Eric Karns

Check out me and my buddy’s food review/food related blog site. We’re planning on redesigning in the future and adding more interactive features, but for now we’re hoping it builds some steam. We’ve been pretty impressed with the enthusiasm of our contributing writers thus far…

I switched desks yesterday and now have a window - which is really nice since I needed 2 lamps to light my old desk.

I was driving down Constitution ave. tonight just a little while after game 7 of the Capitals, Flyers game. The traffic report on the radio was in the middle of reporting on a traffic jam right near me following the hockey game and BAM! just as I passed the White House I see an SUV from PA smash into the back of a local Virginia car as a huge brawl ensues. I mean it was like 16 people at least, throwing drunkin haymakers old-school-style. My window was open and I was just feet from the fight… I’m assuming it must’ve been feuding fans, and DAMN are they stupid. First of all don’t even get me started on how stupid sports fans can get, but directly in front of the White House!? I calls that insta-jail. Oh the humanity.

Last night I went to the Pentagon City mall to find some Spring shirts. I am not a big fan of shopping, so I usually try to bust in bust out and make it as painless as possible. However, even the smallest of tasks can become a shining moment in the life of Enrico Karnesian.

Luckily for me, I remembered my parking ticket so I could prepay, in the mall, before I exited the parking ramp. So far, so good.

As I approached the pre=pay parking machine I noticed it had a crowd of tourist from some Spanish speaking country crowded around it - and everyone was trying to see how the “locals” handled the machines.

So I smiled at the crowd and thought… this is it… this is my big moment! I’ve got FANS!!!

I stuck my ticket in, waited for it to process and ask me to “insert your credit card with the stripe face up.” … this is where it got sticky. I inserted my card and started to notice that it was taking quite a long time to process. The crowd looked on in amazement… I still wasn’t sweating it, I know these things can take time. A few more seconds and still nothing. Suddenly, a large red X appeared on the screen and said MACHINE ERROR. The crowd booed and hissed in unison… one woman yelled “It taking his cuurd!”

At this point I had to contain my rage - this was after all a brand new card I’d JUST had replaced after losing the other one. I knew that the ramifications of cancelling the card again was going to screw up my reoccurring car, insurance, gym membership, netflix, payments etc. - and I did NOT want to go through that again.

I noticed there was a button on the machine to press for “Assistance”. I pressed for a good 3 minutes to no avail. Finally, after not wanting to have to resort to brute, American, man-handling, especially in front of the tourists… I decided I’d had enough….

So… I punched that mother fucker right in the sweet spot next to the credit card slot… and VOILA! Out came my card.

Over the years I have become increasingly frustrated with Macs. I know it makes me a black sheep amongst designers, but Macs suck so bad I can’t stand staying silent anymore.

Let me give you a breakdown of a day in the life of a Mac-using designer.

I get in to work and proceed to try to turn on my G4 tower which is so ginormous I have to keep it under my desk. When I reach under my desk to turn the damn thing on, I can’t find the f*ckin power button because it’s so elegantly designed flush to the surface and can’t be felt. So I have to use the light from my cell phone to see where the power button is.

Now that I have plumber-butt from ducking under my desk, I stand up and tuck my shirt in and wait the 5 minutes it takes for my beautiful Mac to boot up. While I’m waiting I turn on the PC we use in the office for email. It boots up in half the time and I see I have several emails with file attachments.

Since Macs don’t work in a PC work environment (at most workplaces), I have to transfer the files from my PC to a server, (which happens to be off-site and slow as hell). Then I turn back to my Mac to download the files I just uploaded from the PC!

As I switch to the Mac keyboard, suddenly every word I spell is missing its first or last letter… this is because the keys are all designed at such a low profile that they are difficult to strike especially for us carpal tunnel sufferers. The keyboards themselves look beautiful when they’re brand new… all white and clear plastic… that is until day 2… when they’ve sucked every ounce of dust and dirt out of the air and look like someone wiped their butt with it.

Then.. there’s the Mac “Mighty Mouse”, the smart mouse that you can squeeze to hide all your windows. Well, my windows hide themselves all the time because apparently I clench my mouse too tightly. There is no right click button so you have to learn to deal with that too.

- I have some photos I want to work with in photoshop, but I can’t plug my camera into my Mac or it will reformat the drive to work with a Mac.

- I want to edit some sound files but none of the free sound editing software works with a Mac.

Mac’s are SLOW. Period. Don’t ever let anyone tell you they’re fast because they are not. It used to be that Mac’s processed high res design files faster, but these days PC’s are just as good.

Mac’s live about 2-3 years and then become so slow they’re useless. They cost about 5x more than a PC and don’t work with 20% of the software PC’s do.

So where is the benefit?

Oh… and P.S. I bought an iPod nano a few months ago and had to return it because its made for a 3 year olds hands. You can barely switch from one song to another without needing a microscope.

This is kind of an inside joke… but even to the uninitiated you just may L your A O. CLICK HERE.

Say hi to me. I might say hi back if this ends up actually working. I also might live to regret posting this.

*toot