Computer blue.

My home computer crashed yesterday, right after I drafted a BRILLIANT post and was about to publish it and then settle down to get some work done. (OK perhaps I embellish the brilliance of my post, but you'll never know, now will you?!) Now it appears I will be working a lot tonight and perhaps tomorrow night as well, which doesn't really make me too happy. In fact, a lot of things aren't making me too happy this week, but technology is leading the list.

Luddites unite, take back the night (s you lost because you had to work because you spent your day in meetings and your home box died on you and you have three major deadlines for Wednesday)!

p.s. The draft post yesterday was DEFINITELY better than the real one actually published today. That I can state with confidence.

The truth is out there.

Referencing atomic bomb post... Connie, who is to U2 as I am to R.E.M., says: "the uno, dos, tres, cartorce is because Steve Lillywhite produced the first, second, third and fourteenth (the latest) album." So there you have it, net banterers. There is method to his madness.

The other day I heard what was (pre-Connie input) also a kinda reasonable explanation - that 14 was the beat at which he said 'catorce' - which I tested over and over again, and about half of the time it was actually true... depending on when you started counting.

~ End of commentary on Vertigo ~

D'oh... Yay! D'oh... Sigh.

Warning: boring story, but one which kinda sums up how my life is going, to follow.

I had some time before the movie tonight, so I moseyed over to the bookstore. When I moseyed back to the theater, I discovered that my pocket - not me, mind you, my pocket - had dropped my parking ticket somewhere along the way. When validated, said parking ticket would allow me to exit the garage for free; when missing, said parking ticket would cost me $12. D'oh... Never mosey - bad things ensue.

So after the movie (The Incredibles, and yeah, it was as good as you're hearing), despite an aching foot from an earlier shoe incident (don't ask), I retraced my steps exactly - even the part where I jaywalked to avoid an oncoming train rather than wait for the bloody thing to pass through the main strip (think I'm nuts and you've obviously never had to wait for a bloody train to pass through the main strip). Into the bookstore, past the calendars, through one area of magazines, to the cookbooks, back through another area of magaz -- THERE IT WAS!!! The other shoppers seemed a bit confused about my excitement upon finding what they probably considered trash, but. Yay! There it was - no one had thrown it away, no one had even stepped on it.

So I limped back to the garage, completely bypassing the theater where I should've validated the ticket. (D'oh...) Ever the rationalist, I remembered doing that before and the guy at the gate looked at my ticket stub to ensure I had been in the theater, and then let me pass for free. Not so with tonight's cashier. Apparently, she couldn't do that anymore because allegedly they'd gotten a new system and supposedly the actual ticket itself had to be validated. Riiiiiiiiight.

She did offer to let me park the car right there (with 10 cars behind me) and run across the street to validate the ticket and save $6. My head said "uh, yeah, lady - I live and drive with these Oakland drivers every day, I've seen their wrath, and I'm sure me holding them up for 5 minutes will go over REAL well. That's a great idea." But my mouth said "Heh heh, no that's okay, my foot kinda hurts and hey at least I didn't have to pay the whole $12 for a lost ticket here's the $6 boy have I learned my lesson heh heh." Sigh.

And thus is my life these days. It's almost calculated, the d'oh-yay-d'oh-sigh cycles of my day. Perhaps this shall all pass in time.

Four more years!!!

That's how long I'm going to wear my Kerry/Edwards button. Now stop asking me, all you strangers in the grocery store.

Two other upsides to the recent shameful election... I also get four more years out of my "someone less dumb for president" button, which averages about $0.25/year for that investment. And I've officially christened my n'used Corolla with its first bumper sticker from Sorry Everybody.

But otherwise, yeah, we're doomed.

How to dismantle an atomic bomb?

Well, it seems you go from three to fourteen when counting... I presume that throws off the bomb's ticker and there you have it, your job is done. I cannot believe how much net banter - positive and negative and downright crucifying - there is about U2's latest creation. I don't care if he miscounts, throws in odd Spanish, goes in on a deal with Apple - Bono could read the dictionary and I'd buy it. And listen to it over and over and over again.