MACaveli

Alternate Title: “Bob has bitch tats”

The Zune Guy has asked Microsoft for permission to change his name to “Microsoft Zune.” I hope they respond by murdering him with tanks.I know it’s a little late in the game to be hating on the Zune (and a little too easy), but this douchepipe is somehow excited enough about a second rate music player with a patronizing and pathetic marketing campaign that he forever ruined his flesh and is attempting to do the same with his name.

The Zune is the “me too” of the iPod generation. If you have one and love it, great. Hold on to that feeling. It’s not the player I hate. It’s the manufactured cool that they so desperately tried to perfect. M$ tries to force cool with indie kids in the ads, and slogans like “welcome to the social.” Welcome indeed. Seeing people buy the Zune when it first came out and desperately try and find this “social” they had heard so much about reminded me of when I was 9 and I got a Laser Tag set for X-Mas. Only I was the only kid with Laser Tag that I knew and it only came with one gun. So imagine 9 year old me sitting on the floor, weeping and shooting myself in the chest with a Laser Tag gun. “The Social” is exactly that pathetic. More so, since I eventually got a Laser Tag Robot (not kidding at all) that shot back at me. “Here, kid. Have a robot instead of a friend.” Sounds bad, but there’s certainly no Zune robot that lets you trade music with it via wifi when none of your real friends have Zunes. If there was, I’m sure it would be a nice shade of turd brown.

The iPod’s at the time were white and black. White like the smiling face of angels and black like the glassy ocean at midnight. The Zune is the color of your dinner when you see it for the second time. Maybe that’s it. They wanted it to be familiar. Like shit. Everyone shits, so everyone will identify with it.  WELCOME TO THE FECAL!

UPDATE (from the comments)

As a device I have NO problem with the Zune. Its the artificial “social” aspect of it that MS tried to force. Apple puts the iPod out there and lets the users make it cool (even if that was their gimmick all along, it was subtle). MS is like, “here’s our MP3 Player, also it makes you cool and have friends and everyone wants one and you should have Zune clubs and make out parties!”

You know MS executives sit around conference tables trying to figure out the formula for “hip.” So far they haven’t cracked the code.

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115 Comments

  1. I'll come out and admit I bought a Zune last Summer, then was thoroughly confused when my new MacBook wouldn't talk to it in December. I have a whole one album on there and three X-Men TAS episodes.
    The Mac will however allow it to suckle electricity from it's USB port. But even then the Zune wakes it up repeatedly like an ungrateful fostered spawn, biting down too hard.

  3. Can't. Takes about 50 minutes to convert any small .avi video file you want to put on the damn thing. Then you.. slowly.. transfer..
    I managed about three before I decided it'd be more entertaining in the long run to eat my own hands.
    I did once dream of my very own portable X-Men collection, but it was not to be.

  4. I have – well, had, since I sold it on ebay because I never used it – an archos 405. It was pretty nice – other than the 2gig internal memory. Couldn’t fit jackshit on it, which was annoying. Now all of my music is on my 1tb external hdd ^_^

  5. "reminded me of when I was 9 and I got a Laser Tag set for X-Mas. Only I was the only kid with Laser Tag that I knew and it only came with one gun. So imagine 9 year old me sitting on the floor, weeping and shooting myself in the chest with a Laser Tag gun."
    Amazing… I can just picture a little kid sitting in his TMNT footsie pajamas crying and shooting himself in the chest. Incredible… I'm having an incredible year.

  7. OH!!! The Zune logo is supposed to be a sorta amalgamy thing of the word "Zune" right? Bah… who cares?

    Anyway, Eli's tattoo reminds me of a tattoo idea I had… only it wasn't of Steve Jobs, or even the Apple logo, it was gonna be a scene of Madonna dancing in front of a burning cross, like in her "Like a Prayer" video, but on my back.

    It was gonna be pimp.

    Don't ask why I felt like sharing that.

    PS: At first, I thought the curl in the "F" around Eli's tattoo was a bellybutton ring. LOL… sleep deprivation rules.

