The Blog With No Name

I just bought a Sandisk Mini Cruzer – a 256MB USB 2.0 drive. Haven’t tried it on the computer yet (we’re not home) but I’m eager to see whether this will make transporting large MSPub files between work and home easier. I’ve not been impressed with the CD-RW activity – every three or four times I’ve used a CD-RW trying to write a file onto it, I’m told that it’s not formatted properly (yet I formatted it on *that* computer!) and so on and so forth. Bah humbug. Why two Dells, ordered within a week of each other, can’t write to a brand-name CD-RW is beyond me. Hm, let’s see: External USB Zip drive; external USB 2.0 Western Digital hard drive; now a little pen drive. I detect a trend….

John Mohammed was found guilty! Hoo boy, never expected that one, no sir…

To hell with DVD-Rs – too small! I saw an ad on Sunday in the OfficeMax flyer for an **external** 80GB Western Digital hard drive. $99 with various rebates. Oooooooh. The utter joy of being able to back up my Entire Hard Drive is inexpressible. I had a moment of panic when the transfer choked on a 9GB video file, but a quick visit to Western Digital’s web site showed me what to do (reformat the external HD with NTFS instead of FAT32 – duh! [said semi-ironically]). I’m in heaven. I can screw around with Sonic myDVD all I want, make a complete hash of the files, and still have the originals! 9GB!!! And Charles can reuse the tapes. Oh the bliss. Now I must write a batch program (or better yet, *find* one) to copy my MS Money, Palm, and Outlook files on a daily basis to the new backup system. Tee hee.

Two times last week I thought I had a dead Palm (CLIE, sorry). Woke up, turned in the thing, and NOTHING. Dead screen. Plugging it in to the charger (for a few HOURS) had it back and running again. Weird. So I went looking for info on replacement batteries and so on. Then I remembered that I had dropped it (luckily not far) to the ground on Sunday. So I unscrewed the battery cover and made sure-double-sure that the connector was well-seated. Haven’t had a blank-screen-terror recurrence yet. Keep your fingers crossed for me! And if you happen to find a really good, trustworthy, info-packed site on lithium ion batteries, let me know, please.

I went to my church early this morning to drop off cookies and bread for a bake sale being held today. I had been in a good mood. When I got downstairs, I dropped off my stuff and then wandered for a minute, looking at the other goodies. Well lo and behold, holding court at the other end of the room, was a pair of wackos (husband/wife team), in self-exile from their home church, a church which had **DARED** to let a group of gay/lesbian/other co-religionists hold a service in its sanctuary. They are a one-issue couple – EEEEEEVIL FAGS polluting THEIR denomination! It appalls me, and naively enough shocks me, that my congregation has people in it who agree with them, because that’s what a group of people were doing, sitting with this couple, chatting away about how gay people don’t belong in the church, or if they want to be gay (!), don’t “advertise” it. These people have GOD HIMSELF on their side; no amount of arguing or discussion will ever sway them. I guess, come 2005, I might be changing congregations. Sigh.

I counted days on the calendar today. Five more Wednesdays after tonight. Four more Saturdays after this weekend. Amazing. Probably five more Mondays as well. Whoo-hoo.

Just had a spot of minor dermatology performed on my hand today. Great big huge white bandage on, you guessed it, my middle finger. Why does it always have to be the *middle* finger, that’s what I want to know. Hell on my typing speed, let me tell you. Going to make going to work on Friday amusing though.