Capital of Nasty Electronic Magazine
Volume VII, Issue 13, AD MMII
Monday, September 23, 2002
ISSN 1482-0471
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"1935 will go down in history.  For the first time, a civilized 
nation has full gun registration.  Our streets will be safer, our 
police more efficient, and the world will follow our lead into the 
future." --Adolf Hitler

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Licking open wounds
Soured by rotting memories
Bitterness prevails
-- Danielle Pignataro

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1.  Why I Hate Computers
2.  I Copied a File
3.  The Human Dishwasher
4.  The Man Who Never Was
5.  'Smoke and Mirrors' by Neil Gaiman
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This week's Golden Testicle award:

http://www.deviantdesires.com/

Incredibly Strange Sex

-------------------------------------------

1.   Why I Hate Computers

By John Iadipaolo

There was a time, not too long ago, when I considered myself a 
member of the Computer Literate.  You know.  That (reasonably) tech-
savvy, (somewhat) knowledgeable and (generally) proficient group of 
individuals who are skilled enough to manipulate, maintain and fix 
their machines in most day-to-day circumstances, with a minimum 
number of hassles or headaches.  Although my most impressive tricks 
were probably installing hardware and basic HTML coding (a quick 
note to the uninitiated--those aren't very impressive tricks), I 
thought that my general level of competency somehow made me immune 
to the hardships suffered by my less-knowledgeable peers.  I could 
install and delete programs properly.  I could alter my system 
settings and BIOS.  I didn't have to pay some stuck-up computer tech 
$50 to install a CD burner into my system.

In all honesty, however, I suppose I was that stuck-up computer 
tech.  I figured I knew enough about my machine not only to keep it 
up and running, but also to correct any mistakes I might (rarely) 
make.  I had little sympathy for people with driver problems; people 
whose machines froze; people who resorted to tech support.  Looking 
down, from my perch atop the lofty tower of the Computer Literate, I 
chuckled at the expense of the masses.

But no more:

Now, I'm one of them.

...Or, more truthfully, perhaps I've always been one of them.  
Perhaps I've just realized it now, after a string of infuriating pc-
related issues have brought me to my knees.  Over the past year, 
I've gone from self-assured virtual playboy to technology-fearing 
caveman.  I've thrown in the proverbial towel (and often came close 
to throwing the non-proverbial monitor), bent over, and allowed the 
afore-mentioned computer techs to swoop in.  Screw being Computer 
Literate.  It's too much work.

Flattering yourself into believing you're pc-efficient is easy 
enough when the majority of your `problems' can be resolved by 
upgrading your drivers, reinstalling a program or simply rebooting 
your machine.  No matter how innocent your computing behavior, no 
matter how diligently you defrag your C drive and clear out your 
cache, you will always run into programs that inexplicably cease to 
function and hardware that occasionally goes on the fritz.  That's 
the price we pay for the `convenience' of technology (at least as 
long as Bill Gates controls an overwhelming portion of the market 
share).

The problems I've recently encountered with my machines run much 
deeper than simple software hiccups.  I'm talking about the 
nonsensical, way-outta-left field variety of computer problems that 
totally cripple your machine, leaving you perplexed and utterly 
exasperated, and often with no idea of how to solve them.  For 
someone who fancies themselves technology-competent (like myself), 
it's a pretty humbling (and rage-inducing) experience.
   
My first such encounter with an `unsolvable' computer problem 
occurred about a year and a half ago, when my system started to 
crash unexpectedly.  Play a 3D shooter- crash.  Write an essay- 
crash.  Download some wicked goat sex movies- crash.  After 
countless hours of troubleshooting, trial-and-error experiments and 
lots of advice from friends, I thought I had come up with a 
reasonable explanation (never mind solution) for my problem: The 
machine was overheating due to a faulty BIOS reading.  Or maybe it 
was my $500 video card (yes, $500. I kid you not).  Or maybe, 
according to the pc repairman I finally brought my machine to, it 
was an error with Windows itself.  To make a long story short, after 
months of work with nothing to show for it, I ended up conceding 
defeat and cannibalizing the box for parts.

That one negative experience would have been sufficient.  However, 
in the time since, I've been plagued by a number of ridiculously 
impossible problems on three or four other machines.  I never truly 
realized what a huge discrepancy there is when it comes to the level 
of expertise required to resolve major issues with a PC- you're 
either a pro, or you're hopeless.  It makes me laugh to think that 
my chances of fixing a computer are quite comparable to those of my 
grandmother, and I'm not even sure she knows how to access the 
Internet.

