Whoa! Didja get the numbers off that truck?!?

September 25, 2003 - 10:35 p.m.

Rocket Sled

When I started at The Greatest Job I've Ever Had I learned a thing or two. One thing I already knew: they don't spend one dime unnecessarily. The other thing I learned was they were a Werd Perfeckt house. Ewwww.

Now there's a masochistic application for ya. Is that a real word processor, or is that a Sears word processor? [Thanks be to Frank Zappa]

The Windows folks probably had a lot of fun at Werd Perfeckt's expense, leaving all the tricky little hooks and what-fors that make the software actually work properly within the operating system. They had a real "come to Jesus" at TGJIEH shortly before I arrived and wisely decided to migrate to Microsoft Orifice. Lucky for me.

Also, when I started at TGJIEH they gave me the oldest laptop they had. In fact, it was the first one they bought when they convinced the owner that maybe it was time to migrate beyond the TRS-80 and get with the program. These people tend to use every last drop out of technology.

But, I was happy to be there and the laptop worked. But it wasn't hard to make it sweat. Especially with a guy like me driving it, my ADD makes me run several things at once.

I befriended our IS guy and convinced him that my sweaty laptop might be better served by someone else than me. He hooked me up with another laptop. This one was more respectable but someone had abused the battery in this thing. It had a limited lifespan and despite my coaxing and conditioning I could barely boil ten minutes out of it.

So I started whining to my new best friend again about buying a new battery for it. But we agreed that $200 was a poor investment in a 2 year old laptop, sweaty or otherwise. I joked that perhaps he could give me one of those shiny new Sony VAIO laptops he bought that other people tend to get.

This morning he came by and said "John C pissed me off so badly yesterday that you got your wish. I'm giving you the VAIO he was supposed to get. Back your shit up off that computer, it'll be ready by this afternoon."

I might add at this point that yesterday I went to the Hewlett Packard website and downloaded and installed the audio drivers for my currently adequate laptop. The Powers That Be had dictated that no laptop shall have audio drivers because some unthinking numbskulls roast the DVD/CD drives by playing too many music CDs in them, and they are costly little buggers. But I want my audio drivers, damn it. So I had just gotten it tuned up the way I like it, and I was enjoying the sounds coming out of my formerly mute computer. But that's okay, I'll take the new one!

True to his word, my new best friend came by with my new VAIO: 2 GHz P4, big-ass drive, a display that to me is like gazing upon the beauty of an open window sunrise compared to the dot matrix Hell I'd been confined to. And the keyboard... not worn shiny by too many fingertips before me.

I'll shut up now.

As a parenthetical mention, I should add that my new best friend was chatting with someone, and I overheard the fact that his father is the same age as me. That was a sobering thought and I shared it with him. He had great fun with it: Can I call you "Pops"?

I like this guy because of many things (in addition to his ability to meet my computer needs). But what stands out for me is that he listens when you talk to him, and he's pretty sharp. He's sometimes limited by his youthful tendencies, but he'll be fine.

Excuse me while I go fill more RW-CDs with more music for my new toy.

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