  11. first, of all, Eli is quite fit.

    second, the Twitter account said that Joel was up late last night drawing Eli's nipples. I have to assume he just thought they were too hard (no pun intended) and gave up?

  14. Bah, a music player is a music player, nothing else. I wouldn't judge someone based on the one that they use, unless they were fanatical enough to get a tattoo of it's logo on their arm.

    I have an iPod and a Zune. I got my iPod for free when I opened up a bank account, and I paid 90 bucks for my Zune on Black Friday. I try to be frugal (a jew).

    The only things I hate about the Zune are the fact that it feels like a brick in my pocket, and it's really low battery life. Other than that… Well, fuck you, it was 90 dollars.

  15. Laser Tag was the shit. My little brother and I had grandparents with disposable income, so we had a matching set. We played Star Wars often, and because I was the elder with significantly better aim, I was quite possibly the best Stormtrooper ever.

    and iPod FTW.

  17. As a windows user I've always had problems with my Ipod…but nevertheless its still better than anything else out there. I like the fact that the shit brown zunes sell for $10 cheaper almost everywhere.

  18. Unfortunately I have an inability to read further in anyone's message after seeing 'M$' or 'Micro$oft' or any other such nonsense. I'm not a Zune fan myself, but honestly, that's just juvenile. Enjoy yourself. Bookmark removed.

  20. I enjoy this site and all of its beautiful comics a lot. However, although I did see this comic as very funny, I'm not a huge fan of anybody hating on a Zune. I mean, what is there REALLY to hate on? Sure, its not an Ipod, but I take solace in knowing that my fingers aren't going around in circles trying to find a song. I don't have too many complaints about either player, but I would rather have a Zune simply for the bigger screen and beautiful (version 2) layout. I absolutely hate how the Ipod makes my fingers go in circles one way to go UP and another way to go DOWN. Why not just press up and down? That's my 2 cents. Either way, there's no LEGITIMATE reasons to hate either. Its more of a personal preference. Funny comic. Stupid comment/description.

    P.S. Zune guy is a douche. We Zune owners do not take pride in his fat ass.

  21. That is unfortunate. How did you type past the first line? You must be a very good typist, capable of completing the rest of your message without reviewing it. Good show man! Still, I'm curious, what do you see when you go visit icanhascheeseburger? Are they just cute pictures of kittens, or blank images all together?

  26. Eh, I just see it as a case of the car industry. Sure, Ford made really slick cars quickly, but more people were gonna figure out that assembly-line thing anyway. Just because you're the first to do something or even the most popular don't mean you're gonna stay that way.

    I'm not saying that the Zune is the Cadillac of music players or anything, it's just inevitable that people would see something awesome and attempt to put out their own spiffy versions of it.

    Maybe it's more like white people and rap. Dunno.

    Anyway, I own an iPod and I love it. I don't actually know anyone who owns a Zune, so can't contest for it, but I'm sure it's lovely. It's too bad this is a skirmish in the Battle of Mac and PC. I'm sure Zune has something to offer. Like…like more cup holders.

  28. Leaving aside debates about music players, can we all just agree that anyone who would CHANGE THEIR MONKEYFELCHING NAME over one is a douchenozzle? Can we get together on that one point, before we all end up with names like Frito, sitting there watching "Ow, My Balls?"

  39. As a device I have NO problem with the Zune. Its the artificial "social" aspect of it that MS tried to force. Apple puts the iPod out there and lets the users make it cool (even if that was their gimic all along, it was subtle). MS is like, "here's our MP3 Player, also it makes you cool and have friends and everyone wants one and you should have Zune clubs and makeout parties!"

    You know MS executives sit around conference tables trying to figure out the formula for "hip." So far they havent cracked the code.

