This morning I ran metrics on my blog. WHY are so many of you guys still using IE6? I mean, I’m happy enough to see that Firefox 3 is the #2 browser for my visitors, but if it’s gonna be beaten out by IE, can’t it at least not be by the super crappy version? I’m no fan of IE8, but at least it’s presentable.

What is it with you users? Don’t you like yourselves? Don’t you want to show up looking your best? When you show up at my blog wearing IE6, it’s like arriving to pick up your Friday night date . . . on a tricycle. It’s like going to the prom . . . in a track suit. It’s like saying you have this awesome Darth Vader getup . . . and it’s the polyester kiddie costume from Target. Like a bad pickup line at a bar or seriously stinky breath, it instantly gives a bad impression.

You look like a big bunch of dorks. I understand that dressing badly is a chronic affliction for cybergeeks, but my toleration of bad fashion only extends to clothing. I hold your browser to a higher standard. IE6 is soooooo last century. So let’s play a little game of What Not To Digitally Wear and toss that rickety old piece of junk. It’s got holes in it and it smells like old cheese. Just like your mother made you get rid of that beloved Boba Fett shirt after it saw you through puberty, I’d like to take you by the hand and say, “Let’s go shopping for something new.”

And come to think of it, I need to take you nerds using Firefox 3 to task as well. Why haven’t you gotten Firefox 3.5? Huh? Don’t you want to be cool?

For example, Windows 98 was so bad that Trey Parker and Matt Stone went completely out of the plot’s way in South Park: Bigger, Longer, Uncut to shoot Bill Gates in the head for it. It’s a shame the movie didn’t come out during the release of Windows ME or Vista, because something tells me the second and third offenses would have warranted a more horrible form of death when the general cries out “You told us it would be faster!” and all Gates responds with is a mealy-mouthed “It is faster!”

Thank goodness XP came around. When this OS arrived, people’s criticism went off the technology as a whole and tended to focus more on issues of software or ethics — the insecurity and inefficiency of Internet Explorer, monopolistic business practices, and so on. It proved a stable OS that is user friendly and more or less idiot proof. With everyone switching to Firefox and governments finally cracking down and slapping some fines on the big bad msft, the pecadillioes were overlooked by the general public.

But then . . . looming on the horizon . . . there it was. Vista. With a distracting color scheme, more annoying autofeatures than MS Word, and a crash magnitude that puts Bruckheimer to shame, the disasters that were Windows ME and Windows 98 were swept aside like mosquitoes in a hurricane. Gamers in particular hate it, as it’s more bloated than a sorority house with PMS and just as much fun to play with.

XP was like a hot girlfriend who liked sports and didn’t care if you wanted to go drinking with your buddies once in a while. Agile, flexible, and adaptable, it’s still relevant and serviceable after seven years, something few guys can say about most of their girlfriends. But now Microsoft wants to force us to break up with XP when they stop selling it in June. Instead they want us to start going out with Vista, XP’s fatter, uglier, bitchier sister.

Why couldn’t have you remembered that if it ain’t broke, you don’t need to fix it, Microsoft? Vista sucks rocks so hard that users are begging Microsoft not to retire it before the next version of the Windows OS appears sometime in 2010. We were passed a note in class from Vista that said “Will you go out with me? Check Yes or Yes.” I crumpled mine up and threw it in the trash, holding tight to XP. I love you, baby. I won’t dump you until you really deserve it.

My thought? If you’re in the market for a PC, buy or build a serviceable machine with the minimal level of horsepower that you’ll need for the next two years. Then pick up a copy of XP, install it, and avoid Vista until something else arrives. Because whatever it is, it has to be better.

Can it be they actually have taken gamers’ needs into consideration and realized that although most people only purchased the 360 to play HALO 3, even that mammoth can’t haul the platform along indefinitely? Can it be– is it possible– that they’ve just decided to show some gratitude to loyal users?

Ha, ha. Okay, just kidding.

I’m glad this happened, and I really don’t care what the motive was. In a perfect world, this decision would have been made to show gratitude and respect to loyal XBox players who want to continue to enjoy solid older titles. Heck, I miss playing Goldeneye and if that’s one of the games added, I’ll be very happy. But deep down I know it’s just another crass commercial tactic by Microsoft to further leverage their competitiveness against the PS3, which has always offered backwards compatibility and never experienced the bugginess that the XBox had. (The result of Sony, a company that knows how to make quality hardware, outpacing Microsoft, a company that can’t even put out bug-free software.)

As much as I love the HALO franchise, I don’t want to see Microsoft achieve the sort of dominance in the gaming industry the way it has in software and operating systems. It will only lead to the same sort of laziness that encourages them to continue to put out buggy, unsecure PC products with no incentive of healthy competition to encourage them to improve. That’s why I’m relieved that Bungie has gone independent again. Luckily their Babylonian Captivity didn’t last too long to destroy their soul and quash all talent, innovation, and creativity.