[Posted on Flickr by dianaschnuth].
I donated 10 inches of my hair last weekend. I haven’t had hair this short in three years, and I’d forgotten how fun it is.
I have a new ‘do, and I’ve helped a cancer-stricken child get a new ‘do. It’s a win-win situation.
There’s only one work of writing that I’ve actually a.) finished and b.) felt was acceptable overall. I wrote it back in 2001, and I will admit that the first paragraph or two was loosely based on my own real life. After that, I let the story do its thing, and if elements of myself appear in the main character… well, it happens.
I’ve decided to post it here, under a Creative Commons license. I think it’s entirely too cliché to ever be published anywhere, but deserves to see the light of day somewhere. I did post it on my website years ago, and got some positive feedback about it, so here it is again.
I know my writing-related limitations. If you feel the need to critique, I’ll try not to take it too hard, but I’m not specifically calling for critique. I’m just sharing, for whatever fucked up reason. Remember, this is a sample of my writing from five years ago — not that my writing style has changed *that* much since then. Although I was hard-pressed to keep myself from making minor edits as I plugged in the HTML for italics and such.
[Update: I didn’t mean you shouldn’t leave any comments… If you read it and liked it, or even if you were ambivalent about it, feel free to leave your thoughts.]
Please be aware that this story contains sexual situations, occult hocus-pocus, and ending dialogue adapted from a chapter of one of my favorite Star Trek books. If you aren’t turned off yet, read on…
Continue reading
Where were you seven years ago?
[inspired by Cameron Moll]
At the risk of getting Dooced, let me say this:
Two departments in my building got new supervisors today. One new supervisor introduced herself to all her employees, shook their hands, learned their names, and was generally cordial by all accounts. The other supervisor spent the day moving into her new office, sitting alone in said office, and being unresponsive to e-mails.
Guess which one was mine.
She’s had a busy day, so I’m willing to cut her a little slack. If she doesn’t a.) hold a department-wide meeting or b.) at least reply to my pleasant “welcome to the department can we have a meeting about the database at your convenience” e-mail, only then will I start to become truly hesitant about this new supervisor.
I walked into Goodwill this weekend, and what did I see?
A first-generation iMac. Bondi Blue. Tray-loading CD. No keyboard or mouse, a little discolored and worn, missing the door cover to hide all the cableage. Price: $60. Plugged it in at the store, saw that it was running OS 8.6.
I went for it. *shakes head* I figured, WTF. My old legacy Mac is running at 275MHz, this iMac had a sticker claiming it was a 333, and I was pretty positive that all iMacs were G3s. My 6500 was merely a PowerPC.
I brought it home, plugged in my PC’s USB mouse, and surfed around the Mac as best I could with no keyboard. I discovered that the OS had been a little lobotomized in the previous owner’s zeal to clear off the hard drive, so I pulled out my old OS 8.5 CD and performed a clean install of the operating system. After all, the iMac has built-in ethernet, so I’ll be able to download OS upgrades from the ‘net, no problem. I’m pretty sure that Mac operating systems through OS9 are free downloads… and I may be able to procure a copy of OSX for a reasonable price somewhere online.
After a little online research (from my PC, that is, after retreiving my USB mouse), and after some serial number decoding, I learned that this is actually a Revision D iMac, apparently in Blueberry. (Coulda *sworn* that was Bondi Blue…) Processor speed 333MHz, bus speed 66MHz, 6GB hard drive, 15″ screen, manufactured in August 1999 in Mexico.
Why, you ask, did I buy this relic? It’s unexpandable, un-upgradable, and obsolete.
The answer? I just can’t pass up a Mac at the thrift.
Really, the more reasonable explanation is that I haven’t used my 6500 in months, just because it’s so damn clunky. I can’t install any modern web browsers on it, Gmail didn’t work right in IE 5.5 last time I checked, and I have little reason to even power up the Mac anymore. I guess I thought that if I had a G3, I might be more inclined to at least check the layout of my websites on a Macintosh. Plus, I’m curious about OSX — the last time I used a Mac on a daily basis was right before the switchover from OS9 to OSX. Apparently, this iMac can run OS 10.3.9 with no problem, and maybe even OS 10.4 with a little tweaking. With its whopping however-many megs of RAM, though, I might be better off sticking with a “classic” OS.
I’ve gotten so used to Windows PCs now. I used to be a complete Mac-o-phile. Now, I don’t know if I could do without my right mouse button and scroll wheel on a regular basis*. If I had over $1000 to blow on a computer, I’d probably end up spending it on a new flat-panel display and/or a dual-processor Windows-based something-or-other, rather than a Mac mini or a new iMac.
I just purchased a keyboard, puck mouse, and cover door on eBay. Total cost with shipping: $25. So, I blew $85 overall on an obsolete computer. Did I get hosed? Sure.
At least it looks kitschy.
*Yes, I know the Mighty Mouse has those capabilities. The question is, would I really want to spend $70 on a mouse after dropping a grand on a computer?