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If Microsoft Made Our Paintball Equipment |
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Opinion -
From the Editor
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Saturday, 03 April 2010 09:45 |
Share  I’ve been around computers a long time. My first computer was a Commodore Vic-20. This computer was so simple that it didn’t even have a hard drive—it used cassette tapes to store its operating system and any work you did on it. Ever since I got my first “real” computer though, I’ve been a “PC” guy. I liked the fact that PCs weren’t proprietary and that there were tons of companies making thousands of products and upgrades for the PC, even back in the day. But lately my patience is wearing thin with my state-of-the-art Dell, mostly because in the end, it’s still Microsoft that drives the machine.
Today was a particularly annoying day at the Paintball X3 compound (er, desk). My computer “froze” twice on me to the point that doing a control-alt-delete didn’t even get my system to blink. So then I decide to listen to some music while I was working. I plug in the headphones and the genius bubble message says, “You just plugged a device into the audio jack.” Really? No kidding! Who’s the moron that decided that was “must have” info in Windows XP? I don’t have to tell you want the bubble message said when I unplugged the headphones, right? Then of course the next pop-up message I got was, “Your upgrades are ready to install.” I have no problem with that message… once. But four times back to back? If Microsoft made paintball equipment and the operating systems that drive it I’m sure their version of the Ego10 would be like, $78.50, but every time you fired the gun you’d probably get the message, “Are you sure you want to fire the marker”? And once you pushed the “Yes” button you’d get another message that said, “Are you REALLY sure you want to fire the marker?” And of course by that time the guy shooting the Apple-made gun would have bunkered you and three of your teammates. But this is all assuming your gun didn’t just “freeze” or give you the dreaded “blue screen” during the game. And when you were done playing and you’ve removed your hopper and barrel you’d get the message, “You just removed a device from your paintball marker.” And I’m betting that about once every five times you try to shut the gun down when you’re done playing the marker would simply refuse to go quietly. But your gun would be cheap. And its parts would probably be compatible with most other non Apple-made markers. And everyone you know would offer you pirated software upgrades for your gun. And hardware upgrades would be for sale everywhere. I can just see the Mac commercial now… “What’s up PC?” “Nothing Mac, just trying to figure out how to remove the battery from this gun so I can shut down for the night.”
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