  40. lol wow. I think there's been less backlash after political statements on this site >.>

    The Zune is a sad dead failure. A crippled implimentation of a beautiful idea. I guess the only reason the iPod touch doesn't do social music stuff with it's WiFi is because Microsoft would have sued their asses off. Why? For the money. All these companies are out there to make to make money. Microsoft is the richest and one of the most ruthless and got where it is by stealing ideas (a lot of them from Apple). If acknowledging that (with a dollar sign or whatever) offends you, then you need to go work for charity or something.

    If immaturity bothers you, then you don't need to read comics or wecomics or indulge in comedy in general. If someone emphatically and immaturely expressing their exagerated opinion bothers you, then you should probably avoid the internet entirely. And politics. And other people.

  41. lol you're just digusted with marketing. iPod does it's own marketing to tell you that their product is cool and so are people who own it (cue dancing sillouettes).

    You're right, though. MS exectives missed it. Apple has it as well as authenticity. Microsoft's marketing and "me too" strategy bothers me just like Sony's analogous viral and pseudo viral shit and motion controls. Apple doesn't have to cultivate buzz about their product. They just make products so compelling that they spontaneously inspire loyal followers and a philosophy about electronics and interfaces.

  42. Too-true on that last point. The iPod ad-series always seemed to push the individual aspect of ownership, that it was a personal experience rife with Eurethra! moments. "Golly why didn't anyone ever think of this before!" Even years ago, with Hamilton Morris talking about his, that it made him feel, "powerful!" -They had the sense to dictate that you wouldn't be emulating a crowd, but a person. -I always figured that the campaign was equally shallow. I don't know that they needed anything more than a finger on screen scrolling all hither and thither. It's the user experience that sells them, iPods. I guarantee if the interface was knee-deep in suck, they never would have sold. You could have Kim Gordon flossing her twat with the headphone cord, and it'll fail if people can't use it.

    I push Apple to everyone considering a new computer, and the iPod is a given. Though, I insist on using MicroSoft products; because I really like having a tooth-and-nail knock-down drag-out fight with them. Well, me and my IT department, anyway.

  44. HijiNKS ENsue: "emphatically and immaturely expressing their exaggerated opinion" since 2007.

    I use exaggeration a LOT. Like more than you would think, in my actual speech and it throws people off. I might say, "God damn, Ive been stuck at this red light for 6 hours!" and people will respond, "really? That doesnt seem…"

    I just think it makes for more colorful story telling to grossly exaggerate nearly every aspect of what you are saying. I enjoy this most with "numbers", "the severity of a situation" and "how horrible something actually is."

  45. Exactly. I know Im being marketed to by Apple every day but they are so freaking good and know what I want as a consumer that I dont mind. Hell, I even welcome it. This has a lot to do with what a weirdo and fanatic Steve is personally. He's just as nuts as any other billionaire but he's nuts about making the absolute best user experience he possibly can, from marketing to packaging to hardware design.

  49. I got a Zune as a graduation present. I had a horrible experience in an Apple store (it involved getting one of the company's employees fired) and haven't laid hands on an Apple product since, but I've seen all the different I-pods that my friends have. I'm not impressed. The Zune does great with what I use it for (video) and I had one before the crappy commercials came out that were trying to make it cool. I have one of the old "brick" ones that remind me of the Gameboy Pocket (that didn't fit in my pockets). So anyhow, I like the Zune. I'll stick to it. But the marketing did and does and will suck. That I'll admit Apple did right on. The I-pod commercials are classic already.

  50. Sounds like Laser Tag was a popular DIY project. My gun actually broke and we tried to have this AV tech guy we knew fix it. If it happened today I would have cracked it open and fixed it myself.

    • I'm still hangin' on right up until you make a derogatory Linux remark and then BANG ZOOM TO DA MOON.

      Actually, I'm reading this because it makes me laugh so hard I'm getting six-pack abs without crunches. You should charge 35 bucks a month to read this stuff! You could put gyms out of business.

  53. Its basically a philosophical difference. As silly as that sounds regarding music players, its true. If there is a such thing as an Apple Lifestyle, I certainly subscribe to it more than the MS lifestyle. Its a personal choice and doesnt effect whether the Zune works for playing MP3's at all. Im sure it does just fine.

