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I've decided I would like a free Xbox, so here's my plan.

I'm going to buy a pet bird. A crow. I'm going to name him Sauft. It sounds kind German, right? Yeah, according to Alta Vista's Babel Fish Translation service (your legacy remains, Douglas), it means "drink." Cool. Okay, so I've get this pet crow, and I'm going to put together a website about it. People do that with their dogs, right? Their cats? They put up photos and little poems and invite their friends to look at it and comment in the guest book? Same here, my little website for Sauft. Question is, what should the domain name be?

Hmmm. www.kirkspetbird.com? No, people might read that as Kirk Spet Bird. And it looks like the "spet" market has already been cornered.

How about www.petcrow.com? It's available, and I could even use the domain to retell the Lakota legend of The Pet Crow. That's all well and good, but let's stay focused. I want an Xbox, not mistreatment from the white man.

So, here it is. The website for Sauft, my pet bird: www.mycrowsauft.com.

As I see it, it'll only be a matter of weeks before Microsoft's legal team contacts me to offer me $10.00 or a bag of Combos brand cheese filled snacks to give up the name as it's causing confusion for the customers. When I relent, they'll maybe invite me 'round for lunch so they can threaten me with a lawsuit. They'll pay for lunch, I'm sure, but they'll make me leave the tip.

They'll continue, and the negative press will be overwhelming. At one point, someone within the organization will point out, "We're Microsoft. We have a pretty nasty reputation. We can't keep doing this!" They'll issue a press release about how they'll work with me to pursue a result that is mutually beneficial. And although the press release will be on paper, it won't be hard to see the wink and the nod hidden amongst the text.

A week or so after that, my URL will changes to something like www.kirkspetbird.com or www.mycrowforums.com Microsoft will have paid for registration of the new URL, they'll offer me free classes so I can get one of their little titles that'll allow me to charge some corporation an extra $27,000 a year for an already $80,000 service that wouldn't even be needed if said corporation used Macs, and I'll own an Xbox.

I don't know...maybe everyone has it wrong with Microsoft. Sure, they seem like bullies, but they do enjoy giving out free stuff. They give free toys to kids who are too smart for their legal department. They give free certification classes to tech guys who will use that certification to make sure that major corporations are forced to rely on Microsoft products. They give free software to schools so the U.S. government won't declare them a monopoly even as their monopoly grows through the education market. Look at all that free stuff! Microsoft is the most charitable organization in the world!

Is anybody fooled by this? I'd think yes, obviously, but now I'm not sure. Call me an optimist, but I'd like to believe that humanity is not that stupid. However, this leads to a fairly sad thought. If we're not that stupid, than we are that lethargic. So many people work so closely with Microsoft products these days that they'll just accept whatever compost Redmond shovels our way. Can this be blamed directly on Windows? The fact that it's still unstable, unsafe, and quite often unusable has actually worked towards its advantage. People have grown tired of fighting it. Microsoft has worn its users down. I've honestly worked with people who just shrug—sometimes even laugh off system crashes as just part of the routine. "Oh, that crazy Windows and its wacky general protection faults! What a nut!" After all, why complain? Who's going to listen?

Microsoft? No. If they listened, their operating systems and software would work well with a good degree of consistency. They wouldn't need an army of IT professionals staffed by the dozen at every street corner waiting to cash in when another system goes down.

Those very IT people? Will they listen? Partly. They'll repair, but they won't prevent. After all, if a network of computers can run reliably, they're out of their jobs. Think about their position. They're hired to service a network of computers that, if it's serviced to well, will make their services unnecessary. Do you think mechanics like cars that don't break down? Plumbers like sinks that don't start dripping? The fallibility of our technology employs an awful lot of people, and Windows is about as fallible as a technology has ever been. Hence it's popularity.

This is why I get such a kick out of their recent ad campaign. You know the one; it has all those upwardly mobile young professionals dancing around their cubicles because of something having to do with Microsoft Office. I don't understand this...what could Office do that require such a response. People use it to type memos and calculate travel expenses. Office isn't about creating great things, it's a conduit for that which is being created. It's taking words or numbers and making them look all pretty. Take away Office, and there are many other ways that information can still look pretty. Office is not making anyone dance and celebrate...unless they're celebrating the fact that Word didn't crash their system again. I suppose that would make me dance, too.

And then there's the hypocrisy of "Your Potential. Our Passion." Hypocrisy and poor grammar, actually, but for sake of all those who have decided grammar is no longer important to our society, everyone from news casters to Apple to the President of these United States, I'll forgo the grammar gripe and stick with hypocrisy. Microsoft is passionate about what I do with Office, they say? The results of my day at work are what fuel their company? Oh, you've gotta be kidding me. If they cared so much about the potential of those using their products, why do they work so hard to restrict access to those products? Why are they priced so ridiculously? Why do they so stringently police who uses them and who doesn't? Why do they make them so bloated and complicated to use?

Or...wait. Maybe they're not being so hypocritical after all. I mean, they are pretty passionate about the potential of many computer users. They were passionate about the potential of Bungie, after all. So, they bought them. They were passionate about the potential of VirtualPC. So, they bought the technology. Microsoft was passionate about the potential www.mikerowesoft.com. So, they bought the kid who put it together. Yeah, yeah I guess they are pretty passionate over there in Redmond.

Now, it remains to be seen whether they'll be passionate about the potential of www.mycrowsauft.com. It also remains to be seen whether I'll be passionate enough to actually go through with it. Truth be known, I really don't want an Xbox. My Game Cube and my Mac suit me just fine, as do the many board games piled up in my closet. I'm not quite so sure I want a pet bird, anyway. Are Microsoft products worth all the crap I'd have to clean up? (And we ain't just talkin' 'bout the bird, neither.)

If I did go through with it, though...I mean, if I were Mike Rowe, I would've taken Microsoft's original offer for $10. Or maybe that bag of Combos I mentioned earlier. Both would make me happier than an Xbox and some stupid classs. They won't make me dance around the office like some kind of idiot, sure, but then, nothing ever does. I guess I just don't have the passion, or the potential, Microsoft wants.