Random stuff:
In lieu of a thoughtful, inspiring and life changing post, I give you:
1. Apparently, it is dangerous to combine me, an iPod, and "Zoot Suit Riot" in the workplace. Details have been suppressed to protect the guilty.
2. As far as I'm concerned, the mere act of stepping in the mall constitutes holiday shopping, even if I ended up only buying loose leaf tea. (Have I mentioned the mad love for loose leaf tea?)
Yes. Yes it does. Trust me on this. It especially counts if you enter the mall on the first day of Hanukkah.
3. A large part of the stepping in the mall shopping revolved around the annual difficulty of finding something that my father would like that he hasn't already purchased for himself. Which led me to the Sharper Image and to a long, thoughtful consideration of an item I will not mention here, since he occasionally reads this. Hmmmmm. I thought. It could work. But --
In desperation I looked around for divine assistance. Unfortunately, it happened to be one of those days where divinities had chosen other malls. (And, since this was the Boca Towne Center, who could argue with their decision?) Instead, my eyes fell on another shopper, about my age, staring with equal consternation at another object. I opened my mouth. She looked at me.
"If you were my father, would you like this?" she asked, pointing at said object.
"I'm not sure," I had to admit. "If you were my father, would you like this?"
She stared. "I dunno," she had to admit right back. "I don't think my father would though."
This did not bode well for the Sharper Image.
4. One surprising flaw of Ralph, the new laptop: its built in webcam can be easily and unexpectedly turned on by a small black paw, an attribute that does not necessarily imply that a) viewers will see anything other than a big black cat butt, or b) that the webcam can be as easily and unexpectedly turned off. (I still haven't figured out how he got the damn thing on in the first place, much less locked it.)
5. A friend suggested that the above flaw might be less a flaw of the laptop and more a flaw of the cat. This is true. Keeping the cats off this laptop has proven unexpectedly difficult. Admittedly, the Little One had a long term habit of sleeping on the keyboard when he was a kitten or trying to push my hands off the keyboard so that he could sleep on it when he was a kitten, but they had, I thought, outgrown that tendency with the last computer, which I guess did not generate enough heat in interesting places to tempt them. (So true of so many things.) This one, however, appears to have generated the rating of Prime Cat Real Estate, which, let me assure you, is not a good thing when you are attempting to do Useful Things on it, like, and this is not a random example, type. Alas, removing the cats appears to be only a temporary solution, although placing them in my lap is slightly more effective.
1. Apparently, it is dangerous to combine me, an iPod, and "Zoot Suit Riot" in the workplace. Details have been suppressed to protect the guilty.
2. As far as I'm concerned, the mere act of stepping in the mall constitutes holiday shopping, even if I ended up only buying loose leaf tea. (Have I mentioned the mad love for loose leaf tea?)
Yes. Yes it does. Trust me on this. It especially counts if you enter the mall on the first day of Hanukkah.
3. A large part of the stepping in the mall shopping revolved around the annual difficulty of finding something that my father would like that he hasn't already purchased for himself. Which led me to the Sharper Image and to a long, thoughtful consideration of an item I will not mention here, since he occasionally reads this. Hmmmmm. I thought. It could work. But --
In desperation I looked around for divine assistance. Unfortunately, it happened to be one of those days where divinities had chosen other malls. (And, since this was the Boca Towne Center, who could argue with their decision?) Instead, my eyes fell on another shopper, about my age, staring with equal consternation at another object. I opened my mouth. She looked at me.
"If you were my father, would you like this?" she asked, pointing at said object.
"I'm not sure," I had to admit. "If you were my father, would you like this?"
She stared. "I dunno," she had to admit right back. "I don't think my father would though."
This did not bode well for the Sharper Image.
4. One surprising flaw of Ralph, the new laptop: its built in webcam can be easily and unexpectedly turned on by a small black paw, an attribute that does not necessarily imply that a) viewers will see anything other than a big black cat butt, or b) that the webcam can be as easily and unexpectedly turned off. (I still haven't figured out how he got the damn thing on in the first place, much less locked it.)
5. A friend suggested that the above flaw might be less a flaw of the laptop and more a flaw of the cat. This is true. Keeping the cats off this laptop has proven unexpectedly difficult. Admittedly, the Little One had a long term habit of sleeping on the keyboard when he was a kitten or trying to push my hands off the keyboard so that he could sleep on it when he was a kitten, but they had, I thought, outgrown that tendency with the last computer, which I guess did not generate enough heat in interesting places to tempt them. (So true of so many things.) This one, however, appears to have generated the rating of Prime Cat Real Estate, which, let me assure you, is not a good thing when you are attempting to do Useful Things on it, like, and this is not a random example, type. Alas, removing the cats appears to be only a temporary solution, although placing them in my lap is slightly more effective.