They say prides goes before the fall.  Well, its come to the point 
now where I don't even bother to try and find solutions to my 
technology headaches.  If my limited knowledge base can't fix a 
conflict, I work around it or (gasp) call in the tech support.  

Interestingly enough, my newfound dependence on pc repairmen brings 
up another dilemma entirely:  Should I be exasperated or amused when 
they can't figure out what's wrong with my machines either?

---
John is currently attending York University in Toronto, with a major 
in Procrastination.

-------------------------------------------

2. I Copied a File

I am so proud of myself.  I copied a file.

I can't tell you what a sense of accomplishment I feel.  I took a 
file from the hard drive, and copied it to a 3.5 inch diskette.  
When I checked the disk to see that file was there and saw that it 
was, I was ecstatic, in a nearly lost-my-virginity fashion.

And don't mock me.  I'll bet there's a lot of people who could not 
have copied that file, at least the why I did.  Let me explain.

I have a laptop.  Or possibly, had.  The hard drive has developed 
bad sectors, sectors occupied by Windows 98.  Well, since I ran 
scandisk to fix the bad sectors, who knows where Windows 98 is now?  
Win98 certainly doesn't.  When I boot up, it flat out refused to 
load. 

And I needed to get a file off that machine.

Not even Safe Mode would bring up my operating system.  However, 
there was one thing that still worked.  The command prompt.

It has been a very long time since I've worked with DOS.  Even in 
the days when it was the only way to play, I wasn't particularly 
good with DOS, being a non-technical sort.  As much as I mock 
Microsoft and Windows, I do have to admit that they came up with a 
good solution for people like me (although Windows 3.1 was, is, and 
always shall be, an affront to computing).

Since Windows 95, I've become a Microsoft cripple.  I am too used to 
dragging and dropping things.  I am too used to graphical user 
interfaces, not text driven ones.  Recently, my work's administrator 
showed me PuTTY, which uses the command prompt style, and my brain 
began to whine like a puppy being dragged towards the vet who 
neutered him the week before. 

So looking at that blinking command prompt, I thought there was no 
way I was going to figure this out.  But I needed that file.

So I searched my brain, and tried recall all my lessons.

I began to type.

C:\>dir

Okay, getting a directory was simple enough.  If not for the fact 
that half of it flashed by before I could read it.  Anyone ever 
think that the developers of DOS put in little secret messages there 
like "You bugger sheep!" or "Buy Microsoft" in the middle of long 
directories since the odds of spotting them are nil?  Maybe I'm just 
paranoid.

Ok, now how was it done again?  Oh yeah.

C:\>dir /p

The contents of my hard drive came up in little, digestible chunks.  
That's better. As I recall, I'd stashed the file under My Documents, 
shortened to MYDOCU~1 in DOS.  Time to change directories.  That I 
remembered too.

C:\>cd MYDOCU~1

There we go.  

C:/My Documents>

But it wasn't listing the files.  That's right, I remembered.  
Jumping to a directory doesn't make it last contents right away.  
One of the many ways in which Windows spoils you.

C:/My Documents>cd /p

"Invalid switch - /P," it said.  What the?  Oh yeah.  Wrong command.

C:/My Documents>dir /p

That's better.  And there's my file.

Now for the tricky part.

I searched my brain for the instructions on how to copy a file.  How 
easy it is to drag and drop in Windows, or to right click on a file, 
and highlight Send To and the A drive!

Okay, concentrate.  I believe it was:
C:/My Documents>copy a:fps.doc

I typed that, and I heard my A drive grunt.  My heart leapt.  But 
then, heartache followed.

"File not found - a:fps.doc"

Okay, why wasn't that working?  The file was there, I spelled the 
whole thing out down to its file extension.  What was the problem?

I searched the foggiest corner of my memories.  It was trying to 
find the file, because it actually accessed the A drive.  Then it 
hit me.  That command told the computer the A: drive was the source, 
not the target.  It needed to be told where the file was, even 
though we were sitting in the directory.  How did that command go?  
I think it was--

C:/My Documents>copy c:fps.doc a:

A slight pause.

"1 file(s) copied."

YES!  Success!  I transferred the disk to another computer where 
Windows actually worked.  There was my file, rescued!

And the point of all this?

Well, one, I did it by myself.  I had access to another computer 
with an Internet connection, I could have easily looked up the 
information.  But I didn't.  

