iPod Chronicles

During my brief absence – which I will not elaborate on – my iPod died. Two separate apple.com-recommended repair centers said so: “Sorry, the frowney face on your iPod screen means the hard drive is broken. Sadly, Apple stopped making replacements for it. There is nothing we can do.” Two years of taking runs with my iPod had finally taken its toll, or so they said.

It took all of the following week for me to realize that a decade of TV-parenting by MacGyver was not in vain. Like the girl who kicks the car tire to make the steam coming out of the hood stop, I decided to shift the casing around and hope for the best. It worked; he’s back.

At this point, a self-congratulatory diatribe would be both in order and to be expected but there is a bigger issue at hand: how am I to believe in any technician henceforth?

A brief analogy might help explain.

Imagine you take your six-year-old son, Crunk, to the hospital because he won’t wake up. The whiskey you gave him for his toothache put him into an alcohol-induced coma. Just play along.

He is pronounced dead on the spot. They don’t even check his pulse. Just dead. You take him for a second opinion. After all, he did have some of your Blue Label, the little ingrate better wake up to thank you.

The second opinion: “prognosis negative, Jerry.”

So you take him home. You spread the tragic news and you mourn in the silence of your home (and on the bus, and in the gym, and when pretending to listen to music even though it’s off to avoid conversation when you go with somebody else to the library). A week later, you decide if Doogie Houser can do it, it can’t be that hard. Keep in mind he was on after Family Matters and bad boy Steve Urkel. You do what Neil Patrick Harris would do: you ask for a few cc’s of something ending in –phine, crack a joke about being blackout drunk, and smack him upside the head like a tetherball.

He wakes up.

Now, he may not function as well during cardiovascular activities or perform at his best during cocktail parties, but at least he’s awake and will have to do until Steve Jobs holds the next product launch.

In other news, UCA journalism juniors are about as ready to perform professionally as Josh McRoberts. During my Taller de Revista class, we were budgeting stories for next month’s print issue of the school's magazine. A girl pitched a story on blood transfusions but refused to include the recent discrimination scandal at the blood bank because “I don’t like discussing homosexuality.” Really?

Listen, Cupcake, nobody cares if you’re homophobic or not. This isn’t dinner with the inlaws, you don’t avoid a topic because you find it controversial. Put down USWeekly and pick up something that doesn't kill neurons but you can handle– like a coloring book. Do kids in organic chemistry ask if heart atriums are like kidneys where you can donate one because you have a second?

Serenity now.

Play nice,

Gregorio.

I'm gonna act like I don't give a make love.

New Crank.

Today I learned about hair extensions.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with hair extensions, they are what the justice system and the DEA refer to as “hard drugs.”

A subject – most likely female – has mild self-esteem issues, looking for a change in her rut-stuck life and is considering cutting her hair as the remedy to all her woes. This despite the fact that, to this day, there is no record of any woman – elderly, adult, teenage or unborn – ever being truly satisfied by a haircut. She wanders into a specialized shop.

Those who work this shop are not certified psychologists, guidance counselors or know anything about her, but do sport flashy clothes and eccentric hair-do’s. To her impressionable eyes they seem perfectly qualified to advise. Not surprisingly, their advice perpetuates the dream of the fix-all-haircut. Moreover, it just so happens that this silver-tongued con man can execute said haircut for a very small fee. After all, he is a trained hairdresser.

She agrees to the haircut.

Needless to say, the haircut is about as satisfying as a kick in the balls.

This sends her into a downward spiral of poor self-image and incessant complaining. The nagging about said haircut alienates her from her friends, which in turn, only increases the self-pity and distress.

Oddly, however, the hairdresser receives none of the blame but rather has inexplicably become sole confidant. As such, he recommends a more powerful antidote to low self-esteem: extensions. He doesn’t deal (with) extensions personally but knows a trustworthy hairdresser who does. (This extension hairdresser just so happens to work in the same shop. What a fortunate coincidence for the shop owner).

And so she reaches enters the world of hair extensions. (Please understand these are somebody else’s replacement for the very thing she wanted cut off in the first place.) She is told that price of these is about 8-fold that of the haircut it is hoping to replace. Suddenly struck with the financial implications of the mess she’s gotten into, she seems hesitant.

However, this extensions hairdresser did not get to where is by allowing common sense to get in the way of a transaction. He assures her this is “high-quality, fully natural, human grown” hair and that his “provider always comes through with quality products.” The deal is closed.

And so she spends US$700 on a product that in less than a football season will have become utterly useless because her own body will have grown the exact same thing. It is not many a product your body can produce for you and save you US$700.

At this point, if you feel this story sounds vaguely familiar, it’s probably because it’s the plot for the movie Traffic and every season of The Wire. They may call “gateway drugs” “haircuts,” use “hairdresser” instead of “dealer” and say “extensions” instead of “hard drugs,” but I know an illicit trade circle when I see one.

buen día,

grego.

I give these MCs hell like they all atheists.