Pr3++yG33kyTh1ng

My laptop is, again, in the shop.
I almost hate to say it, but I miss Windows Vista.
I'm using XP at home again, as well as at work.
Performance and frame rates are better on the reliable XP workhorse (when taking hardware into account), and there have been literally no device driver issues.
But.
Vista was pretty.
Sure, after installing it I took about nine days "tweaking" the settings. The important thing about "tweaking" in Windows Vista is that it isn't so much tuning the registry and software settings as much as beating the operating system into submission.
Vista, as Microsoft is constantly saying in all the marketing materials, learns things about how the user acts. It prepares in advance the applications the user likes to run so that they load faster and perform better. It goes so far as to pre-cache whole directories with near psychic ability.
But it has no clue that this is not the first time I've ever seen a computer or, apparently, any type of electrical appliance.
I get the feeling that Vista is configured on a fresh installation to assume that the user (oddly, the Administrator, even) wandered down from the hills and traded in a whole "mess" of hog shanks to some "city feller" for a powerful multi-media computer with high-speed wireless internet access.
If I want to access a webpage over a secure connection, my computer should never second guess me.
If I want to look at my screen resolution settings, Vista shouldn't give me any "Your screen is configured at the optimal resolution" crap.
If I buy software, Vista should try its very hardest to install that software without asking me half a dozen questions about whether or not I really want it. I bought it. Does Vista need to see the receipt?
But.
When you click from window to window it fades.
It doesn't oddly stretch or weirdly compress my chosen desktop background.
The start button is round.
Vista uses a lot of system resources, I suppose, by comparison.
Some reviewers are recommending something like a minimum of nine gigs of system memory and seven hundred and sixty-eight megs of graphics power or something, and I suppose that would be nice.
But even if you have to wait a bit for Vista to acknowledge your mouse click, when it does the result is soothing it its sheer awesome swivel/fade/glow effect.
I guess it is all about priorities.
Vista makes me realize that mine are firmly in the "it is what is on the outside that counts" camp.
The newest operating system from Microsoft makes me feel like a frat guy.

Ahem.

"Lance's parents are totally out of town and he is going to throw a sick kegger, bro!"

I just blacked out for a second. It wasn't a graceful Vista fade out, either, but a cold wall of darkness that washed over me.

"Brad wants to play a few rounds of Golden Tee at Hooters this afternoon. Want to come with?"

Shaking. Resisting the urge to buy a ball cap and wear a Live Strong bracelet. God help me. I miss the enhanced wireless configuration wizard.

"Over lunch I'm going to wash the mud off my Jeep and drink Heineken until I spew."

What have I become?