Thursday, August 10, 2006

Back in Business

My laptop has been restored to me! And thank God, I must say. After spending a mostly frustrating hour on the phone with Verizon DSL tech support in India, trying to reactivate my wireless network, I gave up on the wireless and resorted to the trusty yellow Ethernet cord. Since then I've reinstalled Word and the DVD program; downloaded iTunes, Avast, and Trillian (Skype and Firefox to come, though really I've never used Firefox very much -- is it so much superior to IE?); and ripped all the photos from the past month off my camera. What's harder is reconstructing all my personal settings -- I always have a Desktop icon on the taskbar; how do I get that back? What was my quote in the screensaver scroll? -- and Favorites -- beyond Bloglines, what sites do I visit every day, and what are their addresses again? And this weekend will be the enormous fun of recopying all my CDs to iTunes. . . . Still, after nearly three weeks of forced absence, I'm putting my digital life back together, bit by bit. (Literally, if you'll pardon the pun.)

This computer's original name was Dellawhere -- a combination of its brand name and then-miraculous-to-me wi-fi capabilities -- but, as its new brain/hard drive was installed while I was at Lumos, I feel it only right that version 2.0 should be known as Dellatrix.

Other notes:

  • My brilliant friend Jeff is making a documentary called "Crossed Lines" about the Texas redistricting scandal a few years back, to be Please check out the trailer on YouTube.
  • Speaking of YouTube, you can see John Noe singing my filk of "New York, New York" here (also some great Melissa dancing there), and John, Melissa and the audience performing "It's Voldemort Outside" here.
  • I haven't played Scrabble in, I think, two and a half months, and I'm suffering serious tile withdrawal. Anyone up for an Internet game? Please?
  • My SCBWI website interview from earlier this year is now permanently archived here.
  • An AWESOME article about the Ministry of Magic from the Michigan Law Review (really!): "Harry Potter and the Half-Crazed Bureaucracy." "Part II argues that Half-Blood Prince presents a government that fits perfectly into the public-choice model of self-interested bureaucrats running roughshod over the public interest. . . . Part V concludes that Rowling may do more for libertarianism than anyone since John Stuart Mill."
  • Recent things I've loved: Bing cherries; "Little Miss Sunshine"; the "Absinthe" circus at South Street Seaport (check it out, New Yorkers! I command you); the song "Save Ginny Weasley from Dean Thomas," by Harry and the Potters; running; Brooklyn; being home after all my traveling.
Someday I will write a thoughtful, useful blog post on intellectual/literary/editorial matters rather than all this personal and Harry Potter babbling. In the meantime, thanks for sticking around!

11 comments:

  1. I know for a fact that you've played Scrabble in the last 5 weeks or so...because I was there! Okay, I admit, I was so tired & out of it (excessive heat + weddings in NJ will do that!), so I was completely unable to put up a fight. Therefore, it probably hardly counts (certainly by Cheryl standards, and when I consider my standards, I'd probably be fine forgetting it too), but it *was* a Scrabble game.

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  2. I actually really like Firefox - the only thing I use IE for is playing Oregon Trail at VirtualApple, since it doesn't work with Firefox for some reason. I don't know what the differences are between them anymore, but if IE doesn't have tabbed browsing, I'm just not interested.

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  3. But if your computer is named Dellatrix, won't it be evil?

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  4. I would be happy to have my butt handed to me in an internet scrabble game. I'm the reigning champ of Casa Del Aguas. (our house) but my competition here consists of a brilliant man that can't spell VW and a nine-year-old boy.

    Bring it on!

    Just let me know the URL.

    Marilyn

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  5. Firefox v. IE

    I use Firefox and am satisfied. I think the two look about the same and operate in very similar ways. One hardly knows one from the other. Firefox is said to make your computer more secure from hackers. Whether that is important to you depends on how you use your computer. One does very occaisionally run across sites on which Firefox does not function well. So you always want to be able to switch easily to IE.

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  6. Being a political junkie, thanks for the heads-up about Crossed Lines. I don't think most people realize all that went on with that redistricting...or exactly how far-reaching its effects were.

    Looking forward to seeing it.

    - Jay

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  7. Cheryl,

    As you set up your computer, check out the site www.pandora.com

    You set up your own radio stations and as you pick songs the computer becomes trained to the type of music you might like. It's pretty cool.

    colleen

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  8. Hi Cheryl! You don't actually know me or anything, so I hope I'm not being TOO creepy!

    I don't know if you're on facebook, or if you've heard about this yet (Melissa or John may have let you know), but someone created a facebook group in your honor: http://wellesley.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2204773940

    If that's not a marker of coolness (to say nothing of hotttttness, but we already knew about that), I don't know what is!

    Good luck with the computer, and thanks for "New York, New York." Your filks are awesome!

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  9. When you get your political editorial footings back ... I'd love to hear your comments concerning Lamont & Lieberman. Not that I haven't enjoyed your personal / Potter / & laptop musings, because I have! Don't ya just hate it when your electronic live doesn't jive with your personal live ... It's like reinventing the wheel to get everything back on your computer!!

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  10. The Absinthe circus looks
    amazing. Wish I was in NYC
    to experience it. If you go
    back to Vegas the new Cirque
    du Soleil show LOVE rivals O.
    My favorite summer movie so
    far has to be Wordplay, about
    crossword puzzles which does
    not sound like an exciting heartwarming topic and yet it is.

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  11. My husband insists that I use Firefox because most viruses are IE compatible. They don't care about some browser that most people haven't heard of.

    The only drawback with Firefox is that when you have an older computer, as we do, you have to sometimes switch over to IE to play certain games on PBS Kids and Nick Jr. (That's my girl who's playing them, not me.)

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