The source of my DOOM!

Some things in life just aren't meant to go well together. For example, cats don't go well with matsams.
Recently, a very smart cat found its way into my girlfriend's house, by fooling her into buying him for 20 bucks. Now that she has developed and unconditional love for the beast, I can assume it is my arch-nemesis.
If you didn't know by now, I'm really really really allergic to cats. To the point where I can't breath anymore. So yes, technically, cats can kill me if I'm not careful.
Just look at the thing, 5 months old and so cute I'll never see it coming.

Pea Coat Madness

Yes, shopping madness again, I know. I can't help myself! Browsing through the weird clothes from H&M while shopping with my girlfriend, I fell upon a rather nice garment. In my defense, the item was 50% off and I've been known as quite the deal-sealer, lately. I have to live up to the reputation, right? Right.

As I looked across the internet for pictures of it, to show you guys, I came back empty-handed, so I will have to model for the cause: touching the ceiling with my hand, standing up on my couch.

~FASHION STATEMENT~

Old folks had the best chairs

There has been a situation. One I've had to deal with, because it was essential to my well-being. You see, there are two positions in which I like to express my laziness. One of them is lying down, either on my back or sideways. The second one is by sitting. Of course, sitting on a bed can be nice, but without back support, you can't be comfortably lazy for more than a few hours at a time.

My point is, you need a good chair, and mine just broke.

This piece of crap I've had for a few years now, has been the support behind those long nights working on regretting the excessive procrastination. It has broken down a few times before, nothing serious until now though. It was usually the armrests, being loose to the point of falling appart. This week, the back of the chair, consisting of a large plastic piece, ended up snapping in two, right in the middle. The result isn't quite comfortable, as it hurts my back, and I can't see myself using this chair any longer. The search for a new chair is on!

First of all, I had to consider what kind of chair I wanted. Leather is out of the question, sticky in the hot summer days, ends up cracking after a few years. I'd much rather have another fabric chair! The problem is, after shopping a bit online, the only chairs I could find that were of higher quality than mine were over 200 bucks. Kind of expensive for a student budget. That's when I remembered. I love chairs with metal frames.

Wait a minute...do they even sell those anymore? Not if you don't want to pay thousands. All plastic, everywhere you look. God damn plastic. Well, there's always the used market, right? Right.

Thanks to kijiji and a very nice guy from Brossard, I present you my recent aquisition:

I must have a thing for old furniture, but this chair suits me well. I don't see it breaking for another 25 year, even if it probably is that old already. And for 20 bucks, who can complain! I love my old chair.

Nachos à la matsam

Little food experiment I tried out: I love eating nachos, but can you that as a meal? Not really, because it won't fully satisfy you, there's no meat! Well, that's where my food experiment comes in.

Ingredients

Preparation

Now this is pretty simple stuff, but I still want to get it right. Only the tostitos, the cheese and the meat need to go in the oven, the tomatoes are better fresh and cold, they'll be added after everything heats up.

The food is ready to eat!

This experiment was quite tasty, the salsa and sour creme are always good dips for nachos, especially together. The pepperoni made it more of a meal than an appetizer. Add a hint of cock sauce, along with your favorite soft drink and you've got yourself some great nachos. I give this experiment a 2 out of 2.

Lazy Job - End of the Embarrassment

The busy moments at my job are at the very beginning and at the very end of the shift. When the day starts, it doesn't really matter because everyone is still asleep, still (no wonder, they get here at 5:45am). When the shift is over, however, this is when things get wild (not really). I don't know if you even noticed, but schools are fucking scary at night, when there's nobody else in it. One of the schools I worked in (École Secondaire d'Oka) served as a set for the horror movie "Gothika", to give you an idea.

So when all the construction dudes decide it's time for them to hit the road, I have to be the last one to get out, and I need to check every window, every door, every light after they're gone. You're going to tell me it's not a big deal, but it can really turn into a complex situation, sometimes. Here are a few examples.

Yesterday, as I was getting ready to go, I closed the few last doors, as I always do. Here's the thing though, it's not very often that they have fresh paint on these doors. So what do you know, as I held the door to close it, my hands became blue. The sort of paint they use for these schools is the mean stuff. It doesn't go away with only soap and water! So I ran around the school, trying to find paint solvent to get it off my hands(painters always carry a few bottles because it's a messy job, after all), as I learned when I was painting schools last year. My hands ended up smelling horrible, but at least they were skin-colored again.