And two, now I have a greater appreciation for my old skills.  There 
was a time when DOS ruled computing.  There was a time when the 
average DOS user could understand what every last file did on his or 
her system.  Now, with Windows, there are programmers and guys who 
build computer networks who can look at a file and wonder what the 
fuck it does.  Under DOS, you'd know what it was and whether or not 
you could delete it.  But as anyone who works under Windows knows, 
if you don't know what it does, best treat it like an underfed Pit 
Bull with a bad rash and leave it the hell alone.  So, you've got 
megabytes and megabytes of files that you don't understand the 
function of.

And think of how many other things in your life are like that.  I 
can drive a car, but if one breaks down, I am fucked.  I have never 
even changed a tire.  I could probably do it, but I would be nervous 
as hell.  I know people who understand how their cars work, 
basically.  So they can look under a hood and maybe spot some 
trouble.  They aren't mechanics, but they know enough to fix basic 
things.  And they drive more confidentially as a result.

This is why you need to learn math without a calculator, how to send 
a letter by regular post.  It prevents us from being a child 
culture, spoiled and dependent.  Maybe we need to get drafted into 
another world war to teach us some self-reliance.  Manual things 
work when the slick technological way is broken down, which these 
days seems to be the case more often that not.  

I have learned a valuable lesson about self-reliance today.  And I'm 
going to keep on learning.  Tomorrow, I'm going to go out and kill 
my own breakfast.

---
C:\WINDOWS\JASONMACISAAC\EDIT.COM ?

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3. The Human Dishwasher

by REVSCRJ

What a crazy place this was to work.  So stoned... so drunk... so 
stressed...

The owners of this place, Bill and Mike, had been given this place 
to run by their mother who owned another bar up in Cupertino.  I 
think it was to try and make them settle down but ultimately, it 
failed. They were NOT ready to be in control of a bar.

In so far as substance abuse goes, these two brothers put frat 
houses to shame--truly, if they weren't drunk one could safely 
assume that folks were shivering in Hell.  Seriously, there would be 
times in which no one but employees would be present in the building 
for large spans of time because the ENTIRE staff was out back 
puffing a bowl.

Before I worked here I used to come in to write and drink coffee.  
It was actually the first place I really started writing poetry on a 
regular basis.  I liked the chaos, it helped me focus.  I was the 
underage fixture there.

Being a dishwasher wasn't all that bad, in general, as it kept me 
pretty much to myself and without having to interact with the 
public, unless I wanted to.  Besides, there is something vaguely 
pleasant about working with hot water and soap.

My shifts, unfortunately, were terrible: I worked the closing shift 
on the weekends when all other bars were closing at 2 AM we would 
stay open until 4 AM. Or 5 AM... depending on how much drunken-fun 
Mike or Bill might be having.  The rush between two and four would 
be so big that I would have to lead with nasty ketchup covered 
dishes just to get people to squeeze in and let me get back to the 
kitchen.  It was Hellish in its predictable, repetitious, pain-in-
the-ass nature of it.  One could set one's watch by the sudden burst 
of business that would gorge the place.

There was this cook, Jeff that I worked with a lot.  Short, squat, 
greasy guy who claimed to be the ex-bassist of T.S.O.L. "before they 
made it big" (which I never verified, but simply assume was pure 
bullshit).  Jeff was a little "off" in the ex-hardcore-punk-
metalhead kind of way--all aggro, dark and hyper-enthusiastic... a 
brute.

He had this war going on with the mice that had invaded the 
building.  I don't mean he had some little grudge against them, or 
that he was upset by their presence--no, I mean a full fledge war, 
in all it's sick ugliness.

I walk into the kitchen one day with a full bus-tub of dishes and he 
is standing, facing me, pointing at the stove-area.  He is standing 
with a slingshot pulled back, poised to fire.

"DONT MOVE!" he yells in an exaggerated whisper.

"What?"

"DONT move!"

"Uhhh, yeah okay."  So I stand there as he is fixated on a point 
behind me over my shoulder.

"Man, this is getting heavy Jeff."

"WON'T be long...."

I kinda try to look real impatient, but he IS holding a projectile 
weapon, best not to make any sudden movements.

Suddenly he says, "Little mother-" BOOM he releases "-FUCKER!" and I 
hear this high pitched squeal.  He bolts toward it.  I set the dish-
tub down at last and hear him yelling at the mouse how he "finally 
got it", how the "little bastard" was "gonna pay", etc.  I start 
washing up the load of dishes and he disappears out back only to 
come quickly back in a few moments later.

"Sean!?"

"Yeah?"

"You wanna watch the little fucker die?" he was giddy and smiling.

"No man, I don't." I just looked down into the dishes as I washed 
them.

"You sure?  I dropped him in the tallow barrel out back, I give him 
three minutes TOPS."

