August 31, 2006

• Yeah, they're protecting our freedoms.. in Eye-Rack. WTF? Then these mental giants go one step further than protecting our freedoms with whatever it is they are doing over there so competently preventing a civil war, and waste taxpayer's money ploughing ammo into .. a printer. Yes, I really feel safe with these staunch, honourable and not at all psychotic over-reacting meatheads, at work in Eye-Rack. GRRRRR
• ... too harsh?
• I have a similar model of printer from HP, & I find it works well, but jesus they do gouge you for toner cartridges. Holy shit, it won't even print black & white without a tri-colour in there as well. That's fuckin' rude, mans.
• I shoot printers on a daily basis. (<-fps game partially set in office environment)
• "Congratulations on purchasing the M60 medium/universal machine gun. Used and serviced correctly, your M60 should give you years of trouble-free maiming and slaughter." "To get the best results from your M60, we recommend you only use approved 7.62 mm NATO ammunition. Refilling the cartridges yourself or using cheaper 3rd-party ammunition may reduce kill quality."
• Network M60 or Local M60? *clicks 'Next'*
• (I don't think that is in fact an M60, but nevertheless, muteboy FTW)
• Wow. Another REMF playing at being a real soldier. If that printer was paid for using government funds, that man deserves an Article 15. If it was his own printer, then why shouldn't HP charge him for support? "Hey, HP, my mom's hairdresser's cousin lives near a Coast Guard base, so we're protecting you from all them terruristics. Give me a free computer."
• Wrong. He should have shot the CPU. After all, the military uses Windows-based systems. And yea, I just picked up a brand new HP printer for 26 bucks at a sale. The damn cartridge cost me more than that--and it will probably last a month.
• Looks like a M249 SAW
• Heheh. Windows.
• Agreed, LokiSpeak.
• How about you protect my freedoms by not wasting ammunition, dork.
• How about me wastin' monkey space by talkin' back to a dork who will never read this nor any of these comments?
• Is that guy on his first, second or third tour of duty in Iraq? How many tours would he have been there for if they hadn't issued those "stop loss" orders? The guy may be a "mental midget", but given the choice of siding w/ either a frustrated user or a giant corporation, I guess I'd like to know why HP wouldn't help him. Also, Zoidberg o_O
• I always seem to get things wrong, but I thought it was just a couple of soldiers with an opportunity to let off steam in a fun and funny way. I didn't see any political statements until reading all these comments. Now, having some old components that did cause me much grief, I just may take the '22 to them, having pondered the glee of venting back at them.
• "M249 SAW - And I will call him... Minimi!" Wasn't there a video around recently where a bunch of soliders in Iraw blew up an old car in the middle of the desert with a large amount of high explosive? People said that was a waste too, but others said that they have to get rid of explosives past their 'best before' date. OK perhaps. But it's still wasting time, and displaying an unhealthy glee in destruction. The whooping and the hollering made that clear. Always with the whooping and hollering. *sigh*
• Her Majesty's Army takes a dim view of whooping a hollering. Standards, Jeremy, standards.
• wh00p!
• WHAT IS THIS, 'OPRAH'?
• Look under your seats, everybody!
• explosives with a "best before" date? I thought it would be a "boom on" date?
• Wow, I'm somewhat amazed at the lack of empathy in this thread. I have to say I wouldn't want to be in Iraq in any job, even it is was stuck trying to do paperwork in 100+ degree heat, covered in dust in some porta-trailer, with only an inkjet printer to work with - ANY INKJET PRINTER! If the thing did have any sort of hardware problem short of paper jammed in it then the printer was pretty much land fill. Consumer level inkjets are almost never worth repairing and I'm pretty sure there isn't HP Service in Iraq right now. So the guy blew off some steam wasting a couple bucks worth of bullets. You've got no sympathy at all?
• I have sympathy for his situation. And if he'd say, taken a baseball bat or a sledgehammer to the printer, I'd have been all "Right on, brother!" But the idea of "blowing off steam," or taking out one's frustration on anything with a powerful firearm pretty much killed any fellow-feeling I had for the guy. Shit, I know how good it can feel to like your job, but the thought of anyone who's being paid to wield deadly weapons taking pleasure from doing so really creeps me out. Maybe I'm just a naive Pollyanna, but I see the use of an M60 as a grim necessity, to be done only when there's no other choice. To enjoy doing it - even against a crappy printer - puts a bad taste in my mouth. Maybe if I'd lived in the age when defenestration was a popular wartime tactic, I wouldn't have laughed at David Letterman's "We Throw Stuff Off a Five Story Building" segments.
• I'm pretty sure there isn't HP Service in Iraq right now. Then this war has been fought in vain.
• I don't like heavy metal bullets being scattered around for no reason. Iraq has enough lead and uranium and tungsten and who knows what else all over it already. Shoot if you have a good reason. Not because you can.
• but I see the use of an M60 as a grim necessity, to be done only when there's no other choice I can completely appreciate and agree with that view but once the army has been deployed into a live-arms environment, we enter the realm of personnel and morale management. Even it that deployment decision was made by people for whom 'grim necessity' described only their personal political situation, and appear to care not a whit for the soldiers they sent over there, let alone their morale.
• If it's a matter of personnel and morale management, then the appropriate management technique at this point is to remove that man from duty and send him home for treatment. A human being who has gotten to the point where he takes pleasure and/or finds relief of stress in the use of that kind of weapon, even against an inanimate object, has lost something upstairs and is not the kind of person we need representing our country in war or in peace. That makes him an object of pity rather than of sympathy. This clip looks more like a desire for validation than for pity, though, and that's not something I'm prepared to give. How far of a psychological distance is it between feeling pleasure at shooting your printer full of holes and shooting an obstinate Iraqi civilian full of holes? I'd hate to be the man or woman on the other side of the gun if and when that distance is crossed.
• How far of a psychological distance is it between feeling pleasure at shooting your printer full of holes and shooting an obstinate Iraqi civilian full of holes I'd agree that there is very little distance. Which is why violence is always dangerous to indulge in any form, and why conventional armies are so poor at counter-insurgency.
• So shooting the printer is a metaphor? Hm. Vedy intelestink.
• I never metaphor I didn't like.
• Or a cheesy pun, apparently.
• Ah! And (in)sanity is returned to the thread. I never meant it to become so serious. Have I ever told you all that I like kittens?
• You sir, are the greatest monster in all of acknowledged, recorded history!
• and by great I mean, fabulous. Obviously.
• I guess this is the wrong time to tell about my big brother teaching me to shoot his old shotgun back in the '50's h'uh? /and I adore cats. They demand no less of me.