What do you get twelve year olds these days?

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My kid brother, Joshua, is turned twelve years old on Saturday and I had no idea what to get him. He’s pretty easy to please but I have the complex where my gift has to be amazingly cool and awesome or it’s not worth it. There is also competition to think about. My older brother is a demi-God for gifts. On my twelfth birthday, I got Animal Farm and Happy Gilmore from him, for my thirteenth I got Johnny Cash -The best of CD, Nineteen Eighty-Four and Past Mortem. This year from my brother and I got wireless bluetooth headphones – he’s constantly upping his game, I can’t compete with that :sad2: . I am just not that brand of cool. I like Mario games, Totoro and cute non-cool non-boy stuff.

Like any desperate fool, I searched the internet for answers.

My little brother’s birthday is on Saturday. What do you get a 12 year old these days?

Nothing stood out.

I rang my older brother to see if I could see what he was rocking this year but my call wouldn’t connect. I went with a safe bet, technology; a second love in life for me. I purchased a green iPod Nano (after being talked out of getting him a pink one – pink is a pimp colour on boys IDC what anyone says, but for the sake of ‘Best gift of the Year’, I rolled with green).  I got it inscribed with ‘I’m happy you was adopted’ and a heartfelt card. I called him on his birthday and he was very unbirthday-like.

Me: Yo hombre, wazzuuuurrrp?
Joshua: *le sigh* Nothing Shola, thank you for the iPod.
Me: Do you not like it 3: ?
Joshua: It’s great, it’s just Mam is being a bit -
Mam: Joshua, I hope you are cleaning that room, I have more jobs for you after you are off the phone with Shola. I’m not finished yet. *she laughs to herself* No, I’m not finished by a long shot.
Me: Snap, what did you do?
Joshua: I’m getting suspended from school.
Me: :angry: Oh dear.

I’m really annoyed he is getting suspended. He’s not a prick, but he’s acting like one apparently, or quote on quote from my Mam: “He’s being a little shit”. My family doesn’t reward bad behaviour, so his meal out, his cinema trip with friends, his day out with the uber cool older brother, and his big present was cancelled. He is doing time for his crime and my Mam’s gone militant. One time she made me take everything out of my room, put it into her room, excluding my books and bed. I never got my TV back :sad: and I did a lot of reading. I did not have internet access at this time.

I didn’t win gift of the year and it’s all his fault. Year thirteen will be my year. You know what I wished I got him instead now? A can of whoop arse.

Shola Vs. Machine

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I have been using an Ubuntu OS since November 2011. I didn’t partition the drive, so Windows 7 wouldn’t boot after the Ubuntu installation, so, a more accurate term for the situation would be ‘I have been abandoned by Windows to use Ubuntu since November last year’. A lesson: never cheat on your bitch with a cheaper bitch.

I had somewhat settled down to the ways of the less complicated freeganism of Ubuntu until it crossed the line. Today was the day Ubuntu went too far. Too too far. It didn’t let me sync my iPod properly without crashing my whole laptop. Numerous attempts were made to reason with it before an old penny dropped.

… U R STOPPING MEH + MAH MUSAKK?

So, after struggling with a scratchy Toshiba recovery disk and a Windows 7 upgrade disk without the product key, I am home to a place with Gates and Windows again and boy, it feels good.

There are some amazingly fantastic things about Ubuntu as an operating system. The fact it’s free, the technology-freedom-fighter in me danced around with my techno-tambourine, I mean, the system man, making us pay for a God given right man, I mean, bottle air and charge me a premium, it’s the interwebz and stuff. Ubuntu also has no viruses. It’s fast. It grants me a greater sense of control. It comes with a free cloud drive because it’s the future AND It looks cool too,C’MON  IT’S PURPLE /pieface .

But no, there are faults. The fact I can’t enable my wireless portable hub via the wireless connection admin box in Ubuntu was a pet peeve, or maybe I couldn’t find the right application? I don’t know but sieving through all the crap and not knowing the differences between similar apps was an irritation, even with all the gazillion reviews and limited product information which all was useless. FYI Ubuntu reviewers, Saying ‘Great!!1′ isn’t a useful comment. Also I couldn’t download certain software as they don’t cater for Ubuntu/Linux. The Ubuntu Software centre is cool and free, but a large chunk of the programmes are unresponsive, under-developed and ugly.

At the time, I did tell people it was great because it was. Fuck Macs, fuck Windows and all that ‘anti-capitalism’  propaganda every cool indie person is saying. I feel like I should say something about Kony here, anyway, I loved it at the time (Ubuntu, not Kony) and everything cool about it is cool in concept. Everything is free, everything is made by the people for the people, everything has a quirky satisfaction about it and the feeling of freedom was great. Freedom from what? I can’t exactly say, but being different was nice.

It was a perfect system at the time, I made it work solely for 6 months solid: I’m sure I had Stockholm syndrome about the situation. In the end just stick with Windows 7. It’s beautiful. Viruses? Be careful about what you download. Free? Proper developers need a wage too. It looks cool? A world without Windows is a dark place. Cloud drive? Use a USB, or Google docs. Purple? Blue is the new purple. I would use Ubuntu again though, everyone has to visit Mexico twice right?

- Still, fuck Macs man. /flower.