Ok, so this guy walks up to the CompUSA Tech Services counter, today, and plops his $1299 HP Laptop on the counter and says there’d been an accident. Anyways, it’s covered in milk. Mind you, I’ve seen shit like that before, including, “toddler stepped on the screen”, “kitten spilled water in it”, “baby spilled soda on the table”, and my personal favorite, “what do you mean, liquid damage?” Anyways, this one kind of hit a new low. It was two weeks old. I pretty much had to tell him that he’d voided both the manufacturer’s warranty and the TAP (CompUSA Warranty) that he’d payed a few extra hundred on. I have to admit, on one hand it was kind of funny, but overall I felt bad for him. Anyways, this is why I prefer desktop computers. The worst thing Ishtar can do to my computer is shed near the intake fan.

Some friends and I decided to return to Pracna on Main this past saturday night, frankly because they have a sweet view of the Mississippi river if you get a roadside seat outside. This time, we wouldn’t settle for just any waiter. This time we had my friend and former roommate Nelson as our waiter, and although the place was packed, we got great service. The beer was good and cold, I got more than enough of them (and good spinach dip!) during their $2 tap happy hour and I had a great time.

The only downside of night was drive-by splash by a car, but you can’t really blame Pracna for that one. I blame the asshole who had to drive within an inch of the curb when there was no one else on the road. If I had a rock, I would have hurled it at his car.

In case it wasn’t blatantly obvious to you, I’m trying out some new themes for the blog to find the one that suits me best. As it stands right now, I’ll likely be sticking with this new format, but seeing as it’s currently 1am, I don’t have the attention span to really tweak it exactly how I want it. That said, you can look forward to more changes in the future.

Saturday night my friend Nate and I had only two goals in mind: get drunk and talk about our plans to rule the universe. The latter half of that goal went just fine, thank you, but it has not yet reached the time for us to reveal our malevolent agenda so I will have to stop there. As for the getting drunk part of that plan, I can honestly say I’ve never been at a bar during it’s happy hour and had a more difficult time getting drunk. Seeing as our ultimate goal of the night was to come home inebriated, we decided it would be best if we went somewhere within walking distance, so we ended up at a bar overlooking the Mississippi called Pracna. We got there right at 9, when their happy hour started, and naively thought that their two hour happy hour with $2 taps and 20 different beers on tap would be more than enough to do the trick. The place wasn’t that busy and it was nice out, so we seated ourselves at a table outside overlooking the river and after a few minutes our waiter stopped by and we ordered our first round. Good start, right?

Wrong. An hour and a half later, when we finally decided to leave, we had only seen our waitor 4 times, two of which we actually had to flag him down. I barely had a buzz going and Nate was stone sober, so we pretty much just gave up, got our tab, and walked back to my place where we finished the night with some cheese curds and jalapeno poppers from Santana’s (a local market/grill) and a few whisky sours. Long story short, I don’t think I’ll be going to Pracna’s any time soon.

Good news for everyone who’s me: There will soon be an opening for a technician at the CompUSA I work at and I’m the one who will be filling the spot. Right now I’m already working in the tech shop, but in a position called a “Service Writer”, which involves checking in computers, doing the initial hardware diagnostics, doing paperwork, helping the technicians, and I also do some of the upgrades and other easy shit like that. Once we get my replacement hired and I train him in, however, I will be promoted to a technician, which makes me very happy. Basically, the only thing I need to do is become A+ Certified, which involves me memorizing a study-bible sized A+ guide and passing two tests: One hardware related and one software related. The best part is, it’s a lifetime certification and CompUSA is paying for the tests as long as I stay with the company for an additional year, which I was planning on doing anyways because I enjoy my job and I like the people I work with.

Long story short, after 24 years of taking random electronics apart, putting them back together, doing it again, selling, building, and fixing computers for family and friends, I’ll finally be certified to do it, and most importantly: I’ll be getting paid to do it.

Anyone that knows me should know that it’s fitting for my first real post here to coincide with the recent release of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy movie . Naturally, I was there for the midnight showing on the 27th with Nathan and, of course, Jessie. I know it hasn’t been getting the greatest reviews and is only averaging 3.5 stars, but I think it was pretty damn good, and so does everyone else I’ve talked to who’s seen it. I was a little weary that Mos Def and Sam Rockwell wouldn’t be able to pull off Ford Prefect and Zaphod Beeblebrox, but I think both did a great job, Arthur was perfect, and Alan Rickman as the voice of Marvin the Paranoid Android was brilliant.

If you haven’t already, go see it now! The better it does, the better the chances that we’ll end up seeing “The Resturaunt at the End of the Universe” on the silver screen.

Whelp, here it is, the first post in my new WordPress weblog. If the web address isn’t obvious enough, this is Evan Primakow, and I’ll be running the show here. This is my first personal website since the late 90’s, but I also run an internet community called Digitally Wise, so check that out too.