Les Bonnes Choses

I've managed to steal away a moment or two this Thanksgiving (part deux, as we already celebrated the Canadian edition back in October). On top of the usual bustle (I've decided to use bustle instead of busyness because the latter doesn't seem like it's really a word, and it seldom gets to go out for a night on the town without hustle), it's been difficult for me to blog because I brought my laptop in for warranty service on Tuesday, 6 days before the warranty is set to run out. That has left me without my usual computer. Sure, I could use Macho Me, the Mac Mini that we use as a media server (primarily to watch episodes of Glee on Hulu, these days), but the 720 line resolution on the television is irritating.*

This lead me to go to the Best Buy (also known colloquially as stalker buy around here -- I believe this is explained in a previous post, and I will link to it if I can ever remember where the hell it is; the story is comedic in its bizarreness ) yesterday to pick up a wireless network card for my desktop, sitting idle these last three months so that I can continue to bring you the thought-provoking editorials you have come to expect from me.** Unfortunately, "works out of the box" means different things to different people, so I spent yesterday evening frustrated with the fact that the rules of English grammar do not apply to hardware troubleshooting, and that being wireless-less did not make me wired. The only thing that assuaged me was the triumph that I felt when I confirmed that I had unlocked the cell phone that came with my contract with Rogers. When I canceled my service with Rogers, the friendly customer service representative reminded me that I got to keep the phone, like it was some kind of asset. She omitted the part that the phone is useless with any provider other than Rogers unless you managed to get it unlocked. Well, screw you, Rogers. It may have taken me the better part of last weekend to unlock it myself (rather than pay a shifty person at Pacific Mall), but I'm now using my phone with T-Mobile. So if you get a call from Rudy Renteria, that's just me, digging into my prepaid minutes. The Caller ID database is apparently a little behind in the updates.

*Given the holiday, perhaps I should give thanks that I have 720 progressive scan lines (1080 interlaced). I know there are some out there that have no scan lines, and that is really unfortunate, because they're missing a really good season of Glee.

**I have learned from Amy that my recent period of infrequent updates has lead her to stop checking for new posts, so perhaps nobody has any expectations of me anymore.