|
|
the team you're not rooting for wins Sunday, September 7 2003
On the computer in the first floor office I've replaced both the monitor and the keyboard. The sleek new efficiency of the flatscreen monitor and color co-ordination with the new black keyboard the appearance of an entirely different computer, but behind it all is the same beige box with its 666 MHz Pentium III. Appropriate for a machine of the beast, it's the only computer in routine use that runs Windows XP, though I've set all the themes and behaviors to be as much like Windows 2000 as possible. It would be a wonderful thing if I were to tell you how today I switched it over to run Linux, a task made easy by the fact that its purpose is that of an expedient machine mostly used by Gretchen for checking Yahoo! mail. But I've been reluctant to make the switch because I like to be able to access Windows file shares across the network. Ah, but that's easy to do! Okay, so I have no real excuse, except that for now Windows XP is working, and it's usually inadvisable to mess with success. I stand against every philosophical nuance argued by Microsoft, yet even in my own home I'm allowing them to win.
I watched a lot of women's basketball today. It's the playoffs, and we're down to which team will be champions of their respective coasts. Once you know the players and the teams (and somehow I do), this stuff takes on all the importance a rational person normally reserves for politics. It really feels like the universe has been harmed when the team you're not rooting for wins. Thus today, when Los Angeles won against Sacramento (the second game in a best-of-three), Gretchen and I felt miserable. This misery didn't end until a couple hours later, when Detroit beat Connecticut. Interestingly, we'd actually been rooting for Connecticut only a week or so before, when they'd been playing Charlotte, a somewhat greater evil.
The new dog Eleanor hasn't been much of a chewer, but today she destroyed one of Gretchen's nicer shoes, a clunky sort of sandal. According to Gretchen, a pair of these costs approximately $90. I suppose this is one of the hidden costs of puppy adoption, unless one is diligent about putting ones shoes up on a shelf. Eleanor has also chewed on my $30 sandals a few times, but they are still wearable. I don't think she liked them quite as much, since no leather had been used in their manufacture.
For linking purposes this article's URL is: http://asecular.com/blog.php?030907 feedback previous | next |