bloated corpse

I own an HP color inkjet printer that also scans and copies. It’s handy and well-made.

Today I had to update the driver software to fix some bugs.

The download was 200 megabytes.

The uncompressed installation itself was over 400 megabytes.

There was no “custom install” option of less components, only the “default install” of every damned thing.

I had to opt out of their Customer Participation thing which is a daemon that runs constantly telling HP what’s going on.

I had to opt out of instant registration, and then opt out of both a reminder on next login and a dock item that would remind me to register. I also had to opt out of instant registration on the web.

Finally, it shat two useless items on my dock, the photo sharing app and the “device manager” app, that I will use maybe twice a year if at all.

The driver itself is tiny.

I DIDN’T WANT FINS, CHROME, AND FINE COREEEENTHIAN LEATHER ON MY GODDAMNED PRINTER DRIVER.

Edit: I had to buy black ink, which I did on Amazon. HP Ink. One cartridge, high quality, 660 pages: $18. Two cartridges bundled, lower quality, 480 pages each: $33. Math is hard.

For now is the time for your tears

Gregory Haidl, son of ex-sheriff’s official, to be freed from prison Saturday
From Times wire services

The son of an ex-Orange County assistant sheriff gets released from prison Saturday after serving his sentence in a videotaped sex assault case.

Gregory Haidl, 22, is being paroled from Pleasant Valley State Prison in Coalinga after serving part of a six-year sentence. He was given credit for good behavior.

Prosecutors described Haidl as the “maestro” who directed his friends in the assault of an unconscious 16-year-old girl on a pool table.

Haidl and friends Kyle Nachreiner and Keith Spann were convicted in 2005 of several counts of sexual penetration with foreign objects for the 2002 attack at the Haidl home in Corona del Mar.

Haidl is the son of former Assistant Sheriff Don Haidl.

THERE’S NO PLACE LIKE HOME. THERE’S NO PLACE LIKE… CAMARILLO?

This just in:
THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN OXNARD HAS ISSUED A * TORNADO WARNING FOR… SOUTHWEST LOS ANGELES COUNTY IN SOUTHWEST CALIFORNIA INCLUDING THE CITIES OF MALIBU… PACIFIC PALISADES AND TOPANGA … * UNTIL 945 PM PST * AT 836 PM PST… NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE DOPPLER RADAR INDICATED A SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WITH ROTATION CAPABLE OF PRODUCING A TORNADO. THE CELL WAS LOCATED 5 MILES SOUTH OF MALIBU MOVING NORTH NORTHEAST AT 25 MPH. IT SHOULD AFFECT MALIBU AND PACIFIC PALISADES BEFORE 900 PM PST.
Instruction:
IF IN MOBILE HOMES OR VEHICLES…EVACUATE THEM AND GET INSIDE A SUBSTANTIAL SHELTER. IF NO SHELTER IS AVAILABLE… LIE FLAT IN THE NEAREST DITCH OR OTHER LOW SPOT AND COVER YOUR HEAD WITH YOUR HANDS

writer’s bonk: Edward Hopper on the 560 to Lakeview Terrace

I’ve been trying to write about Los Angeles from the pedestrian-and-bus perspective from my decade there, and it’s not flowing. I just get some bits and snapshots:

The asphalt from this perspective is way more broken and sticks up higher, so that waiting for the bus is like looking out at a moonscape.

Way more businesses are closed that you think when you drive by. The flyers stuffed into their mail slots have soaked and rotted into papier-mâché.

Shitty parts of town are dark. The streetlights are weak and few. Even in the day time a place like East Hollywood or Hyde Park is dark somehow.

People are friendly when you’re on foot, and you can talk to them and hear their stories. It’s only when you’re en route to your car and back that the city is socially forbidding.

The emotional memory is harsh. It’s very lonesome and demeaning to wait so long for a bus, knowing that you’ll wait so much longer for the transfer, while watching the city zoom by you and the other lost souls on the bus bench.

The L.A. buses smell like a drunk guy. No matter how often they’re swept and cleaned, the cheap beer and sweat and smoke and just a bit of vomit never quite leave.

Only the poor, the old, the young, the disabled, the addicts, and the unsuccessful criminals ride the bus in that town. A decade in their company is humbling.