"No.  I'm sure man.  I don't want to see that."  Sick bastard.

"Okay!" and smiling he dashes back outside, I assume to watch the 
mouse drown in putrefying grease.  So when I say he had a war going 
with the mice, I mean it in the foulest of senses.  Disturbing. 
Really disturbing.

Of Mike and Bill: one time a friend of mine, Dave, lived with them 
and I was over one evening.  Neither Dave nor I had any dope and we 
were 18, punks, and in desire of a high.  We asked Mike and Bill if 
we could pick through their carpet for dope.  They both laughed at 
us, called us "jonsers" and such.  We ended up gathering about 2 
grams of pot from the space between their couch and their table.  
See: they packed so many sloppy bong loads that we likely could have 
extracted another gram if we were bent on it.  At seeing our spoils 
they ate crow and partook with us.

Eventually Mike's liver gave out, Bill later had to hit rehab and 
despite that, I would have stayed there for a long time if it 
weren't for that two to four rush.

Then again, considering how twisted the long-time employees were, 
perhaps it was probably for the best that I left.

---
REVSCRJ is a writer/musician living in Monterey, California. 
Constantly on the verge of homelessness, he hopes that you enjoy his 
work or else his life has been in vain. Contact REVSCRJ at 
revscrj@cloudfactory.org to lodge complaints, notify of lawsuits, or 
receive spiritual advice.

-------------------------------------------

4.  The Man Who Never Was

By Leandro Asnaghi-Nicastro

In the spring of 1943, with the African Campaign coming to a 
successful conclusion, the Allies began to consider the invasion of 
Hitler's "Fortress Europe."  The most obvious target to start the 
invasion was Sicily, which was not only in a strategic location that 
would act as a springboard for the rest of Europe, but it would've 
allowed for the elimination of the Luftwaffe, a danger to allied 
shipping in the Mediterranean Sea.

There were problems: to start, the Germans were well aware of the 
importance of Sicily to the Allies as the logical place to start an 
invasion.  Add to that the mountainous landscape of the island, a 
joy to defend but impossible to attack.  And lastly, the invasion 
(Operation Husky) would require such a build-up of armaments that it 
would be next to impossible to go undetected by the Germans.

For Operation Husky to succeed and not turn into a blood bath for 
the Allies, the German High Command had to be fooled.

On April 30, a fisherman off of the coast of Spain picked up the 
body of a British Royal Marines courier, Major William Martin.  
Attached to his wrist was a briefcase, which contained personal 
correspondence and documents related to the impending Allied 
invasion of Sardinia.  Spain immediately notified the Abwehr (German 
intelligence).

After this discovery, Hitler promptly moved two Panzer divisions and 
an additional Waffen SS brigade to Sardinia to prepare for this 
Allied invasion.

Major William Martin of the British Royal Marines had been dead long 
before he had even hit the water, much less served in the armed 
forces.  Major Martin was a decoy devised by Sir Archibald 
Cholmondley (with the appropriate name Operation Mincemeat) and put 
in action by Lieutenant Commander Ewen Montagu of Naval 
Intelligence.

Major Martin had to appear as though he had drowned, probably after 
his plane crashed off the coast of Spain. This necessitated finding 
a corpse whose lungs were already full of fluid, so that any doctors 
who examined the body would accept that he had been at sea for some 
time.

A 34-year-old man was found, recently departed after ingesting rat 
poison and developing pneumonia.  He'd have to appear that he had 
been dead for a while before falling to enemy hands so that the 
effects of the seawater would disguise the obvious decomposition.

Intelligence secretaries wrote love letters to Major Martin, one of 
them even including a photo of herself in a swimsuit to pass for the 
Major's girlfriend, Pam.   Sir Cholmondley carried the letters in 
his wallet for several weeks to give them an authentic worn look.  
Martin's persona was further enhanced by adding overdue bills, an 
angry letter from his bank manager, a letter from his father, 
tickets, keys.  All the sort of things that a real person would 
happen to carry, along with the documents that told of the Allies' 
plans of invasion.
 
When Operation Husky finally took place, the Allies found so little 
resistance from the enemy in Sicily that the Germans had to retreat 
all the way to Messina.  The invasion was a complete success thanks 
to the mission carried out by a dead man.

Some sixty-years later another great plan is at work.

As some of you may have noticed, the Bush administration announced 
the decision for military action against Iraq. This imminent 
invasion has been declared, examined, criticized, cheered, re-
examined and re-criticized to ad nauseam.

