The inflight movie for this leg was The Island. It was good. I do wonder if Steve Buscemi is fated to die in every movie he’s in.

For the past week I’ve been fighting a cold. I’m pumping myself full of vitamins and trying to get sleep. The latter hasn’t really been working out. I think I’ve gotten an hour’s sleep since I woke up yesterday morning, and that hour was a fake sleep.

I’m hoping I can keep this sickness as minimal as possible. You can’t go scuba diving with congestion. And sniffling doesn’t make a good impression with unattached women. But it’s only a feeling of phlegm in the back of the throat. So I think it isn’t obvious.

It’s been going up and down for awhile. I found a can of coke in a high altitude plane seemed to leave me in the best state.

Wow. PST. I haven’t had that in awhile. Alberta has spoiled me.

I’m having breakfast in the Toronto airport, enjoying a “Toasted Western”. Maybe “enjoying” is too strong a verb. “Tolerating”. But I need food. From observation Air Canada doesn’t feed people anymore unless they pay extra.

Cheapskates. One bankruptcy protection and all the perks go out the window.

The natives here are enthralled by the lights of the television broadcasting a hockey game. I shall avoid eye contact. They might sense that I do not support the “home team” and become aggressive.

I didn’t sleep much on the flight. Well, not at all, but I did pretend for awhile. The rest of the time was spent watching Must Love Dogs. A predictable romantic comedy.

I should have slept.

I’m at the Edmonton airport now. I got everything together and I hope I’m not missing anything. I could have used an extra watch though.

I bought my current watch over a year ago, and in theory, it is water resistant to 100 meters. But last spring condensation formed inside it after I was walking in the rain. It eventually went away so I couldn’t justify sending it back to Timex for repairs, but the problem flares up every so often.

Since I’m planning on testing its water resistance by scuba diving, I would have liked to have a spare. But I couldn’t find my old one, so here we are.

Security was dead, but there were about eight officials waiting around. So my backpack got their full attention. I think a trainee was involved.

I’m glad I didn’t bring my computer. Part of me would have liked to so I could keep a better journal by typing instead of abusing my horrid skill at cursive writing. I could also load camera pictures directly. But this is a vacation. No computers.

So I’m about to head off to Jamaica. I have a friend picking me up in fifteen minutes. Right now I’m just nervous if I’m forgetting anything.

I’m proud of myself.
This morning I got up at 7:30 and went off for a run. So I had about four and a half hours of sleep. I don’t think I could have gotten up at that hour if there hadn’t been a time switch.
Good weather for running, and a nice brunch afterwards too.
I did find that for most of the day I have been somewhat zoned out. After the brunch I stopped at a friend’s place where they were working on a long board game. I watched for longer than I had planned. It became easier to watch them play then get along with my own life.
The television has also been very seductive.

Well I didn’t win the costume contest this time. Darth Vader won. He had a glowing sword. I can’t compete with that.
The club was a lot more crowded tonight. A little too crowded because with the wings it became very hard to maneuver. I tended to stay in a small pocket of calm near the fooz ball table. For some reason it was usually empty around there and that let me stand around without fear of whacking someone in the head. I even got to be the fourth in some fooz ball games. (Note to self: I suck at fooz ball.)
So I lost the contest to some schmuck in a Darth Vader costume. However, there were a number of benefits to this. A lot of girls would come up to me and say that I had deserved to win. And a fair number of them were cute. I’m a sucker for attention.
Unfortunately I think I talked to the owner, or the manager, or someone in charge and mentioned losing to the guy with the glowing stick. I’m not sure who it was, but she loved my costume, and later on in the evening I was handed an envelope with a consolation prize. That’s generous. It wasn’t until I got home and opened the envelope that I found that my bad behavior of whining was rewarded with $100 bill.
With the crowds, came the weird people. In the first few hours of the night there was a girl who loved my costume. Possibly a little too much. She was running her hands through my “hair” and feeling all over me. I was even awkwardly dragged onto the crowded dance floor for some very close dancing. Then she said she would be right back. And that’s the last I ever saw of her.
Weird, but not the weirdest.
At around 2:15 (daylight savings time) another girl also said she loved my costume. Specifically, “You can dance with me anytime.” And she was very nice to dance with, although it was more rubbing than anything else. So far this doesn’t sound bad, but there is one caveat. The entire time, in her left hand, she had a shirtless guy on a chain leash.
Even on the dance floor.
I can only describe it as surreal. A more honorable person would have left her alone since she obviously had another man in her life.
I’m weak.