Two years ago, as I was closing up the thousands of windows in this horror movie-themed high school, a freakin' bird came inside the school! I couldn't let the thing inside, as there would have been bird shit all over the freshly waxed floors the next morning. So I spent about half an hour chasing the winged one through the corridors, progressively blocking its way deeper into the school, towards the nearest exit. That day, I learned birds didn't have a very good knowledge of what exits look like, and what they mean when a human is chasing you. Damn you, bird! Oh well, I guess I got paid overtime for dealing with that silly business.

The same year, I was unlocking the elevator for some construction dude, since he had to get his equipment up a few floors. Usually, to call the elevator, you need to insert the key, turn it, and press the button (so that regular students can't mess with it), then, to lock the doors open, you have to turn the key in the lock inside the elevator. For some reason, when I turned the key inside the elevator to lock the doors open, they closed as I got out to ask the construction dude if he needed anything else, locking my keys inside the elevator. Of course, there was no way to call it back, since I needed that key to do so... So I started freaking out, desperately trying to find another key set. No luck. I then told the construction dudes I had no way to get their stock back down at the end of the day, as I locked the keys inside the elevator. One of the guys said he might be able to help me. He got his tools and opened the button plate. Turns out he was able to rig the wires to make the setup think I just turned the key. The elevator arrived and I got my keys back. These construction guys are awesome.

Last year, I was doing late night shifts in another high school. As I was turning on the alarm systems, I suddenly felt like the floor was moving a little under my feet. Fuck. I was walking on fleshly installed tiles! Of course, they moved a lot, and I knew they would have to start over if the cement hardened like that. I had to lie down and meticulously replace each tile, which is crazy hard to do, especially when you have no experience (hello!). All I have to say is, I must have done a pretty good job, as they never noticed the following morning.

I seem to screw up a lot, even with an incredibly easy job, but it's never anything really bad, thank Robotsk!

Lazy Job Dream

For the first time in a while, I remembered my dream last night. It was nothing special, mind you, but I'm just glad I recall what my brain created during my beauty sleep. I was doing my thing, just being a cooldude, hanging out with friends. Everything was perfectly normal, until I noticed one of my legs was noticeably longer than the other. I also observed I was walking around with an awkward posture for a while, compensating the fact one leg was longer by bending the knee. Of course, in my dream, it seemed perfectly normal for everyone, until I acknowledged it myself. Suddenly, people started asking me why one of my legs was shorter than the other, and every time someone asked me, the other leg seemed to grow a bit more. I think I was about a foot taller, standing on my long leg. I had to tell everyone that's how I was and they couldn't do anything about it. Except the more I was questioned about it, the more I had to demonstrate how I dealt with it, the more it ended up hurting. Flexing my knees makes them ache (that's a real life problem I have), and my consistently bending it, I ended up resenting my condition.

It surprised me how easily I was able to lie to people about the problem being normal for me. I mean, I knew my two legs were suppose to be the same length, but I kinda convinced myself I was wrong. As a matter of fact, I convinced everyone around me, which is not very hard to achieve in real life.

That raised a few questions as soon as I woke up. Why are people so naif and unquestioning once they've been fed a decent explanation? Are we raised to be so gullible? Aren't we taught to always use our critical thinking skills? Or maybe it's just easier to take the first thing that resembles to common sense and make it your own truth. Maybe that's how rumors can flourish in such an impressive way these days (I guess the mass-media exposure and the the internet helps).

I guess it's just weird that today's society is a mix of ignorance and obsessive knowledge. The advent of specialization, I would think. Not that it's always a bad thing; I do think it actually helps to have the possibility to learn about anything at any given time. It's a double-edged sword though. How much time I've sunk into useless bullshit, I lost count a long time ago. For me, it's a way of retiring into my own little space, taking a bit of my time to escape to another world, where the wonders of knowledge aren't restricted with grades and final exams.

Dream on.

