Eric Karns

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.

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Contestant #1 me: “What is something you might see in my hometown?”

Alex: “Correct for 1,000!”

Today’s CNN headline about the prescription drugs found in U.S. tap water should now debunk most people’s previous beliefs that this was all ‘old wives’ tales… (I for one will have my makeshift, tinfoil hat on for the foreseeable future.) When is this country going to wake up? That this is suddenly big news now, after all the years of not filtering for it is insane. Somehow I don’t think Brita filters are cuttin the mustard.

So, lately things had really been rollng my way… and i KNEW it was too good to be true. New job, vacation between jobs, I literally found cash on the sidewalk, etc.

THEN… the BAD karma hit. Starting on Sunday, I was too anxious to wait at my normal haircut spot because the line was out the door, so I googled the nearest barber and got a freakin’ ROTC haircut by an 80 year old Lebanese man. It took him 45 minutes to cut my hair, and its normally a 10 minute job. I swear to God this has to be the most horrible haircut on the face of the planet, and its only my second week at my new job, so everyone’s gonna be wondering what the H is up with me.

And then, last night as I stumbled 1.5 miles home from the bar coming home from a happy hour with Steve, I got really hot. So I took off my peacoat without realizing my wallet was in the inside pocket. This morning I realized it was gone, retraced my 1.5 mile walk to no avail, canceled all my cards, and walked another 1.5 miles to the bank for some cash on my way to the metro. I DID luckily make it to work by 9:30 so it didn’t look too bad… and if you’re asking how I had the time for THIS much bad luck in one morning… yes I did wake up at like 6:45.

There is a lot of buzz on the internet(s) about how the elections are rigged. First of all, they say it is unprecedented that the polls taken before the vote in New Hampshire had Obama winning by a landslide, but then when the vote came Hillary won. The funny thing is, in all the larger districts, they use Diebold machines to count the votes as opposed to the smaller districts that count by hand. In every district that used a Diebold machine Hillary had an average of 4.5% above Obama… but in all hand counted districts he won or was much closer to her.

If Obama goes up against any Republican in the general election he wins by at least 10%… but in nationwide polling, if Hillary goes up against republicans, she either loses or is very close. So, someone wants Hillary to be the nominee… then, when the election happens it won’t be as hard for them to cover up the Diebold rigging, because it will be much less suspicious.

What more can I say?

“A young male in his 30s today has an income, adjusted for inflation, that is 12 percent less than what his father was making 30 years ago.” Article here.

This is just sad. I remember when I was in 2nd grade, or somewhere around that age and the public schools administered a survey where they asked us if we thought we’d make more money than our parents when we were older. I learned later in a social studies course in college that these kinds of surveys were common and that the overwhelming majority of young students answered yes, they did expect to make more money than the previous generation. If this article is true, which it most likely is, I believe we are the first generation of American in over 100 years to actually earn less than their parents.

I noticed that the big headline in news right now is ‘bomb parts smuggled past airport security’ and it pisses me off… it’s like, every time there’s a major holiday the media decides it’s the perfect time to scare the shit out of everyone. I swear to god I’m a paranoid schizophrenic nowadays from the stupid sensationalist media. I guess it works for them in the end though… the public gets scared shitless about anything the media decides to exaggerate, we’re all glued to the news, eyes-wide-open and are subjected to all the advertising which is making a killing pushing the soma we need because we’re all buggin from the impending end of the world.

Recent Zogby Poll: A majority of likely voters – 52% – would support a U.S. military strike to prevent Iran from building a nuclear weapon, and 53% believe it is likely that the U.S. will be involved in a military strike against Iran before the next presidential election, a new Zogby America telephone poll shows.

Where are these 52% ‘likely voters’ and WHAT are they smoking?