There are a lot of benefits to having an awesome costume for Halloween.
I got my act together and got a great demon costume made for myself. It had good wings and an interesting headdress to go with it. It was just finished today, so I took it out to the bar I usually go to. I’m usually not there on a Friday because of other engagements. Most times I go on Saturdays. But I was told last week that they are having Halloween celebrations all weekend. So might as well get maximum usefulness out of this.
And the costume was proven good, because I won the prize for best male costume. The reward wasn’t that great, but still a free $50. So that is one benefit. Tomorrow there is a much bigger prize, (I should know, I won it last year) but the competition will be stiffer because all the people who were in the Halloween Howler (a big party at the convention center) tonight will show up then.
The other benefit is that all night women were coming up to admire me/it. And when they start feeling you up, they really can’t complain when you do the same to them. And this is the day when they are most likely to be scantily clad in some costume that would be illegal on any other day.
And the third and final benefit? They either take pictures of you or let you take pictures of them. And then we exchange emails to send them to each other.
I like this plan!

Well the new haircut is popular. I’ve had a lot of compliments on it. Being a guy I wouldn’t normally get those, but it was a drastic change for me. Usually I have slightly longer hair, and this time I have it cut quite short. I’m thinking I should have it short for my vacation. It’s in less than two weeks now, so I’m getting nervous/excited. I hope I’ll have everything ready.
Part of getting ready is going to a tanning salon to get a base tan. I started at ten minutes every couple of days. Now I’m up to fourteen minutes per session and it is sooo boring. If I could fall asleep or listen to CBC AM it would be better. But it isn’t long enough for unconsciousness to claim me, and the radio doesn’t get AM.

I binged this weekend.
Yesterday I purchased season 2 of Arrested Development. I finished watching all 18 episodes a few hours ago. That sounds pretty pathetic, but I’m also surprised at how much else I got done this weekend.
I played games with friends of Friday, then went out looking for a good karaoke bar (unsuccessful). On Saturday I got my hair cut, had breakfast with a friend, went out to the bar in the evening. Today I did a 19km jog, had brunch, saw a play and went to an improv jam.
I’m actually surprised I found time to see all those episodes in less than two days.
Mind you, my condo is currently a pig sty, so sacrifices were made.

I did the run today. Which was good since I had skipped the long distance run on Sunday. A lack of sleep and a slight drizzle had made the prospect of sleeping in more appealing than running 29km, which I don’t think I could do with my injury anyway.
After today’s run I got distracted by television. (It glows so beautifully.) At around 9:00 I remembered that I had to go to the Edmonton Journal office to drop off my weekly Sudoku entry. I usually go by scooter because it is more fun that way. As a lark I checked the weather office’s radar imagery before leaving. It was quite a shock to see a huge body of blue heading right into Edmonton. That was my cue to rush.
Last year I had a bad experience with weather while on my scooter. The inclement weather in Canada of the year hit me while I was scootering home through the river valley. That was not pleasant.
I could try and exaggerate and make the trip more exciting, but there was nothing to report. I rushed around to get there, probably unsafely, but no disaster. On the way there I felt a very slight drizzle. It didn’t increase, and was barely noticeable. The entire trip took twenty minutes.

I went to the Prospect Jam as part of my improv class.
Basically it was a chance to practice improv without all the nasty feeling that I should be learning. That’s what the classes on Tuesday are for.
The classes have been great for that, and theory is all fine and good but I do need to put all the information into practice. And apparently that is what the Prospect Jam is for. Several people who may or may not be performing in Theatresports get together and do some improvising. Mind you, all of them are actor people so their attention span is minimal at best.
I saw and performed in some hilarious scenes. And in the end, isn’t that all that is important.