The Fifth Element

Sunday, I went for a car ride, I was going to get my birthday present. A present partially from my parents, partially from me. That's what happens when you ask for expensive gifts. Parents sometimes prefer to spend money on floor-heating systems or pool-cleaning robots instead. But they offered me a good deal, one that I could not refuse. So we went to FutureShop to get one of these Xbox 360 bundles. After a lot of research, I noticed they had newer hardware revisions that consumes less energy and has a better chance of surviving more than a few months (I'm sure most of you are familiar with the scourge of the Red Ring of Death).

Unfortunately, it seems all the cheaper models had older chipsets, being at a higher risk from the get-go. I found out that some higher-end models had the new ones, the mythical "Jasper" units. FutureShop had a special on everything in store over 50 bucks, shaving 10 bucks off. Well, it's better than nothing, right? But they didn't have any in stock. They had up to 10 units in all the other locations of the province, but not where I went. Dammit.

I decided to try my luck at BestBuy, giving up on the 10 bucks I wanted to save. I looked in the Xbox section, didn't see the bundle I was looking for...dammit. I asked the clerk if he had any left, and after about 15 minutes of "intense" research, I saw two units on the very top shelf in another section of the store.

Negociation time. This is where I try to seal a deal. I start by showing off the coupon from the other store, telling the clerk I need a better source of motivation to buy the bundle at his store. I says he's not sure he can do anything. Dammit. Suddenly, I remember they have an offer on the Pro models, which nets you 3 free games when you buy the hardware system. Unfortunately, this deal was only available for the Arcade or Pro units, and the one I had in my hands was an Elite unit. The thing is, the Elite model costs a hundred bucks more than a Pro unit and two hundred bucks more than an Arcade unit. Supposing they don't really make huge profits on the sales of video game hardware, I don't see why they don't apply the promotion on the higher-end model.

After a long discussion, not knowing what to do with an insisting guy with too much hair, the two clerks nervously called up a floor manager. He asked if they still had Pro models in stock, looks like they didn't have any more of those, so he said the promo would work on the model I wanted. The power of the manager. It barely took him 5 seconds to decide that. Immediately, a huge grin showed up on my face. I was getting 2 games inside the bundle, and 3 more games with the promo. I think that's a decent deal. I was satisfied and decided to seal the deal. It only took about 20 minutes to find all the games included in the promo, their fault for being disorganized. I didn't mind, because I was getting the best deal, in my opinion. My mom, on the other hand, was not quite happy, as I was ruining her plans for the day.

I ended up buying the console + 5 games for the price of the console. Surely, I would have been too excited about it to do anything else but open it and try all the games, right? Wrong. I spent a splendid night with my girlfriend. We tried a new sushi place and went to see a movie. Lovely, isn't it?

When I got back, with the help of public transportation, I noticed I didn't have my home key and that nobody was home. Dammit. I tried to bang on the doors, in case someone was sleeping or something. No luck. I decided to check at the back, and found an opened window, by which I entered the house. Lucky me! Seting up the beast wasn't very hard, until I tried to connect it to the internet. You see, it doesn't have wireless capabilities, and the only official way to connect it that way is to buy a $100 dongle from Microsoft. No thanks. People told me "Why don't you just run a cable between the router and the Xbox?" Well, it at the other side of the house and crosses a bunch of rooms, it wouldn't be practical at all. I read about another solution which would allow my laptop to serve as a network bridge, taking the wireless signal received by my laptop to transfer it through the ethernet cable from the laptop to the Xbox. Sounds simple, right? I wish.

The problem is that people make instructional videos for everything today, but for whatever is computer related, the videos are only showing ways to get around with the most commonly used OS. So I found instructions on how to make the network bridge with Windows XP, Windows Vista and even Mac OS, but what do you know, I'm using the RC version of Windows 7! It's not much of a difference with Vista, but once you try to mess with control pannel settings, a tiny name change can screw you up. I basically spent all night trying to figure this out, until I read about a related problem someone had on a weird forum. All the official Windows and Xbox boards were no help. You have to dig deep into the dark realms of the internet to find the most simple answers. I ended up making it work, allowing the 360 to update to the NXE interface and allowing me to download the games and themes my Xbox came with. Because, of course, why add a game disc when you can download the damn thing into your humongous hard drive? I'll miss physical media formats. The end seems near, but until then, I'll listen to my newest cd. Arctic Monkeys' debut album: "Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not".

