A Vain Hope

I've mentioned in passing somewhat recently that we've been having some issues with my daughter's softball situation. To say that there are "issues" is rather an understatement, in fact. It is so much an understatement that 1. My daughter is no longer on that team, and 2. Her leaving that team did not automatically make those issues go away, and we are still dealing with them. As such, I can't really go into said details although I would really like to.

All of this has me thinking, though, about my rather vain hope that at some point I would come across people who would just do the right thing. I mean, seriously, how hard is that?

I'm not talking about the asshole who is doing the wrong thing, either. When the asshole gets called out for being an asshole, you expect the asshole to double down on being an asshole. It's what assholes do. If assholes did the right thing, they wouldn't be assholes.

However, the people responsible for the asshole often don't appear to be assholes themselves, and there is always this hope that those people will do the right thing. A vain hope. Because the people in charge of the asshole tend to respond to the assholery by 1. trying to cover it up, or 2. saying the asshole didn't do anything wrong, i.e., the asshole wasn't being an asshole; you're just wrong/too sensitive/whatever. Oh, or my favorite (one of them, at least): The asshole was just doing his job; therefore, he is not really an asshole.

There are so many examples of this kind of thing in society which all turned into scandals and had movies made about them. heh I've even reviewed some of those movies. Take a look!
The Big Short -- At any point leading up to the financial crisis, there could have been people who said, "Wait, this is wrong. We're being assholes..." Oh,wait! They were all being assholes, so I guess that's why they all doubled down on their assholery and brought the whole country down with them.
Spotlight -- One of the absolute worst cases ever of protecting assholes. I mean, of all people, we expect priests to do the right thing, and, yet, by not being willing to put a stop to it, they perpetuated and made worse the... perhaps using the term assholery here is inappropriate. They made the situation worse. Much, much worse.
Philomena -- Again with the church but with nuns. And, again, the very people we expect most to do the right thing.

And I could go on with the examples, but, then, I could go on endlessly with them. Both very public examples like the ones above which were made into movies and smaller examples from my own life or from the lives of people I know. Oh, no, wait! There is one really good one that didn't even involve assholery, at least at the beginning. The whole thing with a mechanical problem with a rented U-haul trailer for which the manager wouldn't take responsibility. She wouldn't "do the right thing," which ended up costing U-haul way more than should have and costing her her job. (I talked about it back in this post.) It was definitely a situation where doing the right thing would have cost her absolutely nothing and, yet, she refused, and it ended up costing her a lot.

It's inexplicable to me, really, this way that people fight against doing what's right. Especially when that's actually the easy thing to do. I don't get it. I really don't.

And, so, now, I find myself in another conflict with people who have decided against doing the right thing. And I think it's because they believe I will just go away and let the thing drop and they will be able to get away with doing nothing to make things right. I'm sure they think that because that's what most people would do. That's what the other family that had the same thing happen has done. They let it drop. But, well, these people don't know me very well. I spent a month pursuing $80 from U-haul and, another time, most of a year pursuing a situation with Dell over a laptop they didn't want to fix. Those were relatively small things in comparison, and, honestly, it wasn't the money I was interested in either of those situations. If the woman at U-haul had just apologized for what had happened with their faulty trailer, even if she hadn't offered any reimbursement, I would have let the matter drop. Instead, she backed into that whole "It's not our fault" position and "we don't owe you anything." This, though, this is my daughter, and that's a whole new ballgame (yes, I'll claim the pun). heh Maybe, one day, there will be a movie made about it.

The Transition

As I've been mentioning recently, my computer died. It was an old computer, and, by all rights, past its time. I knew it was going, and, especially, I knew the video card was going. I kind of hate video cards. I had a huge drama with Dell many years ago over a video card and my first laptop. The only laptop I've ever owned because of the drama over the first one and the fact that it spent most of its life as an over-sized paperweight. That's exactly what I need, right? I a $1500 paperweight that was too big to be anywhere useful while it held that designation.

