The apple on the tree, so to speak.

Gentle readers,

What to do in this situation? The CD obviously knows that I have Ubuntu running on at least two machines that I use, possibly three, and feels like he should have it, too. I'm not sure why. I had hoped that dangling a piece of sparkly thread in front of his eyes would have distracted him, but, alas, to naught!

FYI, this is also the only situation I can think of in which I would try to talk someone out of installing Ubuntu. Can you imagine the nightmare of having to provide daily support to someone using Ubuntu who can't use Vista?

HALP!


Comm: "I've heard that there's something called linnicks that makes your computer safer. Can I have one?"

Me: "No."

Comm: "Why?"

Me: "You have a perfectly functional (This is a lie. It's a Vista machine.) Dell laptop. It has all the software you need for your job on it, your iTunes and is fully covered by Dell's customer service and warranty. Why do you need Linux?"

Comm: "Look, Tech Person (He actually said my name, but I need to preserve anonymity and I'm reasonably positive that he intended a condescending racial epithet behind it, so we'll just leave this as 'Tech Person'), in order to do my job, I need the best technology that we can afford. On my machine, if I have Skype and Internet Explorer going with more than twenty tabs and my iTunes, things slow down. Your machine runs that, whatever you're doing with your numbers thing (by which he means STATA, an advanced suite for statistical analysis) and God only knows what on your secret monitors (He means virtual desktops.) It's not fair that you have a better machine, and if giving me a linnicks will help me get there, I think that you should give it to me."

Narrative Interruption: At this point, I was tempted to give him an Ubuntu install on a USB drive and tell him to try it out on his home computer, and then come back to me if he liked it. I quickly squashed the temptation to take a Comm person seriously.

Me: Look, using Linux does make your computer more efficient, and therefore more powerful and able to do more, granted,...

Comm: See!

Me: ...but it's also a hell of a lot of work, and I don't have the capacity to train you on how to use it. Tell you what: why don't you take some night classes at the community college on how to use Linux, and if you like it, I'll give it to you?

Comm: *storms out*

Proof positive that this person did not deserve a Linux operating system was that he thought that it was something that I and only I could give him.