I’m a bad person.
A month ago there was a monster Sudoku in the newspaper with a draw prize for whomever solved it. As previously reported, on September 11th, after solving it I experimented and attempted to write a computer program that could also solve it. It was an interesting intellectual problem.
Two weeks ago there was another monster Sudoku, with a slightly higher difficulty. This time, instead of gas, the prize was a flat screen TV by a brand I’ve never heard of. I was weak, and instead of earning the solution, I plugged it into the program. It didn’t completely solve it. I needed to program a simple trick into it and then it could handle it. In my defense, I manually went through the puzzle with the program to confirm every digit position it gave me.
Of course, I had the solution, and there was a prize involved. So I entered it into the draw.
While I was in Priddis last weekend I cancelled my newspaper for the duration. To my surprise, when I came home I saw a pile of newspapers before my front door. I’ve complained to the Edmonton Journal, but still, I got free newspapers.
And then there was another monster Sudoku in the Sunday one. Great! My descent into hell continues. This time the prize is Safeway gift certificates. And the puzzle was an even higher difficulty rating. My program required another tweak to use actual intelligence to solve the puzzle.
Previously the tricks used to find the solution were brain dead. It didn’t look too deeply at the puzzle. This time, there was a need for actual thought. The trick I programmed in was not an obvious one. So now I feel like I am really cheating. I should be doing the human thought process for that part, but I wimped out and used the power of technology to abuse the system.
It still didn’t stop me from dropping off the solved puzzle at the newspaper.

I’m in my parent’s house southwest of Calgary now. It’s been a nice Thanksgiving trip.
On the first day I helped them unload a large moving van. It didn’t have much furniture but it did have non-essentials that needed moving. The real stuff will come later. After that it was back to chopping down trees.
Today was more interesting.
This morning my mother and I drove into the Kananaskis region. It’s a large park in the mountains. The plan was that I would go running and my mother would bike to keep up. Harry the dog would hopefully get tired out. At the information booth I asked if there were any trails that were good for running. No, they only had hiking trails. I did find one they said was reasonably flat that was close by. The Riverside trail.
I enjoyed the route. It was rocky so I had to keep my eyes down whenever I was moving. It started above the Elbow river, but soon it went down and I was running along the banks. Then it started climbing and climbing. It was okay for me. As a runner, I enjoy the challenge of a good hill. But my mother couldn’t keep up and needed help with the bike.
But since I had to stop and let her catch her breath I saw some spectacular views. I wish I had brought a camera.
After about 4km the trail ended on the highway. My mother couldn’t handle going back on the trail again so we went along the road back to the trailhead. Harry was tied to a leash because with a speed limit of 100kph, it wasn’t a good idea to have him wander into traffic.
In this area of the park, there were cows. Apparently ranchers can pay rent and let their cattle graze in the area. So as I ran back, the cows placidly watched me go by, as cows are wont to do. Mooo. A young bull, pre-horn stage, found us more interesting and decided to start chasing Harry. Remember, said dog was attached to me by a leash.
Luckily its heart wasn’t in the chase. We were faster than it, and it dropped away soon enough. Something like that does perk up your run though.

If you have home… er, condo delivery of the newspaper, there is a daily routine you go through. (At least I do.) You get up, go to the front door, get the newspaper and read it over breakfast.
Note that I never actually said that part of that process was “getting dressed”.
It adds a little excitement to the morning ritual to open the door, baring pretty much everything to the world, and hope that no one is wandering past your door. Be quick about it, and don’t lean to far out because you might notice that there was someone at the far end of the hall.
If I was more on the ball, I would check through the spyhole in the front door before risking the wrath of any decency squad. But the morning is when one is the epitome of lazy.
Last weekend there was that moment of danger. I open the door, hear someone coming down the hall, and quickly close it again. I’m sure I am not fooling the guy walking past. He probably knows exactly what is going on. Why else would someone open the door and then immediately shut it.
I bring this up, because this morning, while I was leaving my condo, the door across the hall, with a newspaper in front of it, briefly opened and then quickly shut.
What could I do, but say “Good morning” and walk down the hallway.
Don’t look back.

Like a junkie finally getting that hit of crack he needs so much, you can tell that the Canadians are getting their fix again.
Hockey is back.
It’s the little signs that give it away. The fact that a morning meeting is delayed by a few minutes as people discuss last night’s game. I wander into the lunch room and people, getting coffee, are debating how the new rules are affecting the game.
Most of all, me being accused of being a bad Canadian because I still don’t watch it.

One last thing.
I saw Serenity last night.
Good movie! I would recommend it to a friend.

And they did something I’ve wanted to see in a continuing series for a long time.