The problem I have with getting a new computer is that they have always changed so much since the last  time I got a computer. What I want is not a new computer but my old computer back again but faster and more intense (any Star Wars person out there worth his salt should get that). I sort of have the same attitude about shoes. I hate new shoes. I hate looking for shoes. I hate trying shoes on. New shoes never feel right on your foot. Old shoes feel right other than the fact that they are falling apart and causing you to trip as the sole flaps around at ground level like a dog snuffling for food. And, you know, tape just doesn't work to hold the shoe together because it wears out too quickly as you walk around on  it. It doesn't matter, though. What you want is a pair of shoes that feels like that part but without the floppy bits.

Or maybe that's just me.

So I really didn't want a new computer; I really just wanted my old computer back the way it was when I first got it but still able to do all the new things that it wasn't really capable of doing. That's why I put off for so long doing anything about the fact that I new I needed to do something about the video card. Well, that and the fact that I really didn't want to spend the money on
1. a new video card in an old machine that wouldn't be able to keep up with the new card.
2. a new computer.
Money is always tight, and new computers aren't in our budget. But, as I said recently, I have to have the computer, so, when the old finally went off to wherever old computers go when they die (which, right now, is actually behind my chair but which will soon be the garage), I went and got a new one. Actually, the reason for the new one is that it was going to cost as much to get the old one going again as it is to buy a new computer.
[That's actually something I hate, the disposableness of technology due to repair costs making it more cost efficient to buy new stuff. It wasteful, and our society needs to do something about this issue, not that I know what  that should be, but we need new attitudes around this stuff.]

Another note: I've always owned Dell computers. This is not so much because I love Dell or anything, but it's always just sort of worked out that way. In fact, there have been distinct periods of my history when I have absolutely abhorred Dell (see the incident with the laptop (okay, so I haven't actually told that story, but I'm not sure you really want to hear it, because it involves something like 80 hours on the phone with Dell (and that's not hyperbole -- I actually spent 80-100 hours on the phone with Dell over issues with the laptop))), but we always ended up with Dell anyway.

I needed a new computer. I needed to not spend too terribly much money on it. I needed it now.

Of course, the first thing I did was look at Dells, and I liked the prices, but I needed more information (because looking at the specs is like trying to read a foreign language, and I'd actually do better with some of those). One thing that's different with Dell since the last time I got a new computer is that you can actually go to a physical store and buy one (and, if you don't remember/know of a time when you couldn't go to a store and buy one, that should tell you how long it's been since I had a new computer), so I started calling around trying to figure out what I should I get, and, then, going in to places to look at stuff (and get all of my documents pulled off of my old computer (which is anxiety inducing)).

In the end, I didn't get a Dell (but I did get my documents). What I got from pretty much everyone I talked to is that Dell has crappy video cards. In other respects, they make the better machines, but you better just plan to get a new video card right off the bat. And that was the decision maker, really, because, at the price point I was looking at, I was told by a Dell fan that I should go with the HP (which was also on sale) because, if I bought the Dell, I'd need to get a new video card for it, which was going to up the price $120, which put it out of the price I wanted to spend (which was actually $0, but, you know, those don't exist).

I own an HP, now, and I don't know how I feel about that. But it's less of an issue that I now also have Windows 8, and I do know how I feel about that.
I hate it.

Oh my gosh! What were they thinking?

I get that we're heading into a tablet world and that's why, in effect, I could even replace my desktop, right now, because tablets are driving down the prices on desktops and laptops, and that's cool, but I did not want Windows 8! I don't own a tablet or anything like it. I haven't even used the Kindle I gave my wife for her birthday, which is the first and only mobile tech we have, so this whole touchy/feely thing we have going with our new technology is bothersome to me. I don't like it, and I don't want to have it.

The forced leap from Windows XP to Windows 8 is not a fun one is what I'm saying here. I don't like the interface. I don't really like anything about it. Sure, I know I'll get used to it, just like breaking in that new pair of shoes, but, right now, I don't like it. And I certainly don't like having to adapt to a whole new system when I'm feeling stressed about losing a week of work and two deadlines. All of this while knowing, in my head, that one day Windows 8 will be the old pair of floppy sneakers that I don't want to get rid of.

Still, for the moment, can't I just have my old shoes back?

And this, women, is why guys never throw out their old shoes.
Just sayin'.