Monday, June 06, 2005
Ch-ch-ch-anges
Journey with me into the mind of a maniac . . ." Dr. Dre and Ice Cube
I am not quite sure if this is the sappiest or stupidest post ever out up by your truly, but here goes.
This is last post that will ever be posted from this computer, this computer meaning the Gateway that "I" (read: mother) bought immediately after college graduation. One of the greatest benefits/tragedies of my life is that my mother is a compulsive shopper. Nothing demonstrates this fact more than the fact that she bought a brand spanking new Dell less than 2 years ago, along with a printer worth arguably more than the computer itself. What has my soon-to-be 69-year old mother done with computer? Well, she graduated from solitaire long ago to spider-solitaire, and has long since stopped doing anything even remotely useful with said instrument, so it's time I took it off of her hands.
So now I am in the process of transferring files. One of the hardest nuts to crack is Napster. I have some 145 songs that needs be transferred, and e-mailing myself via a winzip file has proven to be fruitless. Webgeeks, this question is for you: shall I just transfer stuff to a USB drive and then place that on the new computer for my shiny new IPOD?
Other than the minor details of file transferrence - my mom's computer doesn't even have a floppy drive, so I'll have to find a different way to transfer my dissertation and other documents - this change means I will have to wave goodbye to my reliable old Gateway. And only a sentimental old geek such as yours truly could be somewhat whispy about the prospect of - gasp - changing computers.
But this puppy has been with me since college graduation, meaning 6 whole years. And as my 10th high school reunion approaches, it is perhaps not inappropriate to think over how much life has changed in those six years. This is the instrument through which I kept in touch with some college chaps immediately after graduation. This is the machine on which I wrote more graduate papers than I care to think about, not to mention 170 draft pages of a dissertation. I wrote a novel - or two - on this thing. I applied for grad school, wrote some blog posts or a thousand upon it. When I started I was writing on my college's intranet site, and now I am being published on a medium (theoretically) available for the whole world to read. It was on this machine in the Fall of 1999 that I expressed my sorrow over Kenny Rogers walking in the winning run of the 1999 NLCS, and it was on this machine about a month ago that I acquired Kenny Rogers and his 7 straight wins and sub 2.00 ERA for my fantasy baseball team.
It was on here that I expressed the joy of landing my first salaried job, and then the second, about five years later. I counseled Mary Worth's suicide (or not).
So many times I have cranked Pat McCurdy's anthem of "Sex and Beer" as I railed against some form of social corruption. Hey, we can't always be consistent.
Maybe it's the Alpha Phi Omega in me that makes me whispy about changing computers. Unlike so many of my brothers I am able to handle human communication beyond the internet. But as I listen to "Uncle Fucker" one last time from this computer, I just can't help but feel a little nostalgic.
Goodbye old friend.
I am not quite sure if this is the sappiest or stupidest post ever out up by your truly, but here goes.
This is last post that will ever be posted from this computer, this computer meaning the Gateway that "I" (read: mother) bought immediately after college graduation. One of the greatest benefits/tragedies of my life is that my mother is a compulsive shopper. Nothing demonstrates this fact more than the fact that she bought a brand spanking new Dell less than 2 years ago, along with a printer worth arguably more than the computer itself. What has my soon-to-be 69-year old mother done with computer? Well, she graduated from solitaire long ago to spider-solitaire, and has long since stopped doing anything even remotely useful with said instrument, so it's time I took it off of her hands.
So now I am in the process of transferring files. One of the hardest nuts to crack is Napster. I have some 145 songs that needs be transferred, and e-mailing myself via a winzip file has proven to be fruitless. Webgeeks, this question is for you: shall I just transfer stuff to a USB drive and then place that on the new computer for my shiny new IPOD?
Other than the minor details of file transferrence - my mom's computer doesn't even have a floppy drive, so I'll have to find a different way to transfer my dissertation and other documents - this change means I will have to wave goodbye to my reliable old Gateway. And only a sentimental old geek such as yours truly could be somewhat whispy about the prospect of - gasp - changing computers.
But this puppy has been with me since college graduation, meaning 6 whole years. And as my 10th high school reunion approaches, it is perhaps not inappropriate to think over how much life has changed in those six years. This is the instrument through which I kept in touch with some college chaps immediately after graduation. This is the machine on which I wrote more graduate papers than I care to think about, not to mention 170 draft pages of a dissertation. I wrote a novel - or two - on this thing. I applied for grad school, wrote some blog posts or a thousand upon it. When I started I was writing on my college's intranet site, and now I am being published on a medium (theoretically) available for the whole world to read. It was on this machine in the Fall of 1999 that I expressed my sorrow over Kenny Rogers walking in the winning run of the 1999 NLCS, and it was on this machine about a month ago that I acquired Kenny Rogers and his 7 straight wins and sub 2.00 ERA for my fantasy baseball team.
It was on here that I expressed the joy of landing my first salaried job, and then the second, about five years later. I counseled Mary Worth's suicide (or not).
So many times I have cranked Pat McCurdy's anthem of "Sex and Beer" as I railed against some form of social corruption. Hey, we can't always be consistent.
Maybe it's the Alpha Phi Omega in me that makes me whispy about changing computers. Unlike so many of my brothers I am able to handle human communication beyond the internet. But as I listen to "Uncle Fucker" one last time from this computer, I just can't help but feel a little nostalgic.
Goodbye old friend.
# posted by Paul Zummo : 11:44 PM
