Geekery in the house of geekery

It’s been a week simply bursting with technology.

So, where I work, there is lots of geekery. And in the course of the half-dozen years or so I’ve been there, I’ve always had a couple of different machines, much like home. Though at work they’re actually separate boxes. One running Linux®, where I do most everything, and a Mac, of some sort. Usually finely aged.

The first Mac I had was some kind of weird… PowerPC Mac. The off-brand Mac. It was a bizarre beige hybrid, and held several years’ worth of random graphics, spreadsheets, flow charts, and viruses. Eventually it gave way to some sort of teal-and-plexiglass bauble-looking thing, that for a while was quite modern, and still machine enough to run the recent version of Photoshop. Then there was an influx of good machines, and I moved up in the world to a sleek graphite-and-ice beauty, both lovely and terrible with his enormous screen and equally enormous heft and breadth.

But, alas, as computers are wont to do, this one too shall pass, and in its place came a new baby, sleek and modern. Lovely.

Now, normally, that would be cause enough for excitement. But there’s more.

About the time that the ink was drying on the approval form for the new Mac, my Linux box gave up the ghost. It had been plugging away for more than twice its service contract, so new bits all around! Today’s newfangled kids are all about the laptops, so my new primary machine is an IBM T42, with a 20′ flatscreen to dock to at my desk. I kept my favorite keyboard, and finally scored a mouse with a damned scrollwheel. All in all, a sweet sweet deal. But, wow, I have a lot of digital crap.

Also, American Idol

I must admit–there are 2 tvs on in the house. One–in the bedroom–is playing the Olympics. As I’m folding laundry, I’m catching Sasha Cohen’s skate, and a couple of ski runs. Now, normally duing an Olympic year, it’s hour after hour of luging and skiing and snowboarding and skating. But this year, in the den–like most Americans, it seems, given the ratings recently–it’s American Idol.

We were latecomers to the fad. We gamely caught an episode or two during the first few seasons, but always forgot the Season Pass and got behind. We hate to start the story half-way through, and just gamely ignored the water-cooler idol chatter.

We happened to catch an episode last season. Don’t know what it was, or why, but it stuck. We followed Bo and Carrie and Constantine (and Scott–I always have a soft spot for the fugly ones). TiVo kept us current and we watched Idol and ate dinner two or three times a week.

This season, we actually saw the beginning. The enormous auditions, the truly reprehensible singers who couldn’t warble their way through grade school chorus. Also, the nutjobs. There is amusement in wingnuttery, and occasionally popularity, too. I don’t know that I’ll ever need to see the mass insanity portion of the show again, though. Except perhaps in passing on three-beeps-speed. Or in the highlights reel. Highlights are quite enough.

Once the real competition starts, though, the singing is just fun. So far this season, my favorites are Paris and Taylor. For now. I’m not into the Skynard fella, or the guy that K really thinks is hot.

Cause, y’know, it matters.

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