Two dream fragments and an exerpt from my day.

I dreamed that I was hanging out with SSFFS people. Among other things, we were discussing that if vorindi was aware of something fandom-related outside of both her and kadharonon's interests, it must be of somewhat general knowledge in the geeky community. And that's all I remember of that dream.

I remember even less of the other. I was talking about music with someone or someones who might have been Emily and Gwen, and I was trying to remember the way Spirit (the quality of the music is more than somewhat annoying, but it does at least give you a sense of the tune) starts. Spirit, by the way, is a song that I've picked up at the ABE/UCC church I've been going to; I'm quite fond of it (the song, although the church is nice too - if it weren't I wouldn't go back).

And that's all I remember of my dreams last night.


In honor of chocochan, I now present you with a completely out-of-context quote from lunch yesterday:
"Miriam, you are an evil temptress. Now that's something I didn't ever think I'd get the chance to say."
--tigerlofu


Emily and I have been listening to The Outcasts of 19 Schuyler Place by E.L. Konigsburg. I think that it's among my favorite of her books. I probably like The View from Saturday better, but I don't have The View from Saturday in audiobook. One of the things that makes O19SP a very excellent audiobook is that it's a story told in vignettes, and the vignettes fit moderately well with the breaks in the tracks, so I can even listen to it on shuffle with the rest of my music if I'm in the right mood.

*sigh*

1. I feel really bad for her.

I just had a woman come in, and I couldn't help her at all. I think she's lost her entire paper. It was in her e-mail, and she opened it rather than downloading it, and then just hit save, and I think it's gone. The new version isn't in her e-mail and isn't on her computer, and isn't on her H drive either (not that I thought it was, but she felt that it had maybe somehow magically made the jump because someone had told her that you can access the H drive from your home computer, and I was very dubious but checked for her anyway). In short, I couldn't do anything for her. I hate it when I can't help people, particularly when they're nice people who don't lash out at the consultants even though they're under a lot of pressure in a miserable situation. I gave her the number for the USC, but I really suspect that they won't be able to do anything either. And I know what it's like to lose something you've put that much work into, and I don't think it changes anything that you've lost it through user error rather than computer malfunction (mind you, I didn't tell her that; I think she's figured out that she should save it properly next time, and I don't need to be some snappy college kid telling her that it's all her own fault that it's gone).
So yeah, that depressing.

2. Vista is REALLY WIERD.

I've heard about Vista, and about how it's terrible, and how they tried to make it like mac and crit failed, but I'd never actually tried to use it before or even seen it. They got rid of all the menus. All of them. And replaced them with funny bubbly pop-ups that looked like they wanted to have pictures but didn't know how that I didn't have a clue how to navigate. That isn't trying to be like mac, that's trying to be like one of those one-laptop-per-child laptops whose name I've forgotten. Only it failed at that, too, because Windows is a more complex system and so can't deal with a simple pictorial navigation system. In short, so far as I could tell from two minutes of interaction, it's exactly as terrible as everyone says it is. No wonder my dad doesn't want to buy a new computer with that on it. At least if both he and mom switch to mac at about the same time Isaac won't have to deal with going back and forth between OSes at different houses. And that looks fairly likely (Mom is serious enough that I've gotten an e-mail that starts, "When we talk, I want advice on buying a mac . . ."), and dad has mentioned that he needs a new computer, so my anaylsis is that he'll get one within a year or two.