For the past few weeks I’ve been lax in updating this journal. Mostly it has been because I haven’t been doing much that is interesting. Now that something interesting has happened, I’ve just been too lazy to write about it. I guess it’s that old adage that you have to keep writing, otherwise you stop. Or it’s something like that.
Anyway, yesterday there was a social committee event at our company. This time around we were having a poker match. Texas hold ’em.
I hate gambling. I’m not good at it, and it is usually me just handing over any money I came to gamble with. However, this was just with poker chips. They had an assigned value of $350,000 for every player. But that was just imaginary. There was a prize at the end, but not worth getting worked up over.
Since it wasn’t my money (or anyone’s) I enjoyed the game. The first hand was a big loser because the guy to my left was raising everything, and I, being inexperienced, just went along for the ride. Neither of us won that hand so one guy had a large stack of chips in front of him. Later on I won another big hand, and I think I was in second place at my table.
My moment of triumph was when my two cards were both clubs. The cards that had been put down and shared among the players had three clubs. So I had a straight. I was going to win big this time. I started raising. Unfortunately, the guy to my left did too. If I had been a more experienced gambler I would have had some concern. He had a straight too, and his king beat my ten. After that loss, I just went all in with my next hand, even though I had nothing. I didn’t see me advancing from my pool anyway.
After that, I played a board game with a person whose religion didn’t allow gambling. I had more fun with that.
Even though I lost.

Yesterday, a bunch of us went to Pho Hoa for lunch. It’s in West Edmonton Mall, just outside (literally) from the T&T Supermarket. Last time we went there I didn’t care for it. It was very soup-centric, and I felt a little too hydrated afterwards.
This time though I ordered something non-soup and enjoyed it quite a bit more. Continuing the trend that long distance running has given me, I ate quickly and I was finished first. It gave me time to look at the four colorful pictures that were hanging on the wall.
As near as I could see, they were telling a story.
1) The boy, who was a fisherman, was deeply in love with his cow. He played with her often.
2) The girl with the bicycle saw this and was jealous.
3) So while the boy was off fishing…
4) She started making moves on the cow.

Maybe I shouldn’t look at art anymore…

Yesterday I drove to Priddis (south east of Calgary) to visit my mother.
The place is fantastic. A beautiful view of rolling hills and distant mountains. I’m more of a fan of hills than mountains. A hill feels so much more accessible than a mountain. If I look at a hill, I can believe that I could leave from my spot and climb to the top of it, and maybe be back for supper. A mountain holds no such illusions.
Because of all the hills it would have been fun to go running there. Of course I say that, thinking hills would be fun, but really, when you are climbing them, they aren’t. I didn’t go running because my mother wanted manual labor for her yard. Of course I use the term, “Yard” in a liberal sense. It’s a big field, overgrown with natural vegetation. My mother likes things in a natural state.
I chopped down three trees (with an axe I suspect was dull) then got them moved into a circle in the field where we tried to construct a fire pit: A large pile of branches in a pyramid shape just waiting to be lit up to be a big bonfire. The community board won’t allow that unless it has just rained or there is snow on the ground, so we’ll probably light it up for New Years.
I also planned out and mowed a snaking path through the yard. That way one can walk through the yard, while Harry (the dog) can romp around in the tall grass.
I think they should plant corn and try and make a corn maze.
Yesterday there was a lot of teaching Harry to use a dog door. He was a little dumb at first, but I think he’s getting the hang of it. His big problem seems to be to figure out that no one needs to be standing next to the dog door for him to go through it.
Harry was overjoyed to see me. For some reason he really connects with me. He had been bored lately because there was nothing to do, or look at. With my arrival things became interesting. The down side of this was that he wanted to spend a lot of time with me. Which meant that he wanted to sleep next to me. And for him, sleep seems to consist of licking his paw for several hours. That is not easy to sleep next to, so I’m a little tired now.
I left for Edmonton at 6:50 this evening. There was a pit stop in Red Deer to pick up a bit of gas. I arrived in town at 10:00. My total mileage was approximately 680 km. The total gas bill was $45.60. Well worth the price. I only got sleepy around the time I was passing the Edmonton airport, so I didn’t need the coca-cola I had brought along.
Greeting me when I came back was construction across the street with a big spotlight that is mostly pointing down into the work area, but also manages to shine into my bedroom. Don’t these people ever sleep.