  56. Yeah, me and my cousin had a set of those because they can 2 to the pack and only cost $20. So Laser Tag sat in the corner awaiting its $60 brother while we rocked the Photon guns all day long.

  58. No, it does. But it works because they let the users create it without knowing that it had already been cooked up in a lab. This is the kind of advertising that works (on me at least).

    Also, me=Apple Fanboy is not a problem for me.

  59. I actually clicked the link. Ugh, thanks for that. I thought work filter caught that stuff. Can we talk about that gross bump on the man's knuckle or the fact that despite his abundance of flesh, had to hyphenate welcome?

  60. oh yeah, I basically had to stop using itunes altogether since it eventually became the reason I had to send two back to be repaired. I would certainly consider getting a macbook, if and when I have the capital to do so.

    on the topic of laser tag, as a design project in engineering school a friend of mine built a working laser tag system.

  61. When he dies from a lack of oxygen to the brain for being so damn stupid Microsoft can end this whole thing in the only way I see that's logical, launching that failure pile into the sun in a coffin that looks like a Zune.

  62. "because I was the elder with significantly better aim, I was quite possibly the best Stormtrooper ever"

    Given what we see in the movies, wouldn't the best stormtrooper be the one who couldn't hit anything at all? Seriously, did one of them ever hit anything?

  63. I work for M$ (not trying to brag, I'm pretty much at the opposite end of the org chart from Bill), and you have no idea how right you are. My boss told me a story about when she worked in MSN Entertainment, when they were trying to create a competitor to the iTunes store.

    As the story goes, it was decided early on to offer music downloads ONLY in the Windows Media format. Which is incompatible with the iPod. And this was well before the Zune was developed, so basically they would have only been compatible with some of the other, lesser music players.

    She tried to convince her superiors that this was a bad idea; that they couldn't compete with the iTunes store if their product couldn't be played on THE NUMBER ONE FUCKING MUSIC PLAYER ON THE MARKET. But her superiors insisted that, being Microsoft, they had to stick to Microsoft's proprietary format, and besides, to offer MP3s would just be encouraging people to keep buying iPods.

    Instead, they said, they were going to build buzz by offering MSN-branded earbuds.

    MSN. Branded. Earbuds.

    I'm not sure what the logic was there, but they were convinced that within a few months all the cool kids were going to have the MSN butterfly sticking out of their ears. Not surprisingly, the project never took off. MSN Music did offer WMA downloads for a while, but these days it's just another music-video and news-aggregator site.

    This is what Microsoft does, and what makes them so frustrating; they look at what other companies are doing and see how they can copy it, but with shittier design and crippled by DRM. If they do come up with something cool – and the Zune is cool enough, on its own merits – it's pretty much despite the company's best efforts.

  71. Look, I still have no need for either. The only thing that my standard 40 dollar MP3 player doesn’t have is Video and an insane amount of Memory. Besides, all I use it for is jogging. And who wants to carry a brick while jogging?

  72. I had this friend whose dad was a well paid lawyer. So needless to say, he had a full kit of loaners to hand out when it was time to “Tag” it up. But it didn’t last long. He also had a huge basement with no windows. So we figured out if we turned off the lights, it added to the fun. All you could see in the blackness was that stupid red dot pinging back and forth. So when my buddy nailed the couch, flipped into the coffee table, and had to get 7 stitches in his forehead… well, we never played Laser Tag again.

    I look back on it now and all I can think is… Natural Selection.

  76. I totally had a couple Lazer Tag sets after you pick them up cheap at the discount toy stores. We used to run around the neighborhood playing at night freaking out the neighbors. There were even tournaments at some of the sci-fi cons. Yay for discontinued, cheap toys.

  77. Me and my friends used to play at an abandoned mental hospital in Tacoma. It was awesome, good and creepy. In fact, it was the mental hospital they sent Francis Farmer to. They built the "new" one in the early 50s, so the old one was just this huge empty building up on a hill. We played there for about six months, until they put a big fence around the whole thing, and finally tore it down.

