Could the Lizard King Learn to Use Sidekick 2.0?
by Penn Jillette

I never really got "The Doors." Jim Morrison was not speaking for me and I never really understood why anyone considered him a great American poet: "Killer on the road His brain is squirming like a toad" Does anyone believe that if the word "toad" didn't rhyme with the word "road" that Jim would have been saying to himself - "Drat! I have this clear poetic image of a murderer traveling on a highway with the contents of his skull fidgeting like something bulbous, tailless and amphibious. I sure wish `thoroughfare' rhymed with `bufa vulgaris'." I just don't get it. But I do understand Sidekick 1.0. Jim said "I am the Lizard King, I can do anything." Well, I am the Sidekick Prince and I can do anything but use that damn Paste feature. My relationship with Sidekick 1.0 lasted 3.25 times longer than any of my romantic relationships. I used the Notepad and Dialer every day. I used the ASCII table at least a dozen times and for a short while I even believed the Calendar/Appointment thing was good for more than just telling me last Thursday's date. What would my good buddy Jim have thought of Sidekick 1.0? Well, let's remember he died in 1971. Oliver Stone thinks Jim is so cool but Jim died without even knowing how to use an answering machine. Mister Mojo Risin' would ask about 8 track tapes and wouldn't know jack about Bart Simpson. And even off peyote it would take a bit to get Jim to understand EPROM. But I could get him through the original Sidekick in a couple hours. It's a good easy program that does a few things you really need done. Let's pretend Sidekick + never happened, a couple of friends of mine said it was slow and bad so I didn't even look at it. But Sidekick 2.0 I had to check out. If I don't keep learning I might as well be in a graveyard in Paris with Nietzsche. Could I explain Sidekick 2.0 to Jim? Well, it's mouse driven and has lots of windows (insert your own Doors/windows joke here) - you've seen some of the fools who use Macs - windows and a mouse make it easy for anyone, maybe even a dead rock star. 1.0 Notebook files work with 2.0, and you've got 9 groovy notebooks each of which can have its own default subdirectory and extension. The Dialer is expanded to a whole Rolodex(TM) thing(not TM) with addresses and notes attached and it won't take 1.0 files raw. I would have to do the conversion for Jim. I had 614 phone numbers to convert and if you know a lot of people with one name it really screws your fields. I have Madonna's old home phone number and I know a guy named "Ratso" (I'm so thankful I don't know Bono or Cher and the Dialer is only one of the reasons). The best thing about the new dialer for guys like Jim and me - riders on the storm, is it can dial from any hotel. It'll ignore any area code you give it and add any 9s or 8s you need for an outside line. So, you only have to take out the 1s and put in your local area code once. I'm sure Jim would make his drummer do this. I thought it was cool that the new Dialer calls any pager and automatically leaves your message without you having to do squat but you try to explain alphanumeric pagers to Jimbo. In conclusion, even though I hardly even looked at the ToDo lists or the alarms I know a lot more about Sidekick 2.0 than Jim Morrison. But he looked a lot better in brown leather, bell-bottom hip-huggers.