(For your reading amusement, the post below was originally published on October 14, 2006 on the predecessor of Lizzie's Home, Lizzie's Desk. I know, imaginative! This was way before the blogging bug bit and thus I only lasted seven or so posts there, which I'll slowly drag over here to preserve for posterity before deleting Desk. You know, for the sake of simplicity and all that. Enjoy!)
Something very momentus has happened since I last posted. A new addition to the family has arrived, at first all shiny and new but now covered with fingerprints. I am up at all hours, like any new parent, feeding and playing with the cute little thing. Last thing at night I pack its little bag ready for the next day's adventures, swaddle my baby, and at last lay it down to sleep.
I bought a laptop.
In the days between when I placed my order and when the blessed thing arrived, I paced the halls like any expectant parent. I warned the other children - the real ones - to be careful of Mama's new baby. I chose where it would sleep (at the end of the dining room table for starters). In short, I nested.
My Computer Guy arrived with laptop in tow, took it out of it's cardboard womb, smacked its metaphorical bottom (pressed the power button) and then graciously let me check that all digits were present and accounted for. A full set of QWERTYs. I was so proud.
I prompty set about transfering data via USB flash drive from geriatric computer (my baby's grandfather?) to the willing hard drive of my new obsession. I discovered, for example, that I had five flash drive-fuls of documents, spreadsheets, photos and mp3s stashed in the bowels of the old codger, who obviously needed a good purge. It was then that we realised we'd forgotten a few key accessories, so the next day, with sunlight barely breaking over the function keys, we went shopping.
Officeworks is the computer equivalent to the baby section at Toys R Us. We oohed and ahhed over the cute little flash drives (mine is a little chunky), the stylish leather backpacks and row upon row of peripherals - speakers and modems and games. Oh my.
With serious restraint, we purchased just two things - Microsoft Office 2003 and a wireless router so Baby could talk to her grandfather from across the room without life support. After all, the old guy had been around the traps and considering he was the only link to the printer, was probably still useful. "Back in the day, I ran on Windows 95! None of this new-fangled XP business! And broadband? It took us forty minutes to download a single mp3 and we were darn proud of ourselves too! You little whipper-snappers wouldn't know the real meaning of hard work!"
Computer Guy returned to the 'delivery room' the next day to fiddle with mysterious computer things inside Grandpa - poor thing - and finally pronounced "You have internet!" I marvelled at the ability to wirelessly transfer in 1 second what had taken me five trips with the flash drive.
For a few days, all was well. Grandpa and Baby were getting along just fine, and their handlers (myself and DH) were having a grand old time instant messaging each other from across the room. Then, like an old dog upset over the extra attention their owner is giving the new puppy, Grandpa somehow convinced the wireless router to commit suicide. Baby hasn't talked to Grandpa since, and Grandpa is happily humming to himself over in his corner, knowing he has the monopoly on the internet once again.
Baby remains otherwise happy to please her Mama, with Outlook's calendar function being a constant source of amusement to me. I'm feeling rather corporate seing my daily schedule pop up over my morning cup of tea, even if the entries contain mostly household chores. I spent an entire afternoon figuring out the difference between a 'task' and an 'appointment'. There's a freakish appeal to scheduling the unloading of the dishwasher.
The nasty little wireless router will be packed off to the D-Link farm in the sky (manufacturer's headquarters) next week and we're adopting a new orphan from Routeramibia as soon as the relevent authorities recognise the request. Apparently they're slightly suspicious of the sudden demise of our first adoptee. Perhaps after that Baby can once again take up her position as Queen Bee of this rainbow cyber family of ours.
In the meantime, I'm blaming Grandpa.
(For the record, poor Grandpa recently went to the Great Recycle Heap in the Sky, and was replaced by a new-fangled widescreen desktop. RIP Grandpa. You served us faithfully...if not a little slowly!)
Cheers,
Lizzie
Something very momentus has happened since I last posted. A new addition to the family has arrived, at first all shiny and new but now covered with fingerprints. I am up at all hours, like any new parent, feeding and playing with the cute little thing. Last thing at night I pack its little bag ready for the next day's adventures, swaddle my baby, and at last lay it down to sleep.
I bought a laptop.
In the days between when I placed my order and when the blessed thing arrived, I paced the halls like any expectant parent. I warned the other children - the real ones - to be careful of Mama's new baby. I chose where it would sleep (at the end of the dining room table for starters). In short, I nested.
My Computer Guy arrived with laptop in tow, took it out of it's cardboard womb, smacked its metaphorical bottom (pressed the power button) and then graciously let me check that all digits were present and accounted for. A full set of QWERTYs. I was so proud.
I prompty set about transfering data via USB flash drive from geriatric computer (my baby's grandfather?) to the willing hard drive of my new obsession. I discovered, for example, that I had five flash drive-fuls of documents, spreadsheets, photos and mp3s stashed in the bowels of the old codger, who obviously needed a good purge. It was then that we realised we'd forgotten a few key accessories, so the next day, with sunlight barely breaking over the function keys, we went shopping.
Officeworks is the computer equivalent to the baby section at Toys R Us. We oohed and ahhed over the cute little flash drives (mine is a little chunky), the stylish leather backpacks and row upon row of peripherals - speakers and modems and games. Oh my.
With serious restraint, we purchased just two things - Microsoft Office 2003 and a wireless router so Baby could talk to her grandfather from across the room without life support. After all, the old guy had been around the traps and considering he was the only link to the printer, was probably still useful. "Back in the day, I ran on Windows 95! None of this new-fangled XP business! And broadband? It took us forty minutes to download a single mp3 and we were darn proud of ourselves too! You little whipper-snappers wouldn't know the real meaning of hard work!"
Computer Guy returned to the 'delivery room' the next day to fiddle with mysterious computer things inside Grandpa - poor thing - and finally pronounced "You have internet!" I marvelled at the ability to wirelessly transfer in 1 second what had taken me five trips with the flash drive.
For a few days, all was well. Grandpa and Baby were getting along just fine, and their handlers (myself and DH) were having a grand old time instant messaging each other from across the room. Then, like an old dog upset over the extra attention their owner is giving the new puppy, Grandpa somehow convinced the wireless router to commit suicide. Baby hasn't talked to Grandpa since, and Grandpa is happily humming to himself over in his corner, knowing he has the monopoly on the internet once again.
Baby remains otherwise happy to please her Mama, with Outlook's calendar function being a constant source of amusement to me. I'm feeling rather corporate seing my daily schedule pop up over my morning cup of tea, even if the entries contain mostly household chores. I spent an entire afternoon figuring out the difference between a 'task' and an 'appointment'. There's a freakish appeal to scheduling the unloading of the dishwasher.
The nasty little wireless router will be packed off to the D-Link farm in the sky (manufacturer's headquarters) next week and we're adopting a new orphan from Routeramibia as soon as the relevent authorities recognise the request. Apparently they're slightly suspicious of the sudden demise of our first adoptee. Perhaps after that Baby can once again take up her position as Queen Bee of this rainbow cyber family of ours.
In the meantime, I'm blaming Grandpa.
(For the record, poor Grandpa recently went to the Great Recycle Heap in the Sky, and was replaced by a new-fangled widescreen desktop. RIP Grandpa. You served us faithfully...if not a little slowly!)
Cheers,
Lizzie
2 comments:
This was so funny, Lizzie!! Very, very entertaining. Thanks for sharing it. I can't wait to see what other hidden treasures you have over on the Desk.
Oh, don't hold out too much hope, LOL...out of the seven or so, there are probably only three worth reposting, LOL.
Cheers,
Lizzie
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