Tuesday, November 22, 2005

Blowin' a fuse

Today was fairly uneventful, I whiled away the hours in my camper waiting for my 12:30 class (the only one I have today). I got a note on my door that invited me to have Thanksgiving at the house of the owners of this RV park, which was very, very thoughtful of them and I really appreciate it but as I'm sure everyone knows, I plan on going home for Thanksgiving. It has been a little over a month since my last visit I suppose.

After hearing a the head of a certain family of Yuletide tune singers (whose mother is visiting a far off land) tell a funny story about his son's undergarments, I found this quote and it reminded me of the occasion:

Grown-ups never understand anything for themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them.
- Antoine de Saint-Exupery

And so I thought I should post it. Here is another one for those who like to stay inside all day:

I believe that every human has a finite number of heart-beats. I don't intend to waste any of mine running around doing exercises.
- Neil Armstrong

I enjoy quotes, it's a decent substitute for wit. :)

On a more down to earth level (catch the hidden pun) when I went to class today, there were a lot of students standing around on campus. I didn't think too much of it since I was early anyway but when I got to the classroom building I noticed that all the doors were shut and it was rather dark. I ascended to the third floor using the stairs of course (elevators are for those who agree with above quote) and by this time I had figured that the power was out. It ws very, very dark in the auditorium and despite trying to be prepared for everything that comes my way, I had sadly neglected to bring a flashlight to school that day. I don't mind the darkness but my eyes weren't accustomed to it yet and so I carefully walked to the seat where I usually sit. It was kind of odd though because I could barely see and I wondered if I would end up sitting on someone else (turns out I and one other person were the only ones in the room at the time). After a few minutes I could see more clearly and began to relish the cloak of darkness I was shrouded in. I contemplated letting out weird chuckles while crawling through the aisles as the students came in but decided against it. They probably would scare too easily.

A while later the instructor came in and talked for about 15 minutes about various projects and then we all left. He couldn't use the projector of course (because the power was out) and there was not much he could do about it. After everyone else had already left, I too went home. And here I've been. Sitting.... *sigh

When I got back to the camper I thought I'd log in and check my queue just for kicks. Bah, there's never anything there right? Well today there was 146 messages for me so I started going through. It seems many people are taking their vacation early, leaving on the 18th or so and then coming back on the 28th. At least so it seemed from the numerous autoresponses I received that said "Out of Office." I got so used to seeing that phrase that I was rather startled when suddenly one said "I'll be in the office on November 22nd." Which apparently he hadn't come yet when this e-mail was sent out but anyway..... it broke the monotony.

I didn't have too many crazy ones this time, I had the usual
"Come on Mom. You know better." And

"dad, wahts this?"

Responses (even to their own father they can't take the time to write a correct THREE words?). But the best was from a guy who started off as though he was acting professional about it but went downhill after that:

To whom it may concern;
Hi, i was wondering if i still have access
to a safe... i had one last year

but i thought i didn't this year.
Does the bill for the safe go on the

overall tuition / fees im paying for the room?
If so, i have one of the

safes in the room then?
Thanks

Apparently he thinks SafeRegistry well... registers safes! Sadly we don't offer that kind of protection. We keep your registry safe, essentially. Too bad he didn't read any of the information and only looked at the name. Last week I was thought to be a locksmith (I can't get into my safe!) and this week I'm selling safes. Oh well, it's good for entertainment.

So should I share another freeware program? I recall recommending WordWeb (and I still recommend it) and AbiWord before, this week (or hour as the case may be) I will be pushing for CCleaner
And I would highly recommend it because it does really help your system. Windows tends to clutter things up and after a while you've got over half a Gigabyte of worthless temporary files that it apparently didn't get around to cleaning. Then there is the registry which if you install and uninstall something, gets "dirty." CCleaner helps fix some of those problems and prompts you to create a backup before you correct them just in case something goes wrong. I have never had a problem with it. One thing I should mention is that if you do run the cleaner, unless you uncheck the box for the cookies for your Internet browser (Firefox of course) then your saved passwords will be erased. As a general rule, you want to keep most of your cookies so don't clean those up unless you want to.
CCleaner also has a section where you can edit which programs start up (which is much easier than running msconfig) and run in the system tray, and it shows a much more detailed "installed programs" list than the Windows one does. In short it comes highly recommended as something that will help your computer run smoother and more efficiently.

Would you like to have a free anti-virus program? Stay tuned to hear about it next time!

2 Comments:

At 7:29 PM PST, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I find that first quote especially hilarious.

Did you ever discover what caused the power outage?

 
At 4:00 PM PST, Blogger Shadow said...

No I didn't but if I do find out next Tuesday when class meets again, I'll let you know.

 

Post a Comment

<< Home