reviews

Just A Geek

Before I begin my review of Wil Wheaton’s latest book, I’d like to take a moment to point out one thing.

I think that I’ve figured out the difference between us simple plebes and the blogging elite of the Blogosphere™. They don’t necessarily have something wittier, funnier, stranger, or generally more worthy to post—well, OK, maybe they do. The point I wanted to make, though, is that when the rest of us post, it’s almost stream-of-consciousness. At best, it’s a first draft. You can’t make me believe that when Dooce or Wil or any other well-known blogger posts, that they haven’t at least read and edited once before they hit that Save button. Sure, I skim for spelling and grammatical errors and other indignities, but I don’t draft my blog entries like I once drafted ENG 112 syntheses.

And maybe I should.

Now, for the review…

Just A GeekMy husband bought me Wil Wheaton’s latest book, Just A Geek, as a Christmas present.

I read it yesterday.

OK, I exaggerate. I read one chapter at the laundromat Sunday, the end of the appendices at work today, and the rest I read yesterday. It was that engaging.
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ruminations 2 Comments

Missing Mom

In response to my musings about my lack of Christmas spirit, Sheryl had this to say:

…it could be the fact that you wont see your mom this xmas? even if you didnt normally go visit, the distance makes it seem more..empty. :/

That’s a good point, and one that I had actually pondered while Aaron and I were driving home from Cleveland on Saturday.

I’d agreed with Aaron beforehand that it would be so wonderful not to have to share Christmas with two families this year. No sleeping on the floor at Mom and Gary’s place, no coming home smelling like Vantage cigarettes, no juggling of times and places and meals and ending up waiting on Uncle Pete anyway.

Even so, as I sat in the passenger’s seat of the Kia on the way home Christmas night, in amongst my various sleepy ponderings was the realization that I wanted a hug from my Mom.

It’s finally hitting me that it could be *years* until I see my mother again.

Maybe that *is* it.

Sure, Gary’s a tool, and my Mom isn’t quite as cool as she once was… but still, nothing quite compares to a Mom Hug™.

geekspeak

Why Do All Computers Hate Me?

Goddamned XP is smarter than me.

I just lost all my mp3’s. Somehow.

I mean, I know enough about computers to know that they’re still there, physically. The computer just doesn’t know how to find them. I guess that’s what I get for playing around with my Shared Documents without really knowing what I’m doing.

I even tried doing a system restore, to no avail.

And, to make things even better, our internet appears to be down. Neither my nor Aaron’s computer can get online. I can see Aaron’s computer, though, and play mp3’s from it (since mine are currently MIA).

Guess I’ll just hook up the old computer *again* and transfer all my mp3’s *again*.

I am seriously annoyed right now.

*sneer*

Edit, 10:12pm:
Shortly after I wrote the above entry, I hooked up the old computer (again) and started re-transferring my mp3 collection to the new computer. In the meantime, I lit a candle and read a book and calmed myself down.

I have now recovered all of my music, read Wil Wheaton’s book Just A Geek in its entirety (almost—I still have the appendices to finish), and made the basement smell like a freshly-baked double-chocolate muffin.

*contented sigh*

randomness

Christmas Recap

As is my wont each year after Christmas, I now begin the annual tally of Stuff I Got For Christmas.

From Aaron to me:
A refurbished Dell Dimension 3000 (so, so nice!) | Wil Wheaton’s book Just A Geek | a Whitman low-carb Sampler | eight, count ’em, *eight* boxes of Pocky | a five-pack of Fuji film | The Spartan Dischords‘ CD Happy Hour

From Aaron’s family, to both of us:
From Uncle Pete: The Best of Times: America in the Clinton Years | From Grammie and Poppa: $70 gift card to Wal-Mart | From Aaron’s Dad: two crisp bills of currency that made our eyes bug out slightly | From Aaron’s brother Matt: $30 to Value City

With the money from Grammie and Poppa and Aaron’s dad, we had quite the haul at Wal-Mart: A Dirt Devil bagless vacuum, a filing cabinet, a new desk lamp for me. windshield wiper blades for the Kia, a new Stanley toolbox, and other various odds-and-ends.

Mom didn’t get me anything this year, but I can understand why: they’ve been in their new house for some time now, and neither of them are employed yet. They’re still trying to figure out how to make next month’s mortgage payment, so I wouldn’t expect them to go out Christmas shopping.

So ends another holiday season.

mormonism

Two Quick Tidbits

At the laundromat this evening, CNN spewed forth two unrelated but intriguing blurbs.

First: The President of the Mormon church (a.k.a. “The Prophet” of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints) is going to be on Larry King Live this evening at 9pm. I may have to see if I can watch it live online somehow, or check out a capture or transcript later, as we don’t get CNN in our Very Basic Cable package. I’m interested in what Larry King might have to say to President Hinkley.

Second: A preliminary count of the Ukrainian re-vote shows Viktor Yuschenko has won by a landslide. Looks all the protesting and publicity was worth it. Congratulations to the dedicated voters of the Ukraine! (Makes me wonder if the U.S. didn’t give up too easily on our own recent election… but that’s neither here nor there at this late date.)

Edit: There’s now a transcript online of the conversation between Larry King and Gordon B. Hinckley.