up our toys and get going. BUT YOU SHOULD BE INCLUDING THE ENTIRE INSTRUCTION MANUAL WITH MY PURCHASE.

Here’s the deal. Many times your product isn’t as intuitive as you think it is–especially when it comes to setting or changing preferences. And this includes you, Apple (though this particular rant isn’t inspired by an Apple product). And some of us LIKE to read instruction manuals or at least have them handy so that we don’t have to call tech support, which typically means calling a guy in India who will then read the instruction manual to us.

Sure, I know. I can go to the web and download the PDF. But you know what? I just shelled out hundred of dollars for this thing. Why should I have to take more time to go download a PDF and then, if I’m so old school I want to print out the instruction manual (maybe so I can multitask on the toilet), waste 200 or 300 pages of my own paper and all that toner cartridge or ink (or, in some cases, my employer’s paper and ink).

Listen, I get it. Paper and printing is expensive. Especially when research shows no one is reading the damn instruction manual. And this lets you claim to be environmentally aware–“Oooh. Look. We’re saving paper. Oooo.”

But I don’t care. I want my instruction manual IN THE BOX. And, also, I hate trees.

Marion Barry might be the star of his own cracked-out life, but he gets seriously upstaged by his lady friend in these transcripts (and audio clips!). Go directly to Clip 10 and listen for this bit.

You put me out in Denver cause I wouldn’t suck your dick. You put me out in Denver! You made me have to fuck your ass up in the middle of a [unintelligible]. We were like fuckin’ Tina and Ike Turner.

I guess upstaging him isn’t hard to do, though, as the long rambling messages he left for her sound sort of pathetic.

Perhaps the media is making the Ayatollah’s point. Since the revolution in 1979, one of the main concerns of the theocracy in Iran has been America’s cultural imperialism. And while I don’t think any of us purposefully set out to dominate foreign cultures with American pop music, consider this. What does it look like to people fighting — and dying — for freedom in Iran that every single mainstream media outlet in the U.S. — and, yes, their audiences — have completely forgotten them to make a god out of a skin-bleaching bankrupt freak who had weird relationships with children and chimpanzees?

Yes, he gave us some brilliant music back in the 1980s. And yes, we are more than capable of holding two thoughts in our heads at the same time. There’s nothing wrong with putting on your red leather jacket with zippers, and your white socks, and your sparkly glove and curling up on the couch with that boom box you had as a kid. There’s nothing wrong with you driving around your town with the windows down playing “Man in the Mirror” to the point your windows rattle. And if you want to gather a few thousand of your prison buddies to re-enact Thriller, knock yourselves out.

But that our media, in the midst of Iranian revolution and nuclear bloviating from North Korea, has gone completely over to the death of a mentally unstable pop star doesn’t say much for our priorities. What are we gaining by having the anchor repeating the same clips and then throwing it to someone standing outside the house or the hospital who’s learned absolutely nothing new (well, I guess that is sort of like covering Iran or North Korea.)

Maybe the Iranians should get some money together to run ads during the Michael Jackson coverage. Or the Mark Sanford coverage. Or the Farah Fawcett coverage. Maybe that way they’d get our attention.

And you damn kids get off my lawn!