So I'm goofing around on WoW Saturday morning, killing time before a run. I'm on my blood elf rogue, running through the Ghostlands. I look away from the screen for a minute, and when I look back, I'm being ganked by a couple spiders and a lynx. WTF. Sprint's up and I'm not high enough level yet for Vanish, so there's no escape. I'm dead. A flash of blinding rage overcomes me. Without thinking I punch my laptop screen. The display goes black, and then it's filled with an array of thin, weirdly colored vertical lines, except the spot which my fist contacted, which is still black but with weird grey streaks, kinda like a bruise. Oh great. Nothing I try helps. It's dead Jim.
Of course this is an OSAF laptop, so now I have to email my boss and be all "Hey dude, I did something very baaaaad". Of course he's totally cool and doesn't give me any shit for it, even though I can tell he's thinking that I'm a retard. And now I need a new machine immediately, cos I've got a raid on Sunday night, and I need to be able to work on Monday without going into the office - imagine going into the office... the horror... So I hop Muni to the Apple store and pick up a Macbook Pro. Nice. I've been wanting one of these for a while. In fact I've been begging Ted to have work get me one, but we've got this 3 year depreciation cycle, and I've only been at the company for 2y 3m. But now I have my own, and while there are many like it, this one is mine.
I spend much of Saturday setting up the machine, and it's super easy, like Macs always are. The only thing that's missing, STILL, is out of the box sync with my Treo 650. Luckily a few years back I bought The Missing Sync and was able to re-download it. Now I have my contacts synced between phone, laptop and .Mac. Didn't bother with calendar, though, cos I'm perfectly happy with Google for that.
All's well that ends well, except my credit card balance. And I'm mighty impressed with how easy and quick the Apple store made it for me to spend that money. No waiting in line, just some dude with a little handheld device asking for my email address so he can send me a receipt. That's how all shopping experiences should be.
Saw Verhoeven's Black Book at the Embarcadero tonight. Turned out to be for the best that none of my friends came with, because it was one of those really personal experiences where you suffer right along with the characters and at the end don't really feel like rehashing the experience with idle chatter.
The movie reminded me of Alan Furst's novels, which I've spent many afternoons and evenings listening to while wandering the streets of San Francisco alone. They all deal with regular people caught up over their heads in espionage activities and resistance movements during WWII Europe, scraping along as best they can, coping and surviving, and doing their bit to fight back.
I don't know why these stories are so compelling to me. It's hard for me to imagine being in that kind of situation. I don't think we really appreciate here in the States just how comfortable our lives are. Just try to imagine what it would be like if a hostile foreign power occupied the place you lived, and you and everybody like you was persecuted, jailed, or killed, and there was no way to escape. For us Americans, it's pretty much inconceivable. My own struggles are pretty much limited to becoming more healthy and figuring out how to have a fulfilling and successful career. Not exactly the same ball game.
I guess in some sense they let me safely fantasize about being an adventurer from the safety of my armchair. They make me want to get rid of all my shit, leave my responsibilities behind, and get back out on the road. But of course I never do, because I'm always able to come up with some important reason for staying here (currently it's losing 30 more pounds and training for the marathon), or in other words, rationalize being a pussy.
Speaking of books, for the last couple of weeks, I've been obsessively taking every available opportunity to progress through Kim Stanley Robinson's "Science in the Capital" series (didn't know they were called that til I read his Wikipedia page). I've found over the last several months that I've been thinking more and more about global warming and if there's anything I can do professionally to make some kind of difference there. I haven't found anything yet, but then, I guess I haven't really looked very hard. I've been too busy wasting my time with World of Warcraft and Guitar Hero 2. Something really needs to change there.
