Damazon!

Well, no Tiger for me... or for a lot of other Amazon customers.

Apparently, late Thursday night, the status of dozens (if not hundreds) of Tiger orders placed with Amazon went from "To be shipped" to "Being prepared for shipment"... and stayed there all day Friday.

Actually, the Amazon order information system spent all of Friday in a state between useless and somewhat-less-than-useless. At any give time, the system was either completely unavailable or it persisted in telling me that I'd have Tiger that same day, even though it hadn't shipped yet. (This same tale was retold in may Slashdot posts.)

Now that Saturday is here, the system tells me that my order actually shipped out Friday morning at 8am, which means I'll have it Monday. Late Monday.

To be fair, this is the first real problem I've had with Amazon. Usually, things arrive much more quickly than Amazon's estimated delivery date. It's cruelly ironic that this order, which actually IS something important for my business, should be hosed while the 2nd season of "Coupling" arrives a week early.

So, now, I have to decide if I can actually wait till Monday, or if I should head to Atlanta and pick up a copy today. (I actually need an extra license. The Family pack I ordered from Amazon won't cover all the Macs we need to upgrade. And we need to get one for my wife's grandfather too.)

But, I probably won't go yet. I've got a new storefront to build for my biggest client (demo on Tuesday!), and I'd probably just end up buying yet another Macintosh. (Which, as mentioned earlier, I could really use.)

Ah, Life is good.

Diz

Waiting...

Well, today's the big day for Mac users such as myself.... It's the official release day for Mac OS X version 10.4, also known as "Tiger".

Unfortunately, Amazon doesn't seem to have shipped my copy yet, so here I sit, trying to decide what to do next.

Should I:

* Hop in the shower and risk missing the UPS man and then begin the hellish UPS-missed-package tango?
* Do some actual work and just wait for the damn thing.
* Forget the whole thing and just go to Atlanta and buy a new computer (which will come with Tiger)? I really DO need a new computer... my original 12" PowerBook, while still serving me well, is beginning to show signs of advanced age.

Hmmm, when you compare and contrast this dilema with that of ancient man, things certainly have improved haven't they? Here, the worst thing that can happen is that I miss the delivery of a tiny box (or have to wait until Monday for that tiny box), whereas an ancient man would have a decision tree that looked something like this....

Uh, oh. Tiger is outside cave.... Should me:

* Run from cave and hope Tiger not eat me?
* Hide in cave and hope Tiger not come in and eat me?
* Hope that not bear me just steppe....

Yep, quite the improvement.

Diz

So, it's come to this....

A blog.

Sheesh.

One surefire way that an IT "professional" can tell that he's getting old is to dismiss a useful new technology or process without ever having tried to use it himself.

So, blogs are stupid and I'm getting old.

I suppose the real issue is that I've been doing this stuff ("computers," as we used to call them) for so long that I completely missed the social aspects of it all.

In MY day (here it comes), computers weren't networked and you used them all by yourself, or with your buddy looking over your shoulder. And the room was ALWAYS dark. Even the user group meetings took place in basements and other dark, dank locations.

Then, when the Internet came along, all I could see were $$ and the potential applications for business. (My business specifically. I used to publish GS+ Magazine. Which was open-source before we even knew what that was.)

I completely failed to notice that there were children being born and actually growing up surrounded by the Internet. The thought that some of them might grow up and be smart, and actually contribute new ideas to the Internet..... crazy talk. They can't even wipe themselves!

And then I had kids.

Ah, my kids.

Some days, I'm convinced that my little geniuses will unify all the forces of nature in a single theory, which will be called "Princess-Snake Unified Field Theory". String theorist Brian Greene will be dismissed as a "poopy head" and people around the world will say, "Einstein Who?"

Other times, I fear that I'll still be helping them wipe their butts when they turn 35.

My worst fear is that some horrid combination of these two scenarios will come to pass....

"Hey Dad! Thanks for coming to CERN! I've just discovered the super-symetric partner to the graviton! But, before I show you the data, could you help me wipe my butt?"

Yes. Kids are stupid. And Blogs are stupid.

And now I have both.

Diz