From Mark, A PC nerds description of a relationship:

I’m currently running the latest version of GirlFriend and I have been having some problems lately. I have been running the same version of DrinkingBuddies 1.0 forever as my primary application, and all the Girlfriend releases I have tried have always conflicted with it. I hear that Drinking Buddies runs fine as long as Girlfriend is ran in background mode and the sound is turned off.
Unfortunately, I can’t find the switch to turn the sound off. Therefore, I have to run both of them separately. Girlfriend also seems to have a problem coexisting with my Golf program, often trying to abort Golf with some form of timing incompatibilities.

I probably should have stayed with Girlfriend 1.0, but I thought I might see better performance from GirlFriend 2.0. After months of conflicts and other problems, I consulted a friend who has had experience with Girlfriend 2.0. He said I probably didn’t have enough cache to run Girlfriend 2.0 and eventually it would require a Token Ring to run properly. He was right, as soon as I purged my cache, and realized that no one in their right mind is installing new token rings, Girlfriend 2.0 uninstalled itself.

Shortly after that, I installed Girlfriend 3.0 beta. Unfortunately, there was a bug in the program and the first time I used it, it gave me a virus. I had to clean out my whole system and shut down for a while. I very cautiously upgraded to Girlfriend 4.0. This time I used SCSI probe first and also installed a virus protection program. It worked okay for a while until I discovered that GirlFriend 1.0 was still in my system. I tried running Girlfriend 1.0 again with Girlfriend 4.0 still installed, but Girlfriend 4.0 has a feature I didn’t know about that automatically senses the presence of any other version of Girlfriend and communicates with it in some way. This results in the immediate removal of both versions.

The version I have now works pretty well, but there are still some problems. Like all versions of GirlFriend, it is written in some obscure language I can’t understand, much less reprogram. Frankly, I think there is too much attention paid to the look and feel rather than the desired functionality.

Also, to get the best connections with your hardware, you usually have to use gold-plated contacts and I have never liked how GirlFriend is “object-oriented.”

A year ago a friend of mine upgraded his version of Girlfriend to GirlFriendPlus 1.0, which is a Terminate and Stay Resident version of GirlFriend. He discovered that GirlFriendPlus 1.0 expires within a year if you don’t upgrade to Fiance 1.0. So he did, but soon after that, he had to upgrade to Wife 1.0, which he describes as a huge resource hog. It has taken up all his space: He can’t load anything else. One of the primary reasons he decided to go with Wife 1.0 was because it supposedly came bundled with a feature called FreeSex Plus.

Well, it turns out the resource requirements of Wife 1.0 sometimes prohibits access to FreeSexPlus, particularly the new Plug-ins he wanted to try. On top of that, Wife 1.0 must be running on a well warmed-up system before he can do anything. Although he did not ask for it, Wife 1.0 came with MotherInLaw which has an automatic pop-up feature he can’t turn off. I told him to trying installing Mistress 1.0, but he said he heard if you try to run it without first uninstalling Wife 1.0, Wife 1.0 will delete MSMoney files before uninstalling itself. Then Mistress 1.0 won’t install because of insufficient resources.

P.S. Watch out for the K-I-D-S virus because they have an insatiable appetite for memory and CPU time over and above everything else above.

From Robert, some notable thing about Living in Oregon:

If someone in a Home Depot store offers you assistance and they don’t work there, you live in Oregon.

If you’ve worn shorts, sandals and a parka at the same time, you live in Oregon.

If you’ve had a lengthy telephone conversation with someone who dialed the wrong number, you live in Oregon.

If you measure distance in hours, you live in Oregon.

If you know several people who have hit a deer more than once, you live in Oregon.

If you have switched from ‘heat’ to ‘A/C’ and back again in the same day, you live in Oregon.

If you install security lights on your house and garage but leave both doors unlocked, you live in Oregon

If you can drive 75 mph through 2 feet of snow during a raging blizzard without flinching, you live in Central, Southern or Eastern Oregon.

If you design your kid’s Halloween costume to fit over a 2 layers of clothes or under a raincoat, you live in Oregon.

If driving is better in the winter because the potholes are filled with snow and ice, you live in Oregon.

If you know all 4 seasons: almost winter, winter, still winter, and road construction, you live in Oregon.

If you feel guilty throwing aluminum cans or paper in the trash, you live in Oregon.

If you know more than 10 ways to order coffee, you live in Oregon.

If you know more people who own boats than air conditioners, you live in Oregon.

If you stand on a deserted corner in the rain waiting for the “Walk” signal, you live in Oregon

If you consider that if it has no snow or has not recently erupted, it is not a real mountain, you live in Oregon.

If you can taste the difference between Starbucks, Seattle’s Best, and Dutch Bros, you live in Oregon.

If you know the difference between Chinook, Coho and Sockeye salmon, you live in Oregon.

If you know how to pronounce Sequim, Puyallup, Abaci, Issaquah, Oregon, Umpqua, Yakima and Willamette, you live in Oregon.

If you consider swimming an indoor sport, you live in Oregon.

If you know that Boring is a city and not just a feeling, and that Enterprise isn’t just a Star Trek space craft, you live in Oregon.

If you can tell the difference between Japanese, Chinese and Thai food, you live in Oregon.

If you never go camping without waterproof matches and a poncho, you live in Oregon.

If you have actually used your mountain bike on a mountain, you live in Oregon.

If you think people who use umbrellas are either wimps or tourists, you live in Oregon.

If you buy new sunglasses every year, because you cannot find the old ones after such a long time, you live in Oregon.

If you live withing 2 hours of the coast, snow, a big city, and a desert, you live in Oregon.

If the thought of eating spotted owl soup in a wooden bowl made from old growth trees gets you riled up, you live in Oregon.

If the river on the coast is the shortest in the world, you live in Oregon.

If it’s illegal to pump your own gas, you live in Oregon.

Is Microsoft sending mixed signals by showing Office 2007(2008) on (what I assume) is a MacBook on Office.Microsoft.com? There is just so many things wrong with that, I’m not sure where to start.

Some possible messages from this:

• Macs are better for students.
• Office 2008 is prettier on a Mac.
• Current PC laptops are ugly.
• We really do care about Apple and the Apple user base!
• …add your own (possibly conflicting) message in the comments.

Not that there is anything wrong with these conclusions individually. Taken together though, from Microsoft, just seems strange.

Hat tip to Scott Hanselman for the find

• Cowicide has shown us that the Iranians didn’t go far enough.
• Gizmodo gets in the act with another contest.
• Infamous photo fakes from the Chicago Tribune.

Good stuff for a Friday.

Best part: Location Location Location!

Hat tip to banana for finding this.

Courtesy of the Statesman Journal and R.J. Matson

…you’ve never had to meta-moderate a Slashdot discussion before. Thank you xkcd.