I just like to touch.

Lazy job 2009 – day 1

Another summer, another school, it’s lazy job time again! This year, the school is close enough for me to use my bike, but, you know, it’s still the same old. So here’s how my first day went:

I wake up at about 5:45, as I’ve been told to get there at 6:30. I get there at 6:25, but what do you know...people are already in the school...and the freaking alarm system has gone off. So I get in there, try to figure out what’s going on. I’m greeted coldly by a group of painters. They’ve been given access to the school, they have a full set of keys, but they didn’t know how to disarm the alarm system... Well here’s a chance to do something, right? Way to be lazy, matsam. I called the security place, told them it was a false alarm (that had gone for half an hour before it was reported!), but they already called the school director to inform her that something was wrong. I had to explain that when she arrived at the school, but she wasn’t surprised about the painters being there, but me...! It seems she wasn’t expecting a school guardian this year. Plus, I was told the job in this school was an electricity job, so much for communication between the school and the head office. Anyways, since all the janitors are still here, there’s really not much for me to do here. I offered help to the janitors, since the painters don’t really need anything after all the doors are unlocked. So I ended up spending most of the day talking with the janitors, small talk, but it sure is more interesting than spending 8 hours alone doing nothing. Plus, I couldn’t really help them; they were mopping the floors with super duty detergents and cleaners. My shoes probably would’ve melted if I stepped on it, and you know how much I love my shoes!

There was a bit of drama while I was talking with the janitors. A professor came up to them, to ask for some help, but she didn’t know they were using dangerous products, probably, so she stepped right into it, while the janitor was mopping and her shoes got splashed. She said it didn’t matter at the time, but then she told the other janitor she wanted to punch the other one in the face because she thought he did it on purpose or something. It ended up to the director’s ears, and then she had to try to resolve everything between the two mainly concerned.

It’s silly, when you think about it. When you work with other people, you just have to try to get along, no? Some of us can’t get a grasp of that concept, it seems. We get highly offended with little things and go cry to our syndicate. I get it when it’s about sexual harassment or violence, but little accidents, hiccups you could forget two seconds after they happen? Individualism at its finest, people, that’s the problem. Although...the concept of self-reliance isn’t well shown here. It seems hard to stand for ourselves these days. Every time something bad happens, you have to report to the authority, and people who will stand up for themselves will be schooled because they didn’t follow the protocol. But hey, we have to be politically correct at all times these days.

Anyway, I ended up surviving the day, got home, went to BestBuy to seal some deals, and went to my girlfriend’s place to help her put all her stuff in a bunch of boxes. She’s moving out in a few days, after all! I decided to use my bike once more to get there. It’s not that far, really, 15-20 minutes tops. The only think I didn’t think of was the weather. The day had been hot and sunny, why would you worry about a perfectly normal summer day? The crazy storm had something to say about that. Halfway there, it started raining a little bit. But I thought I’d have enough time to get there before I got soaked. Wrong. It was raining so damn hard I was having trouble seeing where I was heading. I don’t know about you guys, but I don’t feel so great when I get somewhere and I’m soaked from rain. I was lucky enough to be at my girlfriend’s, as she gave me dry clothes, for my personal comfort. I ended up dozing off while watching a movie, so I decided I should go to sleep early. I was probably sleeping at 11pm, which is crazy early for me, as most of those who know me should know. The next morning would start at 5am.

Musical emotions and other thoughts

There's something about music...it can make you experience a variety of emotions. It's a common technique used in movies. Then again, music can make you insensible to pretty much everything around you. It's not hard to notice these days: everyone has a pair of headphones plugged right into their ears if they're not expecting to engage in any social act of communication. I am part of the phenomenon myself, as I have trouble reading on the bus or in the metro, I'll often decide to take out my mp3 player and put on my headphones. Times passes more quickly, public transportation becomes less awkward. In an attempt to indulge yourself in the comfort of loneliness, are you not insulting our progress as a society and a community? Perhaps are we just preventing ourselves from getting involved with stupid people. They seem to be a common breed in public transportation.

