Ever have one of those days where everything sucks? This sucks, that sucks, you suck, I suck. Some observations from a guy who, for no good reason, had a bowl of Grumpy-O’s for breakfast this morning.

Apple sucks. Microsoft sucks way worse. But Apple is becoming more like Microsoft every day. The reason people, like me, loved them is because their shit just worked. Windows, on the other hand, didn’t. You’d get these nonstop “software updates” that bogged down your machine, and then next time you went, say, to print a document, you get “Printer not installed.” Goddammmit, you motherfuckers, my printer worked just fine before this “crucial” security update you insisted I install. Too many “software updates” too often makes me suspicious. A buddy had a fine point when he ranted something like, “Hey, so if Apple is so great, how come every time I go in to their store for help, their ‘genius bar’ [most pretentious name ever, btw–Ed.] is so backed up that I have to make an appointment for the next day?”

And they’ve turned their phones and iPads into fucking sales devices for their apps. This shit costs enough to begin with, so quit trying to sell me stuff every time I turn around. Sell, sell, sell, indeed (by comparison, the climbing world is nowhere near as bad). And another thing (I’m not done yet), stop trying to track everything I do. When I turn off “location services” on my iPhone (yes, I’m sooo kewl, I have an iPhone, clearly making me a better person than the rest of you peasants) – because I don’t want, or see a need, for them to know where I am at all fucking times – yes, I mean it. I don’t need some stupid Windows-like pop-up asking if I’m sure. Yes, motherfucker, I am sure.

But Windows it still worse.

It’s like at the gas pumps, where you pay with a credit card, and they ask, “Do you want a car wash?” Why the fuck would I want a car wash? Hard though it seems to believe, I have some standards in life and the last thing I give a rat’s ass about is dirt on my car. No, dickhead (I’d love a list of the names those machines have been called), I just want to put gas in my car. That’s why I’m here. In the automatic pay lane.

Speaking of tracking, anyone remember Google’s *old* credo: “Don’t be evil”? They’ve been getting investigated, and getting lambasted, for their decision to track users over every fucking means possible. Sucky thing is, their email is way better than others I’ve used. Yahoo! blows (which is worse than sucks – just a little FYI there), for example. It’s a rough life, ya know, and I can’t be hassled to change-over from the Yahoo! email I’ve had forever. But they do, indeed, blow – Gmail works perfectly, controls spam, so why can’t Yahoo! do that? It can’t be that hard. The data-tracking-sellsellsell crew at Google can do it. I used Google Chrome for browsing, because I thought it was way more better. Firefox kept crashing. But Chrome bogs down all the time. I wondered why? Oh, I know, because you bastards are so damned busy collecting all my personal information that it slows to a crawl. The fact that, after looking at some backpacks online, I now get backpack ads on every site I go to is just plain creepy. I need to change.

We all (the “royal we,” that is…) buy into it, too. Hell, even Outside magazine (who I’m no fan of), and who’ve actually had some outstanding pieces lately, don’t even put their good stuff front-center. In the words of a writer friend: “Outside manages to turn us off with its stupid manfashion and hypemonster shit, but it uses that stuff to cover up its great journalism. Weird.”

Or, maybe not so weird in today’s world. Sellsellsell.

While I think Peter Beal was a bit alarmist with his “Sell, Sell, Sell” post (which generated retorts, counter retorts, follow-up posts, and all kinds of stuff on the climbing webs), I think it’s an important discussion. In the bigger scale, it’s endemic of our cancerous society with its all-important “growth.” It’s never OK to just make a decent living, is it? You have to keep selling, keep growing. And we’re all part of it, in various ways. Consume, grow, more, more, more. Somebody explain to me how this is possibly sustainable? Yet to suggest anything other than mass consumerism, like to suggest a possible homeostasis, is political suicide. So much for leadership. Instead, we consume ourselves.

Shit, now I’m drifting into serious stuff. It was easier to just be pissed-off and ranting nonsensical (even the Tea Party knows this).

Hell, the good stuff that worked just fine, like the old Apple products that I used while walking uphill both ways, get bogged down by fucking with everything in their endless effort to sellsellsell. Kind of like those used-to-be sweet jackets that [pick any company] made in the first generation, before the sales force hijacked ‘em and added 37 pockets and reinforcements and iPhone pockets and what-not. Then again, fortunately many companies still make real-deal items that work, which they often have to balance with the big-sales pieces that pay the bills, while picking and choosing where to abide by the wonderful notion expressed by Antoine de Saint-Exupery in Wind, Sand and Stars:

In anything at all, perfection is finally attained not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away, when a body has been stripped down to its nakedness.

Anyway, I know I’m full of shit on many levels, a hypocrite just like the rest of us, and of course I benefit from technology and advances. It’s just that, sometimes, I wish the cancer of consumption and endless sales would exercise some restraint. Can’t there be some balance?

Instead, we are cannibals. Maybe I’ll have to re-read The Road soon. Brilliant book.

Rant over. Grump-O’s digested. In the words of the immortal Kenny Fucking Powers: “Fuck this noise.” I’ve got it too good to just bitch and then sit around. I’m going climbing – just for some balance. Looks like a beautiful afternoon in the Park.