Holes In Thoughts

Friday, December 19, 2008

But it's chocolate chip!

I enjoy shopping when it is relatively focused. Maybe it’s a deep-seated hunter instinct, but I enjoy having a particular goal in mind, and hunting it down. Aimless wandering, window shopping, and similar activities are, on the other hand, very frustrating for me. This is particularly true when there are a lot of other people in the store.

So naturally, there are few activities I can think of that are less pleasant than doing Christmas shopping.

Strangely, I’ve found myself in several typical Chrismas shopping places (Target, Ross, etc.) without doing any actual Christmas shopping, buying random household items. Today, I found myself at Ross, searching for a bag for my new MacBook. It’s no good having a laptop on the road without some sort of case, even if the boss did insist on getting the protection plan.

I was debating the merits of my options with Rachel when a woman with a petulant teenage boy in tow approached me. He was whining about how they hadn’t bought him anything. I asked her if she was just going to get his gift when he wasn’t around to see what he gets. She made a face, leaned over to me conspiratorially and said, “I’m in the business of getting rid of stuff this year. I have too much junk.” She noticed we were going through laptop bags and said, “oh, are you looking for a bag?”

I looked down at the obvious and explained why I was getting one.

“You want one? I have one. I’ll give it to you. I was going to give it to a thrift store anyway.” She gives me her phone number and tells me to call her. I thank her profusely and leave Ross with nothing but a confused look on my face and the watchful gaze of the Resource Protection rent-a-cops.

Our next stop was Walmart, another epicenter of Christmas Hell, to pick up a surge protector for Rachel’s desk. The shopping part of this was pretty straightforward, but as we were driving home, we noticed there was a cookie on our windshield.

It was difficult to concentrate on driving, just because we were so preoccupied with how on earth a cookie ended up on our windshield. I also wanted to know what kind of cookie it was.

As we drove, the debate over whether or not I should it flared. Rachel was adamantly opposed, as we didn’t know where it came from or whether or not it had any extra ingredients – be they the “happy” kind or the malicious. I, on the other hand, was having trouble ignoring the fact that it was a free cookie.

Moreover, it struck me as a test of the 3-Second Rule. You know – that if you drop something on the ground, but pick it up quickly and blow on it, the item is as sterile as a surgeon’s prep room. And if you only have to blow something for a few seconds to make it sterile, then obviously exposing this cookie renders it as fit to eat as you can get.

Rachel was not impressed. I ended up sneaking an extremely small bite out of the corner. It was chocolate chip.

Labels: Christmas, crazy people, food, Rachel, shopping, stories

posted by Steve @ 4:58 PM 0 comments

Friday, November 21, 2008

Rachel's computer

Rachel got her Christmas present a few days before Thanksgiving. A year ago, she got a Prius and this year I managed to deliver in a similarly spectacular manner (albeit less expensive by two orders of magnitude): a very tiny ASUS eeePC 900HA mini-laptop.

Rachel had inherited my old computer (Baby Beast) when I bought my current, incredible computer (Black Beauty). Unfortunately, it kept losing track of its boot drive, and only occasionally worked. The whole point of her going part time was to get her to focus on researching the notion of building her own business (in crafts or books) and writing her stories. She couldn’t do either without a computer, and I couldn’t just lend her mine since I work on mine.

Well that and I don’t like other people being on my computer. I won’t justify it; it’s neurotic.

I have to admit that I got the idea from PC World. Dad had gotten me a subscription and it had an article on laptops that were larger than the truly tiny palm-tops, but smaller than the briefcase-sized standard laptops. The ones they reviewed were all similarly-specified, but one of them was a mere $350. It also was as powerful as Baby Beast. That pretty much decided it for me.

I had a great deal of fun teasing Rachel that I had bought her a relatively expensive present – and that she would be getting it soon.
The day it was scheduled to arrive (and did), Rachel worked a mid shift at work, and I made sure to tell her it would be delivered in her absence. I’m rather glad this happened, though, because it gave me a bit of time to install all the various bits of software she needed.

This wasn’t quite as straightforward as with other laptops – this one doesn’t have a CD drive. I came up with a good solution fairly quickly, though: I used Nero to create a CD image, copied that onto a thumb drive, and used Daemon Tools to emulate a CD. Done deal.

It’s nice having a very slim (literally and figuratively) computer around. It has MS Word and Outlook, Trillian, Winamp, Firefox, Avast!, DisplayFusion, KeePass, and the printer, Bluetooth, and scanner drivers.

It boots within a few seconds and doesn’t really need resetting.

I even managed to set up my phone as a modem for it, which means it can surf the Internet anywhere I have a data connection for my phone (which is basically anywhere within 10 miles of any metropolitan area).

Glee!

Labels: Christmas, computers, madness, money, Rachel

posted by Steve @ 10:33 PM 0 comments

Thursday, November 20, 2008

A New NeurosIs

PTCD -- Postal Tracking Compulsion Disorder.

The act of obsessively refreshing the tracking page when you've bought something (usually something expensive) online.

ex: "I've spent the last half hour refreshing the UPS tracking page for my wife's Christmas present. It's supposed to get here tomorrow, but I can't stop refreshing. What the hell are they waiting for in Fresno???"

Labels: Christmas, holidays, Internet, obsession

posted by Steve @ 10:35 AM 0 comments

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Name: Steve
Home: Tucson, Arizona, United States
About Me: I like to think about things, and I occasionally like to write what I think.
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