In other news, I've seen live footage of E3, and I have to say Nintendo, as a company, has found the secret route to success, even in this economic crisis we seem to be stuck in. Funny thing is, this year, both Sony and Microsoft decided to copy Nintendo. Every major player in the gaming industry is now into this motion-control business. Funny how the stereotype of a gamer is usually the lazy teenager who just sits around all day, yet the most popular console encourages you to get your ass up and movin'. From my point of view, it started with music-oriented games such as Guitar Hero. Then came Rock Band, with the now iconic drum set. That got many lifeless arms and legs moving again. I don't know if it's a healthy situation for three major companies to be heading in the same direction, although I must admit I'm intrigued with what they'll come up with.

*Warning: Shoe lovers. This part of my post if for you. Shoe haters, carry on.
Have you ever had two or three pairs of new shoes at the same time? If so, how do you decide to manage them? One at a time, until they fall apart, one by one? Separate the amount of time you wear each one so they individually last trice as long? I didn't figure out the best option yet. I feel that I want to keep them new as long as possible, but then, I'll end up scarifying one pair and not wearing the other pairs! This is a terrible dilemma. I might spend endless nights thinking about it.

As I finish typing this, my laptop's music player keeps pumping out good music. Oh yes. Life is good. Rock on people, rock on.

I like this song...

Michael McDonald - I Keep Forgettin' (Every Time You're Near)

Quite a revelation from my last SingStar acquisition: SingStar Legends. The song might be 27 years old, I think it's brilliant.

Playtest time.................NOT!

This week was going to be awesome. Both Ubisoft and Electronic Arts contacted me to go try out some new game they were working on. Playtesting is pretty cool, you get to give feedback on games nobody else played yet. Gives you the impression you can help the game suck less, you know? Plus, they give you a free game for all your “hard” work.

Well, it didn’t quite work out the way I thought it would. It started with a call from Ubisoft. They had to ask me a few questions to see if corresponded to their target group. The conversation went along these lines:

Ubisoft guy – I’m going to name you a few games, tell me if you played them.

Me – Alright.

Ubisoft guy – Prince of Persia?

Me – Yup.

Ubisoft guy – Splinter’s Cell?

Me – Yeah.

Ubisoft guy – God of War?

Me – Oh yeah.

Ubisoft guy – Tomb Raider?

Me – No...uhhh...well, like just the older ones, PS1 era.

Ubisoft guy – Uncharted?

Me – Nope.

Ubisoft guy – Assassin’s Creed?

Me – Yeah.

Ubisoft guy – Um, you played Assassin’s Creed for how much time?

Me – Well, I beat it pretty quickly, so about 20-22 hours.

Ubisoft guy – Oh. You beat it. Okay. Well, that focus group is already full, so...tell you what, we’ll put you on top of the list for next time, alright?

Me – Yeah, no problem, bye.


And so the first deception was over, but I said to myself “hey, at least you have another playtest with EA tomorrow, right?” Right... So the next day, I go to the place, had to get there early to get my monthly pass for public transportation. As I came up to the lady to buy my pass, she looks up to me, as I ask for a specific one. Then she kinda started yelling at me for some reason. I didn’t really understand what she was saying, because she had this huge accent. I ended up showing her some ID. That seemed to calm her a little bit. I ended up buying the damn thing, finally.

On my way to the building, I passed by a few stores, and since I was early, decided to check out some of them. SingStar bundles are 30 bucks at La Source, might have to get one of those, as one of my microphones is dead (yeah, I sing a lot, got a problem with that?). Checked GameBuzz, saw used copies of Bust a Move 2, Bust a Move 4, Resident Evil 2 and a few others priced between 200 and 300 bucks each. Ridiculous. I took a mental note to never buy games there.

Arriving at EA’s suite, I took a seat, waiting for them to come and take me to the testing room. Well that never happened. A guy came up, told the secretary they had some computer problems and to refuse people who came for the focus group. Great, they were supposed to give us pizza. There goes my dinner! I went back home talking to this other guy about how lame the situation was. We were told we’d be called first for the next playtest though. Like that compensates for getting us to travel all the way there.

DENIED. Twice. Dammit.

Party time!

Yo, danced and got drunk.

