Everyday Stupidities

Hey, all. I've been visiting long-lost relatives, working on the yard, filling my life with croutons, nurturing carnivorous plants (if the needs of Drosera binata are that much different than of Venus flytrap and pitcher plants, why do they put them together in pots?), noodling to the point of going limp, and ever-so-slowly still trying to find something suitable to do with my life. Some of those things are going well, not all, especially the last one or two. But at least I've got some swell new bubblelights and a set of dishes! And I saw Depeche Mode live on the 10th, with a slight seat upgrade and everything. (I'm still wearing the earplugs.)

I'm at a loss for what to point out as an everyday stupidity, since the world is full of them. The most recent low-octane one was looking at a sign about some dishes at IKEA and seeing that they were patterned after "flower pedals." Flowers go biking? No one in proofreading caught this? But I suppose this is overshadowed by the hack of the Sears website where descriptions of barbecues were edited to say they were baby-roasting devices. (Why hasn't that been a bigger headline? Oh yeah, because it was overshadowed by Microsoft's editing a white guy's head onto a black guy's body on their Polish webpage. Way more relevant than grilled squab.) Plenty of stupidities between my ears but I'm trying to grow past them, which is an ongoing process. And you should be happy -- especially you, Jamie -- that I'm keeping the tales of wiping my main computer clean and rebuilding -- always a good excuse to upgrade from Windows 2000 to Windows XP -- due to a worm that I couldn't kill (you know something is wrong when a voice comes through your computer's speakers telling you about setting up a home business when you do not have any programs running!!) and of battling Winders Genuine Disadvantage popping up on my notebook to tell me I'm a dirty p1r4t3 without me having a more recent backup of the drive to fall back on. (You have to love a message that comes up saying "You may be the victim of piracy!" when what it really means is, "In 30 days, you will be the victim of draconian copyright protection disabling your ability to use your computer!" Linux to the rescue!) All is well in computer land now. The neighbors across the street in the hovel are having a yardsale, which seems 90% comprised of little kid toys, and it begs the question: Where the heck have they been storing it, if this is taking up the entire front yard and the kids' bedroom (they have a 5 year old girl and 7 year old boy, plus "others" including a 7 year old girl are always over) is 8'x10'?

Giggle from a minute ago: While writing the above, my mother-in-law's heterosexual life partner called (I shoulda left the earplugs in) asking whether I could fix her computer when next they're in town; I quote her, "I need you to get the viruses that are supposed to be on this machine off."