    And there was the time we saw a ghost, but those teenagers and their dog proved that it was just old man Witherspoon trying to score a real estate deal.

  78. It's Microsoft, they probably just hired the first guy they found willing to do it. You underestimate Microsofts ability to fuckup and it's complete lack of understanding of its public image. The company has always been technically and stylistically retarded, it's just their unbelievably ruthless business tactics that have made them as successful as they have been.

  79. I think one of them may have shot another one. Or did you mean hit what they were trying to hit? You should know the rules of movie villains and henchmen prevent them from actually hitting the hero(s), or in the event they do hit them from doing anything but provide a minor hindrance that's easily recovered from (and in no way interferes with their ability to perform gymnastic feats).

  80. After seeing the Zune software in action, I have to say it's a load of fail as well. iTunes is actually fairly good most of the time, although if you have multiple computers it's a pain in the ass not being able to synch from the iPod back to iTunes. Of course, I also used to reflash my iPod with new firmware based on Linux, although since some asshat stole my 3rd gen iPod mini and I had to replace it with an iPod video I haven't been able to replace the firmware.

    The biggest problem with the Zune software is that it looks like it's written using Flash, and as such totally ignores all the UI conventions sane people have come to expect.

  81. Good news is that the major hurdle to getting OS X to run a commodity PC hardware is the EFI motherboard support (new generation BIOS replacement). So far almost none of the motherboards you can buy support EFI (although their are a few), and EFI is required to boot OS X. Once some EFI motherboards start to show up, it's a simple matter of getting one, slapping mostly standard PC components on to it, putting a GeForce card in the system, and then you should be able to install and run OS X on it.

  83. If it makes you feel better I could add another bookmark, then your bookmark balance would be maintained. Also, where was "M$" even used? Did it used to be in the comments but got removed or something?

  86. Apple: "We're going to design this product so well that it sells itself."
    Microsoft: "We're going to sell this product so well that we don't have to design it."
    Linux: "We're going to… eh, fuck it, it compiles fine for me, RTFM and fix it yourself."

  87. I LOVE that movie. The first time i saw it i laughed so hard my stomach and face hurt for hours. I really cannot understand how it wasn't more popular (except for the fact that FOX basically refused to market it at all).

  88. It sat on the shelf for two years while they did crazy re-edits and such. Then they released it on a handful of theatres for one weekend to fulfill a contractual obligation. We actually saw it in the theater in Dallas.

  90. Their ability to miss the point, while always shocking, is never surprising. I like how IBM realized they werent cool anymore (or ever) and stopped selling to consumers all together and just focused on business. If MS has a real future its probably there.

  94. There was a relauch of the actual Laser Tag Brand a few years ago. The sets were fucking awesome. They had voice com head gear and grenades and all type of kick assness. If I could have found 4 or 5 others to buy them it would have been on.

  97. Microsofts problem is they need to pick something and do that one thing well. As it is they do a bit of this and a bit of that and occasionally buy up a competitor or potential competitor with a decent product, but nothing they do is really very good. I think their most successful venture as of right now is tied between that corporate barnacle MS Office, and the surprisingly decent X-Box 360. XP SP2 might also qualify as a success depending on how you cut it. Vista is all out fail though. Now, if their smart (and the track record doesn't look good) they'll forget about competing with google and the iPod and work on making the next version of Windows (which should hopefully release in 2009) to be as compelling as XP was. Unfortunately to do it right, it's going to be a bitter pill for consumers initially, as they need to make some serious breaks in backwards compatibility, but if they're smart they'll do the Apple thing and provide a VM for running the legacy apps. The key thing though, is they really really need to tighten down the security, and I don't mean in a nag the crap out of you way, I mean by killing dumbass ideas like ActiveX outright.

    Ok, enough of my rant, this isn't the place to be bitching about the failings of Windows (or really all current OS's).