I’ve been trying to donate blood for awhile. A few weeks ago there was an article in the newspaper about the CBS. They were getting whiny because they were concerned about their lack of donations. I usually can’t donate blood because I’m, well, using it. On Wednesdays and Sundays I run and I need all the oxygen circulating throughout my body at maximum efficiency.
I did some calculating and figured the ideal time to donate would be after my long distance run on Sunday. Then I would have the longest amount of time before my next run, on Wednesday, which would be less than 10km, so easier on the body.
Unfortunately, the CBS doesn’t take donations on Sunday.
But this weekend I am not doing a Sunday run. I’m going to go to Priddis and see my mother. She is currently holding down the fort in the new home while my father remains in Winnipeg trying to sell the old one.
Incidentally, both sets of parents seem to be rather lonely now. I have to phone them often to keep their spirits up.
Since I am apparently not using my blood this weekend, I decided that I would donate after work some time. My schedule has been tight so it has been hard to fit it in. I figured Thursday evening would be my best chance, assuming other appointments passed quickly.
Then today there were problems at work. I didn’t get out until 5:30. There was no way I could make it to a run that late after a half hour commute to get home. With time available, I went and donated blood.
It was, well I can’t say painless, but it was over quickly. They drain your life force and then send you off to the cafeteria to get some liquid replenishments. One of the girls working there was telling an interesting story. She had played hooky from school and gone to West Edmonton Mall. While there she saw Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie taking in the sights. Mr. Pitt is in town filming The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.
I would like to think that the average Canadian will give these people space and leave them alone. Big stars should only be hounded when they are at promotional events and award shows. When they are relaxing they should be treated like normal people, which means ignored.
But I’m not in control of the average Canadian.

I’ve got the vacation plan for November, back at the same resort in Jamaica. The payment for it was due at the end of August. I was a little behind schedule so I withdrew the USD funds from my account into a money order and had it Federal Expressed to New York on the 29th.
A week later I got an email asking where it was.
I checked the tracking number. They had apparently received it on the 30th. I even got the secretary’s signature saying they had received it. I brought this all to their attention, and they still couldn’t find it.
So I had to repeat the process.
The thing is that you can’t cancel a money order. You can only tag it saying that it shouldn’t be cashed at the bank. You then get the money back, but it feels like a mortgage application because they want you to be able to cover the funds if some bank accidentally does cash it.
So I’m taking a risk here, but I don’t see what other choice I have. I already have the plane ticket, so I’m going.
Yesterday I got a replacement money order made, and I sent it by express post today.
Hopefully things work out this time.

They laid down a cement floor for the basement in the construction across the street. Now they are letting it dry. Normally this would be good, because it would mean that they shut off the heavy machinery. Peace and quiet has been in a shorter supply since the project started.
The noise pollution is gone, but the light pollution is up and running. They have four big spotlights targeting the cement. I don’t know if it is for light or heat, but it shines ever so nicely into every room in my condo. Sleeping will have an extra obstacle tonight.
I see one guy using some tool that looks like a big floor buffer. He’s “buffing” the cement. So maybe the light is for him and it will be turned off when he realizes that he should go home and see the wife and kids. But it looks like a slow process. He is also checking how dry the cement is before he buffs. So he might be there all night.

I had an improv class today. I think it went well. A big benefit is that it was a Tuesday class. The previous ones had been on Monday, and it seems I don’t get enough sleep on Sunday evenings, so for the first day of the week I’m rather cranky. Being cranky isn’t optimal for improvising.
Anyway, I’m looking forward to the class next week.

That Sudoku last Sunday has bothered me. It took me forever to solve it. Normally I can do a very hard Sudoku in about half an hour. Those are 9×9. The monster one was 16×16 which makes it over three times as large. It wasn’t hard to do, it was just a lot of slogging through looking for the patterns. Patterns that are easy to see on the smaller ones.
But the key here is that it was slogging and not intelligence that was needed.
Last night I whipped up a computer program that could solve it.
It has no user interface, and is really only useful when used in a debugger. But it works. The key to this program is that it doesn’t try to solve the Sudoku all at once. Instead it just tries to find where one number would go and report that to the user. Then it tries to do that again until it solves as much as possible or the user gets bored. I wanted to do it that way so that I could still have the joy of working on a Sudoku and let it give me a hint of where to look for the next number.
I also have the program using an inefficient algorithm to find a number. Instead of going for efficiency I had it trying to replicate the way I try and solve them. Mind you, I only implemented a few of the tricks that I use. That’s because the ones I did use were enough to solve last week’s Sudoku. I know, I used it to once again solve it.
The problem with Sudoku solutions that are given are that they give the end result, but not how to get there.
I think I wrote the program in about the same time it took for me to solve that original Sudoku. So I guess I could have been more efficient last week.
My hope was that I could use this program to make today’s monster Sudoku fun to solve instead of a lot of brainless work. But, after the run (18.5km) this morning, I looked at the newspaper. No monster Sudoku challenge, and I didn’t win last week’s contest. There was just the regular Sunday Sudoku. 9×9, five star rating that took me an enjoyable half hour to solve without using any computer aids.
Not that the program would have helped. A five star rating puzzle needs some intelligence to solve.

