Special Report: Windows 7 House Party: The Buzz Report

The Windows 7 Party video. I hate to say it, but yeah, it's gone viral. But viral like Swine Flu -- it's everywhere and we need to stop it. Are they serious about this completely out of touch effort to communicate what a Windows 7 launch party is all about? Or is this the cleverest self-parody ever? Let's deconstruct it! First, the characters. The Dork. A vaguely emasculated suburban guy of limited stature who doesn't like the fact that shirts have buttons or need to be tucked in. Classic primetime TV fodder. He can't change a flat tire, but he's really good at playing video games and getting your computer to work. The Cougar. This silver-haired piece of work has been a swinger since her divorce. She's trying to be interested in all this Windows stuff -- whatever that is -- but she's really here because she heard you need a key to install Windows -- she's gonna be disappointed when she realizes this isn't a _key_ party. Everything she says sounds like she thinks it's gonna go *that* direction. She'll grab The Dork's ass later if nothing better shows up. The Busy Body. She just w o n ' t s h u t u p. I mean, I guess it's her house, but still, she could relax a little, push back from the white powder for a minute and stop being do damned excited about "Help & How To"!!! The Brother. As we'll see later, he may be the only one here who gets it, and most of the time he lets the others yack Windows while he makes serious moves on the groceries. That's the best thing coming out of this party so he's loading up. Now the elements these characters bring to life and make our jaws drop: Here are the Top 5 Lines That Make Us Squirm and Wonder Are They Serious? #5: "Pictures" OK, what's with the conspiratory laughter around uploading pictures? Does he have some history with the D.A.'s office of "uploading pictures"? Really? "Oh my Gosh"??!! Are these people new to the idea of taking and posting photos? Wow. #4: "Fun" No it wasn't. It was stupid. Wow, honey, you are so not hot all of a sudden. But I love the incredulous look on the Cougar's face. "Fun" and "learning a new OS" don't really jibe for most of us. But this is the Coug' talking, so in her mind she's probably thinking skinny dipping or swapping spouses. #3: Activities Um, I can think of a lot of things to do on a computer that are personal than doing a file transfer. #2 Play With Your Computer Yep, that's my idea of fun. Leave my personal laptop out on the counter so a bunch of drunk people can mess around with it all night. Well, I guess you've already installed WIn7 once, doing again the next morning will be easy. And finally #1, the Reality Check Um, yeah. I'm afraid there's just one conclusion: This is no clever self-parody. This is why Microsoft isn�t Apple.