Input Data, Output AAAAUGH!

After two long days of extensive online research and opinion soliciting into new laptops, I have announcement.

I’m exhausted and intensely confused.

SSD. HHD. Hybrid. Hybrid? These things run on unleaded now?

Lightweight. Ultrabook. Convertible. What the … I’m not buying a car. Which would be far easier. My requirements for a vehicle are simple: start, go, turn and stop on command; don’t explode or fall apart in between.

“Why so stressed?” asked My Love, brushing off another fallen strand of my hair from her shoes. “You should be excited. This should be fun research. new computer! Oooo, shiny shiny!”

Spoken like the indiscriminate, sporadic consumer she is. You remember her bulk shopping sprees at farmers’ market that lead to the Summer of Freshly Rotted Vegetables. Here’s a more recent example:

I opened the kitchen cabinet where we keep our vitamins and Li’l Diva’s daily meds a few months ago to discover, in a rare unsupervised trip to CostCo, My Love had purchased half a dozen boxes of low-dose aspirin. In all, 216 tablets.

“I heard a daily aspirin is good for your heart,” she said.

True enough .. if you have a heart condition. She doesn’t and I’m constantly reminded I only imagine I do. Otherwise, they are good for aches and ulcers. Creating ulcers, that is. I’m ahead of the curve on that one.

Back to the research.

i3. i5. i7. Hut-hut-hike! Punt!

SATA. mSATA … Aaaaugh – my head feels like it is going to explode.

Oh.

Dang that woman of mine.

Morning Has Broken and So Has My Chair

I’ve been laying low early in this New Year as seems to be my tradition just as is fixing everything that falls apart around our house over the holidays.

Fluttering fluorescents in the basement. Toilets not flushing. Shower drains not draining.

Let’s not forget the gap in the garage door that provided entry to the winter winds. And, apparently, a family of field mice. They made themselves at home in a basket of winter hats and gloves then noshed on salt-and-pepper pistachios from the pantry shelves. They even had a mobile home, a fact I learned the first time I put on my ski boots and found pistachios … among other, um, stuff.

Then there is my so-called “work life.”

My laptop, after five-plus years of loyal service, is on life support. In the past few months the power cord has developed a habit of randomly not providing current, the battery had to be replaced and the screen frame  cracked. Worse, of late its performance has all the consistency of Axl Rose when he’s off his meds.

In less technologically challenging news, two days ago this happened:

At least, for once, I know my eggnog-enhanced hindquarters were not responsible for this casualty.

So while I wait for the Staples delivery man to bring me Temper-Pedic pleasure for my posterior and drive myself insane by over-researching new laptops, you may chew on this:

Please click over to DadCentric and read a piece I wrote about a North Texas father who pretended to be a gunman to expose security flaws at his child’s elementary school.

Then give me a recommendation on a non-Apple laptop. I could use a few more opinions to overwhelm and confuse me.

Santa’s Hung

Some people obviously were not pleased with what they found under the Christmas tree yesterday.

But not these two.

Hope your holiday wasn’t a pain in the neck and you hang on through the New Year.

Signs of the Mayan Apocalypse

It saddens me to announce that this will most likely be my last post.

It saddens me further to know that my long-awaited GoogleAds check will never arrive. I’d love to blow all three-digits of that baby on one last CornNuts and malt liquor bender while the hellfire and brimstone rain down.

Those of you grappling with strangers at Target for the last Furby may have forgotten that come tomorrow, Friday, Dec. 21, all life ceases. This doom and gloom arrives courtesy of the Mayan civilization, which is legendary for its contributions to language, math and culture, specifically Southern Culture on the Skids' instrumental, "Make Mayan a Hawaiian."

I usually ignore Judgment Day predictions, but the signs of the Mayan Apocalypse have become increasingly apparent.

The Trouble with Normal

My kids came home Friday afternoon as always.

Excitable hopped into the minivan at parent pickup, greeting me with his typical “Hey, Pops” as he squeezed his backpack in between the captain’s chairs in the middle row.

“Did they say anything to you at school about what happened?” I asked.

“About what?”

I told him there had been a shooting earlier in the day at an elementary school in another part of the state.

I didn’t tell him that the school was only about 45 minutes north of us.I didn’t tell him about the 20 children only a few years younger than him that died.

“Running Over the Same Old Ground”

Last night’s 12.12.12 Mega-Concert of AARP-eligible Rockers raising money for Superstorm Sandy victims had slipped my mind. Instead, I voluntarily bore witness to middle school students performing holiday classics.

The string ensemble killed. Not in the showbiz sense of wowing the audience into a dropped-jaw state of awe but in the Biblical sense of “… and Yahtzblob slew Kincadia with jawbone of an ass then danced the tarantella through the bloody entrails.” Why more parents of public school violin players aren’t throwing themselves in front of commuter buses remains a testament to the high quality of our nation’s antidepressant supply.

Then there was the chorus of which Li’l Diva. The girl loves to sing. Just not what teachers want her to sing. If it’s not One Direction or Ke$ha or the Beibster, it ain’t worth expelling the breath. She faked her way through most of her four songs. She’s more than ready for next year’s scheduled bout of teenage angst.