Commies
A somewhat rare non-military related special news flash:
Steve Jobs, despite his need for a new liver and all that unfortunate business, is nevertheless a Commie. McCarthy, where are you when we need you?
For the non-timeless nature of this and the fact that not everyone is a nerd who knows who Steve Jobs is, a quick reminder: he is the current innovation of Apple Computers and all of it’s smaller, lucrative, very expensive, techno-geeky offshoots.
While most of what Apple does seems like standard capitalism and a general pro-democratic nature, I point out:
1) People wait in line forever to get his products, as though hoping for that last hunk of bread.
2) When the bread… er… iPhones or whatever gadget runs out, there have been riots.
3) The smaller gizmos are priced for “everyone,” much like the little car the ol’ Union (Soviet type) was going to give to each family. Small and compact and may not fit every need, but everyone can have one!
4) When that small gizmo breaks down, you are all on your own. While surely there are people working at the sweatshop/helpdesk which is probably outsourced to gulags/India, for some reason they just can’t help you now and you haven’t the know-how to fix it on your own because the technology is closely guarded by paramilitary forces/company nerds.
There are other things, but the point is that Jobs and his CACP (translates from Cyrillic to UASR, Union of Apple Socialist Republics) are a bunch of Commies.
I have a tendency to hang onto things forever. For instance, much to the repeated and very vocal dismay of a fashionista friend from Miami, I still own and wear clothes I probably bought in college. I am not really a packrat; I get rid of things for which I have no use. I just always tend to find a use for everything for a very long time.
This comes in handy when you are a Soldier. When people lose things, I usually have an extra one laying around to lend for a field exercise or a course. Given that the Army changes its mind about standard uniforms and equipment every few years, I am almost at the point where I might be able to stand up a small army of my own.
For expensive knick-knacks, however, such as music players and the like, this becomes all the more heartbreaking when something breaks down. When an old tee-shirt finally hits the dust rag pile, I get another. When it’s the tiny music player I wear in order to maintain my sanity when dealing with Soldiers at 0600 in the morning, it’s a whole new ballgame. I have done it for so long that I now have no idea how to cope with having to listen to them for an hour babbling about “this hurts” and “but I don’t like running four miles” and “are you mad at me today because this isn’t fun.” It has now become a crisis, and as it turns out, a crisis of expensive proportions.
This is where Steve Jobs comes in. I own, naturally, one of the older generations of this particular player. A new one from Apple (via the Post Exchange) would cost about 50 dollars. To send mine in for repair, with shipping, would cost 80 dollars. “I am no dummy,” I say to myself prematurely, and find one on an online auction site for 25 dollars. I feel empowered. To celebrate, I order sweet new headphones that hook the player to the back of your head, eliminating wires and fitting nicely under an authorized physical training hat to avoid flagrant uniform violations.
I had the player and the headphones for less than two weeks when my other player magically decided to work again. This is when I realized that since I had skirted the system by purchasing the player from a third party, Steve Jobs was upset and used his Communist and God-Like powers to start up the old one. He knew, in his omniscient way, that I could not return this new player which still smelled of packaging (and a little bit like sweat, since I had used it about twice), and would now be forced to suffer as only those purchasing from a third party auction site can suffer.
Actually, it was because I had not thought that it was the charger causing all of the problems with the old one. It was. But still, I blame it on Dear Leader (may as well bring North Korea in, too) Jobs because there was no free help function that would have given me an inkling… three flashing orange lights, got it, but four? Reset doesn’t work? Sorry, send in for repair, along with your 80 dollars, or buy a new one, since your year warranty is up and you can’t even get phone support anymore (cue evil laughter).
I maintain that they are saving a spot for him in Moscow next to Lenin in Red Square so all the Japanese tourists can line up for three hours only to be told at the door that they can’t take photos and have to go turn in their cameras at the Kremlin coat room, though sorry even though it’s a random Thursday the Kremlin is inexplicably closed so someone will have to stand outside with your cameras because we must preserve both Lenin and Jobs the way they were in life.
But I sold the new one to my warrant for 20 bucks and a sandwich and still don’t have to listen to my Soldiers whine, so we are back to Cold War status as I wait for my main MP3 player to die next… the spin wheel is on its last legs. Time to go put on my college sweatshirt and sit at my computer hoping it makes it long enough to backup all of the music.