Kirk Hiner's

"When thinking differently just isn't different enough."

A Day At Applelinks Towers
or, I Can't Come Up With A Clever Alternative Title

By Kirk Hiner

As senior editor here at Applelinks, the question I'm most often asked is, "What the hell were you thinking when you wrote that?" I never really have a good answer for this, so it'd be difficult for me to turn that question into a column. Well, without lying, anyway. So, I'll move on to the second most often asked question; "What's it like working for Applelinks?"

To this, I reply, "Well, it's an awful lot like working at Hardee's, only it doesn't always smell like grease and no one wears those dorky drive-through headsets. No one except Paul Shields, anyway, but he's into all those business toys. The headset doesn't actually work, but he seems to be talking to...someone."

That response only propagates confusion, however, so, for this month's Absurd Notion, I'll switch from my normal format of rousing PC "gamers" and "patriotic" Americans everywhere, and instead describe what a normal day at Applelinks Towers is like. To derive more enjoyment from this article, imagine you're listening to that "busy music" from 1960s industrial city promotional films. If you like, you can also turn down the green in your monitor to give the screen a purpleish hue.

Now, the first thing for me every workday is the commute from Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio to Applelinks Towers in Long Island, New York. You might think a 600 plus mile drive to work (one way) might get old after a few months, but I don't mind it so much. It gives me time to clear my head, listen to the new Men Without Hats CD, and finish my medium Starbucks coffee (I know, I know, they like to call it "venti" instead of medium, but I refuse to play their stupid coffee games). Plus, I don't have it nearly as bad John Farr who has to commute from New Mexico. Even with the newly acquired Applelinks chopper (Bell 430), he still never makes it into the office on time.

Upon arrival at One Hilbert Curve, the first task of the day is navigating through the throngs of protestors outside the front gate picketing the latest opinion from John, Charles Moore or--once or twice a year--me. Don't you just hate it when people want their voice to be heard? Why can't they all just be content to listen to and agree with mine? Anyway, because the people protesting Charles' usually agree wholeheartedly with John (and vice versa), the protestors invariably turn on each other and everyone's usually either arrested or dead by 9:45 a.m.; conveniently, right around the time when John lands his helicopter atop tower one...something we all wish he'd stop doing since that's where the pool is. The helipad is atop tower two.

The towers themselves are quite impressive looking. All glass and steel and whatever else people use to make towers. I'm not sure what goes into it, I only know that the two buildings cost us $17.00 to build. When we asked the architect how he could possibly build us two 34-storey buildings on a little under 100 acres of Long Island property for $17.00, he simply replied, "I know this guy who has a truck." Good enough for us.

So, yeah, 34 stories with a bridge connecting the two on the 25th floor. When I say bridge, I don't mean a covered walkway, I mean one of those rope things the military uses (one rope on which to walk and two at each hand for balance) to test your ability to balance yourself on the type of rope bridges upon which you'd never come across in real military action. Or maybe they're just testing your ability to fall. I don't know. Applelinks editor Bill Stiteler was actually in the military, but he'll be the first to tell you he never walked across any rope bridges, he just sat around all day developing his comic strip in which a talking line contemplated existence with a talking triangle. Bill truly was an army of one.

Looking at the towers, it's actually pretty amazing how far we've come. Applelinks was founded by Joe Ryan back in 1972, well before Apple was even a company. At that time, we were a crafts store that focused on linking dried apple skins together to be use for Christmas decorations. There wasn't much call for this, even back in the 70s when Christmas was still acknowledged as a holiday, so the company switched its focus to the theological study of why the apple was chosen to link humans with sin instead of, say, a juicy orange or a nice, tart plum. As you can imagine, there was even less call for this, so the company was relieved when the Apple computer was announced, and even more relieved when the internet became popular. Suddenly, we had a mission that matched the moniker, and Applelinks as you all know it was born. A few years (and many shady business deals) later, we finally had the finances to move out of Joe's garage. Note: Insert Frank Zappa reference joke here.

