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30 June, 1998
June is gone. July is hot (literally) on her heels. The pile of white envelopes awaits, hungry for money in the basket on the bookcase in the entry hall. The basket stares accusingly every time I walk by. "Pick me up! Empty me out! Do the bills! You're LATE again!" Sigh. Sigh. Double-sigh. Bossman is on vacation, I got a new machine, everything is hectic. So. La maquina -- la machine, the machine -- ahhhh. It came this afternoon, right after I got out of the lunch meeting. A gloriously aerodynamic looking thing with 2 slots in the front and these cool rounded buttons. The computer guy sets it down and slides under the desk. I can hear his voice asking questions and echoing back at me, but all I see are his jeans-clad legs protruding from beneath the desk. I don't know why, this strikes me as funny. Fifteen minutes later, I am sitting at the desk booting it up and marveling at the speed. That's what 333mhz of computing power can do for you. From a 1 minute boot-up to 5 seconds. five seconds. I giggle maniacally as the speed of this gorgeous thing goes to my head. I start up Lotus Notes, which formerly took at least a minute to boot and 30 seconds to open each database. BOOM. There it is in 2 seconds flat, the db's open in less time than that and my work e-mail slides in at the speed of light. I lean back and say "Ahhhhh." Five minutes later there is a small crowd of eager spectators leaning over the walls of the cube. Director-dude grins and leans over conspiratorily and says softly "Go on ... show them Notes". So I close Notes and start it up again and BOOM there it is, accompanied by a chorus of "ooooo, aaaaaah, ohhhh". They drift away after that, leaving me to install the piles of software rescued from the old machine and downloading things like Acrobat Reader and RealPlayer off the 'net. It's then that I bend over to check out the CD-drive and discover that it's not a tray drive. It's one of those ones that you just slip the CD right into and it grabs it for you, like in the car. "oooooo, ahhhhhh, ohhhhhh". My speaker drivers will be re-installed hopefully by the end of the week so I can cart in the CD holder and play some tunes while I bang away at the files. I am a happy camper. No matter how much I may complain about the fast turnover in computer developments, I too feel the need for speed. For a computer geek, there ain't much better than getting a slick new baby to play on. |
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