Bereft
Well, DHL picks up my laptop this afternoon to take it to Dell, where the elves will bench it and see how pervasive the damage is from my caffeinated toxic event. I feel like I’m sending a kid to camp for the first time. Thanks to all of you who have engaged in schadenfreude under the guise of sympathy.
I backed up all kinds of crap onto an external hard disk, and now have it plugged into Mrs. Perils’ desktop. I’ve managed to hook up with my Outlook data file, and import my Firefox bookmarks. It’s just so wearying to hack around with this stuff. Wouldn’t it be cool to have a jack in the back of your head that you could plug a USB cable into, connect to any computer, and have all your drivers and stuff in a chip in your cerebellum, like in that movie Existenz.
It’ll be 5 - 8 days before I get my baby back. In the meantime, I’ll be sneaking around and slipping my jack into any available port.
It may be possible, however, to get temporary employment in another field. An article in today’s paper describes how Spain is recalibrating women’s clothes sizes, in an apparent effort to remove the stigma from plussier sizes, or place a stigma on the minusier ones. Fair enough, although it’s hard to imagine that you can change the lens through which we perceive each other by bureaucratic fiat. A discussion for another time, perhaps, after I have shed my holiday bulge.
At the end of the article, though, they describe an interesting initiative for which they may need volunteers:
As part of the effort to standardize sizes, the ministry plans to measure 8,500 Spanish girls and women between the ages of 12 and 70 to determine the true shapes of Spanish women’s bodies.
As a person who has earned the public trust in a career based on making and certifying numeric measurements. I think I qualify. Time to brush up on mi espanol de escuela alta.
If it’s any consolation, the last time I had to send a computer back to Dell (for a wonky keyboard!) they turned it around in under a week. But I’ve not had a Dell for a couple of years now, so what do I know?
And I think I have enough cookie crumbs under the keys of my laptop that, between the two of our machines, we could have had a lovely snack.
We should combine with the people who spilled Bloody Marys and Margaritas. Then, it might be a Super Bowl party.
Oh those crumbs are so embarrassing. I had my desktop computer keyboard cleaned, when I was still working at the university, and the tech student said something to me about not eating right over my keyboard. Hey, I ate lunch at my desk everyday, in order to better serve the student community. What was I to do? Turn ten shades of red!
Hope your laptop comes home early.
Phil, one of my dozens of ideas for never-to-be-written books involves a plot that revolves around the premise that science has achieved the capacity to readily measure and control the complex chemical and electrochemical interactions that control every aspect of human existence. Want to speak Castillian Spanish? Simple, a precisely measured electrical impulse delivered to the right place on your body, coupled with the proper injection will do the trick. Worried about an impending exam in an upcoming quantum physics class? A jolt and a jab will take care of that, too. All of this is intended to preface the fact that your reference to Existenz causes me to have moderate interest in the film…sci-fi is usually not my thing, but obviously it creeps in from time to time. By the way, I have an extra Dell notebook sitting idle for the moment…if science would just accommodate my whims, I could send it to you as an email attachment.
All right! I can now say I’m a size two. Of course, on my blog I’m a cool zero.
Existenz gave me nightmares, which led to migraines, but I suppose that’s the point?
Hope you get inserted real soon, boy!
Robin, I have some keyboards here that have so much organic matter they could support container gardening.
John, your mind-control fantasy still presumes that there’s something there to control; I’d be rejected from the field trials.
Birdie, thanks. The laptop is coming Monday. I’m getting out the linen tablecloth, candles, a nice Cab, and we’re going to ease back into our relationship.