Suprises.

There were two main surprises of the day. The first was this morning when I got on what appeared to be the C train this morning. But when I got into the totally empty car, I looked around and noticed the signs inside the train said B. Not just any B, but a B in an orange diamond. I was so confused. I hadn't seen one of these trains for a long time (it means it only makes rush hour stops) and besides, the outside sign said C. So I walked through to the next car where two people are sitting. Now I'm really confused and I am convinced I have just entered the Twilight Zone because the sign in this car says, 1 train. ?! At this point, I am a little freaked out (and the fact that train didn't stop at the next stop...where is this train going?) so I ask the woman closest to me what train this is and she starts shouting about my soul being saved by her friend (and mine, she tells me, if I should choose [choose wisely...]) Jesus Christ. She won't stop shouting, so I walk over to the next person. She is equally confused because she thought it was the C train. Then the announcer gets on and says, "This is the C train, making all local stops to the Bronx." The C train doesn't go to the Bronx. Because this mystery was beyond my solving abilities, I got off at 125th and waited for the A. Unfortunately, it was a strong fish fryer smell day on the platform (the smell originates from the McDonald's fryer up at the street level) which making me slightly gag. But I did finally get to lab.

The other surprise was when Mike told me he didn't have class and would be making me dinner. Eggplant parmigiana. Yum. I have to say I had all sorts of reservations (not about the quality of the food, but the mess) but everything was fantastic! Clean kitchen, delicious food...he should do this more often. It was great.

I think I am going to finally make coconut macaroons this week.

Not much to see at this Vista.

Wednesday night my laptop of almost 6 years and I broke up. He had seen better days and I had really pushed him to his limit which caused him to leave me. And to top it all off, he took the hard drive and all the files on it with him. It was rough. Thankfully, I had a backed up the contents so in reality, I didn't need anything from him anyway. (Except all the Radiohead albums I ripped.)

I was so upset. My Thinkpad R30. It had seen me through almost ALL of grad school. It made me realize several things. First, how dependent I am on computers. Second, that I am getting old and set in my ways. I don't want a new computer. I want this computer. Just fix it. (This is what I told the IT guy who then told me that my computer is ancient and beyond help.) No new bells and whistles. I don't have time to learn a new OS. I want THIS computer. No stupid touch pads. I want my trackpoint. Third, I don't have time to learn a whole new computer and start a relationship over again. In two and a half months, I have to write two papers, my thesis and a grant. He really left me high and dry.

But life isn't fair and sparkling fairies with "fix-it" magic dust don't exist (well, supposedly) and so I bought a laptop with Vista. Vista. After spending a good amount of time trying Vista out, Mike and I decided it stinks. I mean it has some nice features but really, as much as it bothers me to say (because I have Mac pushers as friends), they ripped the new cool features from Apple and the others ones (particularly the really crappy and useless Connectivity Doctor) stink. It's an overly bloated program that shouldn't have taken 5 years to release and really should have been a service pack or an update for XP. Oh yeah, and it's really, really, really ugly.

Overall, I was seriously disappointed at Microsoft and have to say that it makes me think what a waste their 5 years developing this poor excuse of a new and "innovative" OS has been. Really, they hire the top CS/CE people and this is what they make? In my head, they get these fancy jobs and because competition really isn't an issue for most of their products, they sit around and play fooseball. And occassionally when they have project development meetings, they come up with things like, "let's copy Apple's OS and add other things that really don't do anything but require 512MB just to run the OS. That sounds fancy and important." I can't remember the last really creative and great product they made.

Other than that, my laptop is nice. It's big. I rather have my Thinkpad with a trackpoint back.