$5 of Regular and Check the Oil, Please

I am blogging tonight while sitting in a figurative gallon of my own feces. I pressed the power button on my trusty hp pavilion ze5200 and it told me it couldn’t find an operating system. What do you mean you can’t find an operating system? I haven’t moved it and nobody else is here, so you should know where it is. I’m sure we’ve all had this moment, and it wasn’t as bad as it could have been since I’ve backed up most of my stuff. But that error message is never welcome. I bought my pc in January of ’03 so I think I’ve gotten my money’s worth out of it, but I don’t want to buy a computer right now. I’m scared to buy a Mac; I won’t buy anything with the Vista taint, and it’s silly to buy a new computer with an old operating system. When I bought this machine it was buff and it was the stuff. It’s almost five years later and it’s not obsolete. It’s a notebook running a Pentium 4 processor, which has always outperformed its little sister Centrino. It’s hot, it’s heavy, and it still clocks faster than any other notebook I’ve ever seen 4.2 GHz. The only machines I’ve seen with faster processors were towers designed specifically for high-end video games and cost at least five thousand dollars. The new duo processor has finally caught up to my dinosaur Pentium, but it does it through efficiency and not raw muscle. My hp is a 1972 Cadillac Brougham (pronounced Bro-ham) in a Honda Civic world, and I’m running on fumes hoping I don’t conk out at the back of the gas line.

Tougher Than a $2 Steak: Part II

LMJ’s first tooth is poking through. I found it yesterday. What’s strange is that she hasn’t been exceptionally fussy, or maybe it’s not so strange. Maybe she really is just hard-core.

Remember Bad Idea Jeans?

We heard a woman screaming, “Let go of me! You’re hurting me!” outside a few minutes ago. I thought it was kids playing, but then I thought what if it isn’t. So I hurtled out the door in order to give chase – in flip-flops. I learned that I’m more agile in running shoes. There were people outside, which is strange in our neighborhood, and I got worried. A lady asked me if I knew her, the screaming woman. I said no, and headed down a dark street after two guys in their late teens or early twenties. I was starting to come up with a plan to deal with the two yutes if things got physical – lose the flip-flops was step 1, step 2 was don’t die – it’s not that I was trying to be a badass but at this point I still thought the screamer was a little girl and if I’m not willing to stand up for a little girl then I suck. A small wave of relief washed over me when the lady who had asked me if I knew the screamer earlier said it was coming out of a specific house. I walked up to the house, staying off the property as step 2 become more precise – don’t get shot. I shouted, “Is everything okay?” A big guy came out of the door. Where the hell are the little guys that buy the Old Navy medium t-shirts? The big guy told me that he was arguing with his wife and she started screaming specifically so people would come outside. He said she had run off into the neighborhood. I took his word for it – what else could I do – and let him know that if there was anymore screaming I would call the police. He was cordial so I find myself believing his story, but if his wife does wind up dead at least I have a story to tell the cops, “Officer! Officer! I saw the whole thing. You can read about it on my blog!”