Four hours sleep.
I was up until 3:00 AM doing the volunteering at the casino. It’s light work, with a lot of waiting around. They do give you a free meal, and the prime rib was quite nice. I got to geek out a bit when the discussion turned to TV shows and the Simpsons evolved to Futurama and then off into Star Trek.
Anyway, I got up at 7:00 in the morning to go for a run. Then there was a brunch.
When I got back I had the misfortune to find that there were two sudoku in the newspaper today. The regular one, and a new 16 x 16 whopper with a draw prize for people who solve it. That whopper took me all afternoon to finish, when I should have been trying to get some sleep. Mind you, I wouldn’t have gotten any sleep because there was a ditchdigger moving earth across the street and making a mind numbing racket.

Back now.
As I was driving to the maze, the skies started getting darker. I was thinking I should have checked the weather before leaving. Ten minutes before arrival there were a few droplets on my windshield. I decided that come hell or high water I was going to do this maze.
I arrived and there didn’t seem to be any rain, so I was good to go. I looked at the overhead picture just to get an idea, and then off I went. My biggest obstacle in the maze was to avoid other people. They would provide a hint that I didn’t want. Other than that, it was fun. There were signpost every so often that would indicate how far one had gone through. In theory you were supposed to use a page of trivia questions to figure out which way to go from them. But the answers were printed on the back of the sheet, and both paths that you could choose from went to the same destination within 10 meters. The posts were more waypoints than clues.
All in all, I got out of the maze in fifty minutes. It was getting darker while I was in it, and the wind was picking up. Lightning was visible in the distance Ten minutes after leaving it started raining.
I made it just in time.
And they said the average person took an hour and a half. Good thing I wasn’t average today. But mind you, I did forget my wallet, so I can’t feel clever.
This evening I have volunteer work at a casino. So I will be up late. Thankfully there is no smoking in public places anymore, so I won’t smell like a chimney.

So the plan today was to go to the Edmonton Corn Maze. I even went to the bank to make sure I had the money for it. I can’t stay at home because the sound of the construction across the street is getting into too high a level of annoyance.
I drove for about half an hour to get there, got out of my car and realized I didn’t have my wallet with me. For the first time ever, I had forgotten my wallet. With no money, I had no choice but to return home, getting stuck in a traffic jam caused by more construction.
So on the day with the highest gas prices ever, I did over an hour of pointless driving.
The construction is still going on here, annoying as ever, so I’m going to try the maze again.

During a discussion at work, we came up with an idea of how to solve the New Orleans problem.
Really, the place is a write off. The bowl was cracked and water came pouring in. It will cost way too much money to fix the levy and then pump all the water out.
And look, the place is filled with looters who are generally up to no good.
Well, why not embrace these changes and run with it.
I’m sure you’ve all seen “Escape from New York”…

Wall it up, dump bad people there, and forget the city ever existed.

Of course, the United States has a very good record with rescuing people from flooding. They will happily break international water agreements to save a few hundred people (see Devil’s Lake) so I’m sure they will bend over backwards to rescue New Orleans.

A year and a half ago I got a new iBook. I was able to trade in the old one and get a good discount. So I planned that within two years I would do the same thing again. For the past half year I’ve been noticing that my computer was getting slower. I really should have upgraded the memory. But I figured I would be able to hang on for half a year when I got a new one. Then I found out that Apple was completely changing their chip manufacturer. In a year there would be MacIntels.
It didn’t seem like a good idea anymore to upgrade my computer in November. I would be better off waiting until the new MaIntels came out and get one of those. So now I needed to stretch my laptop out for a longer period of time. I upgraded the memory soon after Tiger came out. Now I’m eyeing the battery. It seems to only hold 25% of its charge now.
But a recent event has made it so that I don’t know if I want to stretch my laptop anymore.
At work, they just got us swanky new PowerBooks. They arrived last Friday and they are sweet! I haven’t had much time to get acquainted, but the number of nice touches make them awesome. When it is in a dark room, the keyboard keys light up. If you attach a Firewire cable between it and an old computer, you can populate the hard drive with all the files in the correct places. The trackpad acts like a scroll wheel if you use two fingers on it at the same time. A love these little things.
I sound like a geek when I say this, but I love the smell of a new computer. A scent that reminds you of new opportunities and faster computing.

I would like to tell my iBook that I still love it, just in a different way.