Being, you know, proficient...

Some of you loyal readers (and is it the trend these days to cap your readership at 3? Because I'm not sure I could meet that quota...oooo) may remember that a while back, my lousy, no good, crap for brains printer up and left me behind. Figuratively.

Really, the bastard is sitting on my desk, taking up precious clutter space. I mean it's not enough that he doesn't print what I need, but I have to be organized too. I've had just about enough, but what I do not have enough of is money, and new printers cost money.

So anyway, there I was, yesterday morning, trying to putz around on the computer and check my mail before class. Some of the professors like to e-mail handouts for students to print, so in the hopes of getting an extra 10 minutes of "room time," I was trying to see whether my Lit professor had sent us any files to print. Which he had. But I didn't know that.

With 20 minutes before class starting, I had no clue what to do, because something (don't ask me what) was disabled in the hardware department. And I'm pretty sure it had been enabled before, because before, it didn't get stuck on the stupid start-up screen telling me to choose between F2 or F11.
I chose F11, because I thought it was just my computer bitching to me about a stomach ache or something. The way I was raised, unless our heads were hanging on by our spinal cords, and even those had been worn away to the very fibers of being, we went to school, or Temple or whatever function we might have wanted to stay away from on account of being sick.

So there was no way I was going to let my computer off the hook this soon before class. But he got me back. Bastard wouldn't recognize the Ethernet (plug, card, USB port, whatever, it said NO).
I wouldn't stand for this. Even if I only use the high-speed internet capabilities for menial tasks (like updating!! haha! For three people!! hahahahahaha!), I was not about to let the inanimate computer keep me from the World Wide Web....And definitely not about to let him let me suffer a crappy grade in a Lit class I actually really enjoy.

I took a breath and I smacked that reset button into oblivion. And when that stupid ugly MS-DOSy looking set-up screen dealie reared its nauseous face once more, I took the road less traveled and decided to see what had gone wrong. And do you know what?
I fixed it!! I figured out all that techno mumbo-jumbo and I enabled whatever needed to be enabled and it was fabulous!!! And it was my ego boost for the day!!!

So after class, armed with said confidence (and the buzz from being prepared for class and flying in just under the radar), I decided to tackle Swiggy (the POS printer)...
He still sucks. What can say? I fixed the problem of the cartridge dealie getting caught, so now it actually moves. But I'm afraid I may have fucked up the actual ink cartridge. Whatever.

The point is, I fixed my computer. EXCLAMATION POINTS ALL THE WAY!!!!!

About these comments....

I'm sorry my comments suck sometimes. But really, I'm the simple ditz who can't count. I have to label my comments in order to have them be "unique."
I promise I'll learn to count to 100, not ten through 99.

What's on my To Do list?

1- Update silly blog
2- Finish retardo French homework
3- Pick up Syllabus for Jogging class
4- Brad Pitt in full Greek Warrior gear.

I have a two hour break in between Lit and Anthro, so I thought it would be an excellent time to nap. But instead I putzed around with homework. At 1, I considered skipping Anthro, since, really, all the material is accesible online and in the test banks. But I remembered my New Years Resolution to be more dedicated to class, so I bit the bullet and head out. Upon arrival, the Fire Alarm had been alarming for some time while the students milled around Turlington. I waited patiently like the rest, reading my book, and when the ringing finally did stop, filed into the rooms like a sheep. It was a good thing I did, because otherwise I might have missed the important announcement that class was cancelled, I can only assume it was due to the 5 minute delay.
I absolutely love it when I can tell myself things like:
"I told you, you should have stayed in and slept." But I responded, "Quiet you, at least I put in the effort, which is more than you can say."
"Oh yeah?" I responded. "Maybe you should consider that when you're having trouble waking up for your 8:30 jogging class tomorrow. We'll see who's laughing then."
I have faith that my alarm clock will come through for the good me and that my slacker side will just yawn and roll over while I put on my shoes.

So far, that's one item checked off my list. I like the new me, she's so "productive."

Everybody's got something to hide 'cept for me and my monkeys.

Or is it monkies?
No matter. We're all part of the same family, us primates.
It says so here, and here, and here too.

There's a lot of hard evidence (pun intended) on the planet to add credibility to evolutionary "theory." Sure, there was the case of the Piltdown man. But it was simply Charles Dawson's idea of a cruel prank that ended up setting paleoantrhopologists back by 40 years. The myriad fossils and jaws and skulls and femurs that I had to be able to identify? I'm pretty sure that's real. And let me just clarify that when I say pretty sure, I mean it in the way that I'm pretty sure that the English Alphabet has 26 letters.