Pizza experiment

This is probably the site that inspired me to try this experiment. I wanted to mix two foods I enjoy eating. One of them is pizza, which I didn't bother making it, since I had a frozen one I could use. So I started by ripping all the healthy ingredients off the pizza. Then, I decided to cook my second ingredient, Pogos (corn-dogs, you silly Americans). But I only half-cooked then, since I wanted to put then on the pizza while it was cooking, so they both could integrated each other's flavor.

I started cutting slices of Pogos and put then on the pizza, then put the whole thing in the oven for a while.

This is the result.

This is the result, half-eaten.

I couldn't even eat everything and didn't feel very well after having done so. It was tasty though, you just can't eat tons of it. I give this experiment 3.5 out of 5. I still prefer eating both separately.

Chocolate madness

Chocolate. Who doesn’t like chocolate? I like chocolate. I enjoy all kinds of chocolate. Dark chocolate is my favourite, it’s like classy chocolate. Well, unless it’s extremely pure...ever tried 99% pure dark chocolate? If you did, you’ll agree with me that it’s disgusting. The packaging even tells you to eat it with something else, like tea or coffee. I only like chocolate with milk, or maybe fruits, which might be why I like chocolate fondue.

Milk chocolate is so overrated. The sad thing is most people refer to milk chocolate when they talk about “chocolate”. I consider it cheap chocolate, the one you always get for Christmas or Easter, and you get tons of it, it’s not even a treat anymore.

White chocolate is the unsung hero of the chocolate family. It has lost popularity in recent years. I remember getting some when I was really young, and it was always the special chocolate, the one you wouldn’t eat too much because it was so rich, also because you only had a few of them, next to the huge pile of milk chocolate.

[random food]-flavored chocolate is overdoing it. You know those chocolate oranges you have to hit on something before eating them? Yeah, that’s not so good. I’ve had raspberry-flavored chocolate too. The concept it good, because chocolate is usually good with fruits, but the flavors mix up too quickly, and it ends up ruining everything. I don’t recommend it.

Kinder Surprise. Admit it, it’s awesome. I think I asked for one every time I went shopping with my parents, as a kid. This one isn’t so much about the chocolate though; you get a free toy inside! Oh my god! Although Kinder chocolate is still milk chocolate, I have to say it’s really tasty. As I grow older, the toys also get lamer, but you can’t beat the nostalgic aspect of this one.

Oh, I almost forgot about chocolate covered food! For example, when you get an ice cream and decide to treat yourself with something special? Yeah, dip it into the liquid chocolate and you have upgraded your ice cream from good to great. Also, the chocolate-covered cherries they give at Pacini with your bill? Genius. That’s a tip booster right there.

On a side note: PK, chocolate eggs are okay, but as long as the eggs are made out of chocolate. If that’s real egg covered in chocolate, that’s just gross, dammit!

(The picture if from a chocolate hotel room where everything is made out of chocolate. Godiva and The Bryant Park Hotel in New York teamed up for this. Madness.)

Exploring foreign sounds

Voler de ses propres ailes

I’ve been a college student for almost 2 years now. Having to travel a few hours just to get there makes one wonder: is the comfort of your parents’ home worth all the trouble? Of course, some might say it’s just a bad moment you have to endure, but then again, aren’t college years supposed to be one of the best parts of life? I feel like I’ve been missing out because of the current situation. Example: I can’t hang out until 4 in the morning because public transportation ceases all activity after 11:30pm. Sure, Kevin will offer me his couch once in a while, but I can’t always rely on that.

So I’ve been thinking of moving out for a while now. Just the thought of not spending 3 hours a day in the bus/metro gives me the impression I’ll have so much more time on my hands that I won't even know what to do with it. Yet the parents don’t seem to think it’s that simple. It’s kind of ironic though; after getting yelled at for years, threatened to be kicked out if I didn’t help out around the house enough, suddenly, when I became serious about the idea of moving out, they confronted my ideal with everything they got. Their arguments ranged from the economic situation of our country to my tendency to procrastinate. I don’t blame them; I can understand being worried about someone who has never had to deal with complete autonomy, but god dammit, I wouldn’t be the first idiot to dive into unknown responsibilities.

Anyway, I think my parents just don’t want to be responsible if I fuck up and can’t pay the rent. They seem pretty confident that I can’t make it on my own. I guess I’ll have to prove myself. We’ll see.

