Picture this: I'm sitting here at my desk at the world corporate headquarters of Marn's Big Adventure waiting for my Mandatory Daily Windows 98 Random Reboot to finish. I'm emanating waves of crankiness so severe that my cat Zoe is actually asking to go outside. Zoe NEVER goes outside. The aura around me must be terrifying.

So I'm left alone to marvel that I make my living on a machine that was sold to me with the full knowledge it wouldn't work right.

Hello? Am I the only one who is turned into a cranky poopy head at least once a day by their computer? Have we all been so numbed by the situation that we don't even think about it anymore?

I mean, take Win98--PLEASE. (Ooooops, sorry, I was channeling Henny Youngman for a second there, folks.) If anyone ever really imposed truth in advertising on Microsoft, the Windows ads would have said:

"Where do you want to go today?"

"Well, maybe you will and maybe you won't. HAHAHAHAHAHA joke's on you, eh."

(This would be the Canadian Microsoft ads, of course. The American ads would not have that all important "eh" which constitutes Canadian content.)

The thing is, last year I spent nearly $3,500 Canadian on this computer ($19.95 American for my two readers south of the border) and all the software in it. For me this is very serious coin.

The heart and soul of this machine is the operating system, and everyone acknowledges that the operating system is inherently flawed. So I was sold a brand new very expensive thing that was broken from the get-go.

But the wonderful folks at Dell Computer Corporation sold it to me this way because Windows is what we shall grandly call The Industry Standard. I had to buy it because all the data that keeps my business afloat is stored in a format that is only recognized by The Industry Standard.

My consolation prize? Dell also gave me a free 800 number and limitless, wonderfully good free tech support because they KNOW no matter how good THEIR equipment is, the operating system is going to let me down. They factor that into the price.

(Ignore the thud, thud, thud sound in the background. It's just my forehead having a close personal moment with my mousepad. It passes.)

Dribbling teapots, computers with damaged souls ... when did it become okay to sell us brand new things that wouldn't work right?

I want a date and I want it now.