But, of course, there's always the argument for the other side. And as far as that other side is concerned, I come across as an atheist who denies that the Lord God (not to be confused with the Lord Jesus) created everything in its current form.

To set the record straight, I'm quite Jewish, and quite fond of Adonai. I talk to the dude on a semi-regular basis, so I don't think the term atheist quite fits. I have absolutely no problem whatsoever believing in some supreme being, even if there's no definite proof other than the overwhelming complexity of the universe. Seeing is often believing, but I don't think I need to see everything I believe in.
Gravity for instance, I can't see it, but damned if it doesn't cause me to trip and fall flat on my ass every day.

To me, the Creationist rebuttal for Evolution would be like going to the Redwood forests, looking at the impressive Sequoias, feeling their bark, their sap, smelling their life, and then calling the entire forest a man-made hoax. Never mind that the trees have been there for hundreds of years. And nevermind that we can date Austrolopithecines back 4.4 million years. That's six zeros. I know plenty of people who get all persnickety with one zero after a 4.

I just don't get it. I mean, look at the computer. In the past century or so, it's evolved from it's orginal humungous casing into laptops not much thicker than a textbook. And we can go back and look at the old Apples and see that, yes, at one point, computers did look like refrigerators. And because we have that tangible evidence, no one really feels the need to out themselves as the village idiot and call it a hoax.

There are millions of ways to give evidence that Humans and Apes and our respective ancestors belong in the same family. To name a few, hip and pelvic structure, the structure of the femoral head, the bones in the hands and feet, the upper and lower limbs, the teeth, the cranium, the jaw, the dentition, the eye orbit. And that's the visual component. There's also DNA.

But what do I know? I guess it's just because my head has been corrupted by PBS and other learning mediums.
Let's wrap up with a line from The Good Book, which Spencer Tracy delivered remarkably well:

"forget not those who do evil unto thous for they shall inherit the wind."

[thanks to Becoming Human and the Tree of Life Website]

She's Baa-aaack.

Yes, I have returned.
And I learned something (gasp!). Lists are a great way of satisfying other's strange curiosity of the details of my life without exerting too much effort.
Here's a quick overview of the things in my life (since we last met):
1- Went home and did nothing of great consequence. I was semi-productive the first week, dog walking and pet feeding and all. And I was slightly productive the second week, but really, I don't care if I did nothing because that is the definition of a break, now isn't it?

2- Avoided being overtly social and catching up with lost friends. I mean, I went out a couple times and saw a few friendly faces, which was nice, but I don't think I could have handled Miami. Which is different from Miam-ah. Miam-ah is home without the obnoxiousness. Miami includes all those inconsiderate dickwads who rattle everyone's windows with terrible bass lines and etch the windshields of their cars with helpful clues like "Toyota." Big ballas. You know, just in case you really cared about what kind of crap car they were driving, but you couldn't tell because their spoiler is so tall it makes it hard to see. I defintely did not want to deal with that.

3- Saw several movies which ranged between amusing and worth 2 hours of my life to absolutely fucking amazing. Mona Lisa Smile was fun to see with my mother and sisters and think about being independant and not going to school to get my MRS. Big Fish was an excellent morsel of Tim Burton's gift of storytelling and the first new tall tale I've heard in a while. LOTR: The Return of the King was exceedingly excellent. It's exciting to have something tangible after carrying the fantasies in your head since childhood. Elf was amusing and Will Ferrel is definitely a gifted comic, but a decent plot would have been nice. Cold Mountain was fine, but I think I should have read the book before I saw the film. Rented a few movies too, but due to the risk of sounding like a movie geek who spends too much time seeing flimsy films, I'll save those for another time.

4- Hauled in some excellent gifts. Of course, a lady never tells. But I am quite grateful and sent out my Thank You notes on time.

5- Honestly devoted quality time to family, which felt like home.

6- Thought about college career. Let's not get into that.

7- Dropped the 7:30 am Lifeguarding course. Early Morning, February, Pool, Outdoors, I don't know about you, but when those words are in the same sentence, they scare the crap out of me.

8- Went to my first class today, The Likeness of Shakespeare. It's taught by one of the more intellectualling intimidating professors on campus, but I think I might be up for the challenge. We'll see.

And now, I'm going to get back to my responsibilities. So happy New Year and have a lovely day.