Newspapers freely talk about the impending invasion, detailing the 
possible day it would happen.  Other articles talk about war games 
and the immense number of troops that have been recalled to take 
action in the impeding attack.

Even Time magazine had an elaborate article on it, including the 
amounts of troops, type of aircraft involved, the places where they 
would most likely be stationed.  Helpful diagrams over the map of 
Iraq showed where three attacks would start, all converging on 
Baghdad.

All of this while Bush acted on the telly like that impatient child 
in the back of the car asking if we "can attack yet, can we attack 
yet?"  This image of great pressure being put on the government to 
approve of this upcoming attack seemed to be the top news item.

This may appear at first as the work of an idiot, carelessly 
announcing their invasion plans, having blind confidence in the 
overwhelming power of the United States army, especially after the 
Afghani experience, considered by some as an outstanding success.

But really, Bush never intended to attack.

Running a war is expensive.  You don't just send a bunch of ships 
and planes in and blow things up.  Troops have to be rotated, food 
and supplies brought in, maintenance, pay for troops and many other 
things.

The war in Afghanistan had an estimated cost of 1.2 billion dollars. 
Per month.  Include the fact that Bush had lowered taxes as part of 
his election promise and you find yourself with a country already 
with a huge deficit, powered with a great arsenal of weapons but no 
money to actually run a second war.

So what do you do when you want to scare your enemy into thinking 
that you are going to attack when you have no intention to doing so?  
You use CNN, the modern equivalent of Major William Martin.

That's why media outlets were able to provide so much in-depth 
information about this attack that is so imminent.

The Iraqis watch CNN constantly talking about an attack in their 
homeland.  They see large amounts of troops getting called in to 
prepare themselves for attack.  Stock-footage of big, lumbering 
bombers being prepared.  They see a President itching with 
impatience in blowing shit up real good, to continue the holy work 
his father had left off.  They read about all the plans being worked 
out to arrive in their capital.  And they watch over and over that 
the only thing that has been holding the Americans back is the 
discussions taking place in congress.  But how long can that last, 
they wonder?

That's why they suddenly changed their stance, by letting arm 
inspectors back in. They know the Americans are crazy enough to 
attack.  And they will.  Honest.  It will happen real soon.  In 
fact, we're so eager to do it, it has just recently postponed to 
2003.

---
Leandro likes to pretend he has a grasp of what's happening in the 
world he is on, but really, he's not fooling anyone.

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5.  'Smoke and Mirrors' by Neil Gaiman

Reviewed by Melissa DeWilde

I just finished this book.  Truly, about five minutes ago.  'Smoke 
and Mirrors' is a book of "short fictions and illusions."

I will rarely read a short story book, cover to cover, unless I 
really love the author.  Neil Gaiman is one of my new favorites, as 
the more astute readers may have guessed.  'American Gods' hasn't 
left the "5 Books to Read" list since it was first put up.  But the 
fact that I sat down and read this book, all of the stories, instead 
of picking one to read every so often, says a lot about it and the 
author.  

'Smoke and Mirrors' is a collection that ranges from 1984 to the 
book's printing in 1998.  Many times, in a collection by one author, 
you can tell the early material from the newer.  You can see the 
writer mature and improve.  Not so with Gaiman.  The oldest story 
was, in my opinion, the funniest and no less worthy than the rest.

It's a rare gift to find an author who can be as funny, as twisted 
and weird, as witty and wholy remarkable as Neil Gaiman can be.  One 
of the reasons I don't like short stories that much is that I rarely 
get as much out of them as a novel.  But Gaiman can do more in five 
pages than the average novelist can do in fifty. 

I really am in love with this man.  And I really was heartbroken 
when I found out that he was 20 years older than I.  

On to the stories.  This is about them, after all. 

The narrative of the queen and stepmother from a popular children's 
tale gives another view of the story.  The wedding gift that tells 
an alternate history of the marriage as the couple ages.  The angel 
who solved the first murder.  A cure for cancer with curious side 
effects.  A widow who finds the Holy Grail, but keeps it because 
Galahad is good company.  A few true stories as well, and 
introductions to each piece that give the reader an insight to how 
they were all written or conceived are included in this anthology.  

And so I tell you your duty.  Go buy a Neil Gaiman book, dammit.  

---
Melissa DeWilde - All the fun, half the nicotine.
 
-------------------------------------------

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Capital of Nasty Electronic Magazine    "media you can abuse"
In memory of Father Ross "Padre" Legere
Published every second Monday (or when we get around it)
Disclaimer: unintentionally offensive
Comments, queries and submissions are welcome

http://www.capnasty.org  ISSN 1482-0471

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