What about the towers themselves? Well, they're very progressive...very modern. For instance, the third floor of tower one consists solely of our day care facility. In there, we have all the amenities a child could want: eMates, Newtons, tangerine iMacs stocked with games from Pangea Software; it's tremendous fun for the children. At least, it would be if we actually had any children that age. As it stands, it's actually fun for pretty much just me. I'll admit that I can't get a lot of work done on the eMates, but I prefer to stay down there because I like brightly colored plastic chairs.

The fifth floor of both buildings contains a commissary. Every tuesday morning, they served chipped beef gravy on toast for breakfast. My favorite. That eleven hour commute sure seems long when I know that SOS is waiting for me! One floor up is the weight room. It doesn't actually contain any exercise equipment, but instead is stocked with a bunch of those pills that allow people to pretend they can loose weight while they sleep. Ironically, there's also a vending machine full of high calorie carbo drinks. Some of us have taken to drinking those while taking the fat burning pills so we can both bulk up and burn fat while we sleep. It's too early to say if it's working, but if Gary Coyne doesn't stop turning colors, growing suckers on his palms and melting into the floor each time he steps into my office, one of us is going to have to see a doctor.

Speaking of offices, they're very nice. Some of the higher-ups get an entire floor, but the rest of us at least get our own room. Mine is particularly nice, as it overlooks the Icon Garden from the 23rd floor. Unfortunatly, because the icons in our garden are of the old 32x32 pixel variety, they're impossible to see from that height. In fact, they're impossible to see from the ground, as well, and quite often they get destroyed by our grounds keeping crew. Luckily, Lexmark gives us extra ink and paper with each review unit they send us, so it's never difficult to print off new ones.

Joe's a good boss in that he lets us pick our own office furniture. Mine is very old style; deep mahogany woods and leather. Erica Marceau's is much more modern; all white and gray piping with anime cells hanging over all the walls. Charles Moore's, despite all his talk of ergonomics, is completely empty with just one Pismo in the center of the room, which he hunches over for days on end. I swear that guy never leaves the office, not even for food or rest, except for on weekends when he kayaks back to his native Canada.

We also have a few media rooms. These were created so we could watch the technology news shows and stuff, but Bill and I tend to reserve them for Godzilla and Hong Kong Cinema movie marathons. Likewise with the library. Originally, that's where we stored the manuals for all the software and hardware we review, with one wall devoted solely to books from John Martellaro's sci-fi book of the month club. If that guy tries to get me to read Neuromancer one more time... Lately, however, it's been overrun with copies of my novel, Mowin' the Heavenly Lawn and with CDs of John Farr's eBook, Buffalo Lights.

What else? Oh, the party room. We used to call it a conference room, but then we realized we never have conferences. So, we decked it out with a new sound system, a lighting rig, a dance floor and an aquarium. To the casual observer, it would actually look like a screen capture from The Sims. Luckily for our legal department, we don't allow casual observors inside (although the guys from Freeverse Software haven't left in a week).

And finally, there's the software testing room. This room is filled with every Macintosh computer ever made, even the sucky ones, so we can give complete and fair tests to every review unit we received. We can, but we don't. I mean, come on, if we have access to a DP 1.2GHz system with a Cinema display, do you really think we're going to be running Macromedia Freehand MX or playing Dungeon Siege on a friggin' Performa or Blue and White? Really. Anyway, most of the really good machines are in the Media Room where we have them set up for LAN tournaments. Mark Zeedar has even used REALbasic to hook an old 9600 up to our rod hockey table so we can play against the computer. It's cool, and all, but the computer always has to be the Russians.

I said earlier I'd describe the typical day at Applelinks Towers, but I guess I won't do that now. I couldn't really, since none of our days are typical. In many ways, working for Applelinks is being a member of Oasis or The Kinks. We get drunk and high a lot and swear at each other all the time and quit a couple days a week and occasionally get our lips split in bar fights, but we're always brought back together by our common love for rock and roll.

Actually, no, judging from our healthy lips, low turnover ratio, congeniality, and Joe's strict drug screening policy and alcohol awareness programs, I guess working at Applelinks is nothing like being in Oasis or The Kinks. So, there; that's my answer. "What's it like working for Applelinks?" you ask? It's nothing like being in Oasis or The Kinks. Sorry. I'd like to do better than that, but Tieraney's started dinner. If I'm not home within eleven hours, my green bean casserole will be cold.

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