  98. Just stupid. If they had released it properly they most likely would have made a significant amount of $$. In theaters I think it only made like $400k-$500k but on DVD it has made like $10 million.

  99. Did you see the Brawndo brand drink that was being made? Some company was actually going to make real Brawndo, and the website they had up advertising it was absolutely hilarious.

  100. Hah, that's nothing. I live in Florida, we have mosquito's here that you can ride like elephants! And they travel in packs! I've seen a pack descend on an unsuspecting tourist and drain him of his precious bodily fluids leaving not but a dessicated corpse. Poor bugger didn't even know they were stalking him. That's how they get you you see. They send out their young to keep you distracted, while the adults circle around and come at you from the sides. Some people think birds are the closest living relatives to the dinosaurs, but anyone that's seen these mosquito's hunting knows they're the closest descendent's of velociraptors.

  101. Actually I think part of the big difference is in exactly what's cooked up in the lab.

    Apple takes a product, says "I want this thing to look cool. It should practically sweat expensive electronic gadget. I want cool oozing off this thing, and I want it to be intuitive to use as well as good looking.". Once they have that, they make a bunch of commercials and ads that basically say "Hey, check out this cool thing we just made." and pretty much leave it at that.

    Microsoft takes something and says "Ok, I want this to look exactly like competitor X's product, but just different enough not to get sued for it. Next I want you to slap a whole bunch of our branding on it, and then make it tie into our other products somehow so people have to buy our stuff and not our competitors. We should also be able to duplicate our competitors feature bullet points, plus something that's unique to us if at all possible. Oh, and try to make it shiny, people like shiny things.". The important thing to note there is that they just want to match the bullet points, they don't really care about how the features are implemented, so long as they can put it on the box. Then they go and make a bunch of ads that say "Hey, we made this thing, and if you're cool you'll buy one, because all the cool people have them.".

    That's the real difference, Apple makes a product that they try to sell to you because it looks and acts slick, although they charge an arm and a leg for it. Microsoft makes a product that they try to sell to you because it's been advertised like mad, is tied in with some other product they put out and thus is the path of least resistance if you already own that product, and is occasionally cheaper than the competition if it's not selling otherwise. And Linux, well, they try to sell you a product on the assumption that you actually own the product and are free to do whatever the hell you want with it, even if that means installing it on your cat, or giving it to a million of your friends.

  106. Hey, if you had a decent amount and placement of mirrors in the house, you could at least setup nice angles and use the ricochet. 🙂

    I had a friend that got a couple sets and the one time he actually got a ton of use out of them was when he stayed at our house. My parents were out one night and we went around, turned off all the lights and closed all curtains.. and played in the dark. THAT was actually somewhat cool.

  107. A little over 15 years ago I helped a friend run a booth at their church fundraiser.. their brother's friend had also designed and built a lasertag like system from scratch, for a college electrical engineering project or something. The guns were pretty sweet. Rather then battles, it was a maze with targets you had to shoot on the way through. The thing timed you through the maze and scored your shots on the targets. It was actually a lot of fun to go through

  111. I just read your comic for the first time today. I might stop reading it though. Why? You wrote the following two characters to represent microsoft: "M$."
    Really? Are you honestly that kind of elitist retard douche? Oh dear, a capitalist company is interested in making a profit, because of course, Apple gives all of it's profits to the poor and cures cancer with ipods. Or something.

    Don't get me wrong, the ipod is a fine product, but i'd say it has much more of an attitude then zune marketing ever could. I've never even seen "zune makes you cool" marketing. Yes, we can all agree that Zune guy is probably mentally incapable, but get off your elitist "my operating system is better than yours" high horse. Mac OS sucks at some things. Windows Sucks at other things. Linux sucks at a lot of things, but at least it's neither of the big ones so whatever. Fucking loyalist.

  113. You seem pretty worked up about this. Its just a joke in a silly comic and really shouldnt be taken that seriously. Maybe it's not right for you. If you do keep reading, I hope you find something to enjoy. If not, please don't feel any obligation to show your disapproval in the comments

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