Just what every beautiful mountain view needs: icons floating in the air and a large black bar filled with crap on the side. Thanks, Microsoft!

I bought a new computer with Windows Vista pre-installed and in the first few days I’ve learned quite a few things:

1. Windows Vista Hates Old Programs: Sure, it looks nice, but just about every piece of software I have from June 2006 back has had problems installing and running. I’ve been able to patch a few, figure out odd work arounds for a few and simply given up with a few others. I’ve found that running most older programs “As Administrator” and with “Windows XP Compatibility Mode” turned on seems to usually work. Sometimes you have to do this even for the installation programs.

2. Windows Vista Loves Having Stuff All Over The Screen: There are now buttons and gadgets and shortcuts and doodads and widgets and doohickeys and wizbangs all over every window and screen you come to. Some of them are duplicates of commands you can find elsewhere, some are not. I have at least four different ways (desktop shortcut, Quick Launch Bar, Programs menu and a Gadget) where I can launch most items from. After installing any program I find myself then surfing around the screen deleting shortcuts.

3. Windows Vista Hates Making Decisions: I’m constantly being asked if I really want to do relatively simple tasks such as moving files or running installation programs after dropping in a CD. And it isn’t just a gentle reminder: the screen practically blinks, everything else goes dark and I’m given a question like “An unverified program is attempting to run. Do you wish to allow it?” Golly, with that kind of detailed information I can definitely make an informed decision. I’m sure there’s a way to prevent Windows Vista from trying to protect me from myself, but I haven’t stumbled into it yet.

4. Windows Vista Loves Showing Off: There are all sorts of silly graphics and animations that really don’t need to be there. Windows Vista comes with about a bazillion programs for doing a little bit of everything, but for each feature and neat program I discover I find myself saying, “That’s really nice. I wish it could do just a little more…” I can’t, for example, figure out a way to easily put shortcuts to the programs I use on the Start Menu. So I just turned off the Windows Vista version and stuck with the “classic” Start Menu.

5. Windows Vista Hates You: No matter how you think things should work in Windows Vista, they never really do. There are some nice features, but there are just as many little quirks and burps that if you’re used to using an older version of Windows then you’ll surely be frustrated and perplexed for the first couple weeks. And though there have been a lot of improvements, there are still some usual Windows “what the hell?” moments like how it sometimes freezes up when you move shortcuts around on the program menu.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m glad I upgraded because it does look kinda nice and there are plenty of features that I’m sure I’ll learn to love. Most of these features used to need third party applications, but now they’re built in for better or worse.

And, besides… it’s not like I really had a choice.

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For the third time in three years I am slowly living through the death of a Maxtor hard drive. This time it’s actually the boot drive, so my PC is gradually descending into data hell. I regularly back up most things, but I still have lots of little programs and data files that I’m not sure that I backup all that regularly. So now I’m running against the clock, grabbing all the files I can and throwing them on secondary drive much like someone grabbing prized possessions while running from a burning building as the flames climb the walls.

This PC is a little over six years old, but I’ve been upgrading pieces here and there throughout its life. I’m not particularly sad to see it go because it was never a “new” PC. It was built from a combination of old parts and new parts after I had a very unsatisfying experience with a computer that I had just bought from computer store that looked like a cow. The problem was that I was working for the computer store that looked like a cow at the time.

I don’t even know if I’ll be able to finish this post before the drive starts clicking again and my entire system freezes into a sleep from which it will never recover.

Soo… suggestions on what PC brands are actually worth buying these days?

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Quick! Which end of the baby does this belong to?

If I showed you a list of things I cared about before becoming a father I can guarantee that someone else’s poop would not be in my top 10 list. But having a baby changes your priority list so that truly important thoughts like “How did Michael Bay manage to make The Transformers Movie suck and not suck at the exact same time?” gets mixed in with “Did the baby poop in the last 12 hours? And, almost more importantly, what kind of poop was it?”

Yes, there are “kinds” of poop. And they’re very important.

You knew that, of course. You probably even paid attention to it when you weren’t feeling well. But baby poop is a lot more important than your own poop. You see, a baby’s poop is about as close as one gets to actually having dashboard gauges on your little bundle of joy. If Baby has too much rice and bananas and not enough liquid and you get… well… you get nothing. Too much fiber and prunes and you get mud pie city in his pants.

When you have a baby these types of poop aren’t just some passing fact that is forgotten when the fan is turned off. As a parent poop becomes something you study and hold up to the light and clap and cheer about. Poop consumes your life when you have a baby. Poop becomes an actual conversation topic that you could go on about for days.

“Did the baby poop today?”

“Yes, he had a load in his diaper when he woke up.”

“What kind was it?”

“Brown and a little sticky. It was good poop! But do you think we’re giving him too much rice?”

‘Hmm, I don’t know. Yesterday he had pellets, but the prunes seemed to have helped. It wasn’t black at all, right?”

“Oh no, not at all! Say, remember that green sticky mustard poop he had when he was born?”

“Ohhh yeah! That was so cute!”

“Yeah… Ahh, good times… good times!”

“Those are the memories we’ll cherish…”

This sort of talk counts as foreplay in our house these days.

As a parent you’ll experience each end of the poop spectrum and everything in between. Our little Baby Coffee has had days where he produced nothing but screams and little poop marbles which were harder and more perfectly round than any space-age ball bearing I’ve ever seen. We’ve also had days where our little angel from heaven has shot water out his butt like it was a fire hose.

The trick, of course, is to regulate your finely tuned poop machine with every kind of food so that your baby doesn’t produce solid poop marbles through screams or poop slushies with giggles. Keeping baby’s poop consistent requires the same precision and balance that you normally reserve for regulating the chemicals in your swimming pool. It isn’t always an easy task and there are times when the science just doesn’t add up.

For example, we’ve learned that our Baby Coffee can turn a mere 3 spoonfuls of prunes into approximately 350 gallons of poop in about 24 hours. This, of course, makes no sense at all. This has also led me to wonder if I can sell baby poop as some sort high-end organic fertilizer to rich snots on eBay. So far my wife has prevented me from trying. She never lets me have any fun.

We’ve also learned that if we bring Baby Coffee anywhere within 50 feet of a banana or piece of rice his little backside clamps up like Alberto Gonzalez before a Senate Committee: we hear a lot of noise, but nothing substantial ever seems to come out.

You don’t truly understand any of these poopy predicaments until you actually become a parent for the first time. No book in the world can explain why normally sane parents get as excited over a little pile of poop in a diaper as they would if they just found a diamond in their Cheerios. We just do.

For those of you who not yet parents: you probably shouldn’t read this article. It might gross you out and prevent you from ever having children of your own or ever touching a baby again.

For those of you who are parents: have any of you tried fertilizing your garden with this stuff? Hmm….

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