In other news, I just finished Tales of the Abyss. That took a while!

Third time's the charm

I got my good ol’ laptop back in September 2007. Back then it came with Windows Vista. Little did I know back then that this eye-candied OS wasn’t meant to be on this mean machine. The “Windows Vista” sticker was a trick! Although it wasn’t the best computer ever made, it was fully capable of running a mainstream OS with basic applications, or so I thought... an Intel 1.67GHz Core2 Duo with 2GB of RAM is still a decent laptop, a year and a half later, but it wasn’t enough for Vista. Oh, but I can already hear the nerd hoards, blaming me for not tweaking my settings and cleaning my registries and unused program files. Shut up, I always took care of my computer like and semi-skilled computer nerd would. The OS was unusable on Power Saver settings (what can you do when you’re in a class with no electrical output for 3 hours?), Windows Explorer crashed every now and then and most of my peripheral simply wouldn’t work with my laptop, because pretty much every company gave up on Vista support from the start. I would try to plug in my HP scanner and my computer would send me to their website, thinking I would find a driver for it. But no, the only solution HP found for my Vista/scanner problem was something like this: “No driver has been developed for the OS you are currently using. Please consider our new Vista-compatible line of products [link]”. Thanks a lot, HP. Heck, even one of my optical mouses wouldn’t work with Vista. And no, Service Pack 1 didn’t fix anything.

So I ended up thinking about how happy my life was when I was using Windows XP. Sure, XP might not be as pretty, but at least it’s fucking functional. I decided to switch from Vista Home Premium SP1 to XP Professional SP3. That was probably the best decision I made that year. Suddenly, all my performance problems disappeared, explorer didn’t crash anymore, all my peripherals worked right out of the box. No problems at all. How could Microsoft create something they call an “upgrade” if it actually feels like I have upgraded from Vista to XP? All went well until about 2 weeks ago. I started getting blue screens, right when I was studying for my mid-term exams. I did try to fix the problem by looking up the blue screen error numbers. It pretty much came up as “You have a software and/or hardware file and/or driver malfunctioning and/or corrupted.” Good luck trying to find what it was. The blue screen problems disappeared as soon as I finished my exams. Ironic.

Windows 7 has been in public beta stages for a while now. I know a few people who have been using it, and I haven’t heard anything really bad about it yet. The deal is that the OS in beta is free to download and use until the 1^st day of august. Of course, they stress out that Windows 7 is still “for testing purposes only”. What the heck, it can’t possibly be worse than Vista, right?

I have been using Windows 7 Build 7022 for a few days now. A new build came out, but that also means a new Windows install, so I guess I’ll pass until they get a major update out. The OS is a mix of Windows XP and Windows Vista, with an interface that strangely resembles to Mac’s OS. The Action Center makes any problem you might have disappear in an instant, probably the only feature that made Vista look like a more user-friendly OS compared to XP.

I have to say, having made a fresh install of Windows Vista, Windows XP and Windows 7, the later is by far the easiest. The only concern about installing XP or Vista is dealing with driver installations. You basically need another computer to get the drivers online if you didn’t get a CD including them with your computer (most laptops don’t come with them nowadays, companies like to pre-install all the crap) for XP or Vista, but with 7, the OS automatically detects available networks, asks for the password, and a few moments later, the OS works its magic and everything is fully functional, nothing to install, no drivers to mess with. Windows 7 wins at being user-friendly. Most people don’t like to mess with computer settings, so why not? Action Center detected a problem for my Bluetooth driver, but the “Fix it” button really did fix it. 30 seconds later, I pretty much had the same computer I had merely 3 hours earlier sans blue screens, thanks to my backed up data on my external HDD.

Compared to XP, some programs are faster on Windows 7, some are slower. I noticed Skype started up in a fraction of the time it use to take on XP and Firefox 3 (3.0.7) is a lot slower. The minimum requirements for Windows 7 are a lot higher than the ones for XP, but with my 1.5 years old laptop, it’s fairly similar. I think Microsoft finally got it right this time, but it’s still a long way until they make a final release. To quote Kevin : “ils ont encore 6 mois pour scrapper ça avant de le sortir”. Indeed.

One laptop. One year and a half. Three operating systems.