1. watch TV longer than 1 minute?

2. watch MTV (of all things!) at all?

3. reveal so much personal info about her/himself while talking with strangers?

*ahem* You know who you are, oh subject of my inquiry. Go on, respond. I dare you.

Ophelia's daily deaths
are really cramping my work style. New (not even 3 months old) Sony Vaio RX790G Desktop computer; 2.4 GHz Pentium IIII; 512 MB of RAM; Windows XP; crashes at least twice
every
fucking
day.

Yes indeedy, my office desktop lives up to her name: she's insanely suicidal. Every day is a struggle, a contest, a raindancing chant ("don'tcrashdon'tcrashohpleaseohpleasedon'tcrash"). Ophelia shuts herself off without warning; I get a sudden black, blank screen. Ophelia has seizures; my cursor freezes, and even ctrl+alt+del won't save me. Sometimes Ophelia cycles through the full "Windows is shutting down" process - on her own, with no Start menu prompting from me.

I'd be less annoyed if these things didn't happen while I code HTML and JavaScript, edit/reorganize content, FTP files to and from servers, test web pages. Argh. Ophelia's not the only Sony in my office that swandives or throws tantrums. And I'll bet mine's not the only office in the world that's full of cranky, crazy, deathwishing Sonys
.

Thank goodness I have a real computer - 2, actually - waiting for me at home.

Adobe is good.
Adobe is grand. Adobe happily lent me a hand.

If you're a cross-platformer like I am, and you've only got one version of Photoshop - oh, say, the PC version of PS 5 (which lives on Desdemona, my PC laptop) - and you don't wanna pay the full $600-$650 price tag for a full Mac version of PS 6 or 7? Well, just give the friendly folks at Adobe a call: they do cross-platform upgrades. I placed an order via phone; 2 days later, I had a new full (FULL, not "upgrade") Mac version of PS 7 for Ariadne (my G4). And I only paid $199. Joy!

That's "Ana" with one N.
You wouldn't believe how easy it is to misspell a simple little 3-letter name like mine. Sure, the standard "AnNa" is to be expected from time to time. But when someone puts 2 Ns, or an H anywhere in my name, I inhale deeply and clamp bottom teeth to top teeth and resist the swelling, boiling urge to ask:

"What the fuck is WRONG with you?!",

When I was very very very young, I knew a girl my age whose parents cursed her with "Annah." As a kid just learning how to spell words bigger than CAT and DUCK, it really disturbed her that my name sounded like hers but had fewer letters. Frankly it disturbed me too.

Parents, please: if you can't spell the name you're gonna give your baby-to-be, don't you think maybe your kid won't be able to spell it either?

Hey man, seen any good shows lately?
Since the 1980s, I've seen many concerts. Here are the shows I remember most vividly.

David Bowie: Glass Spider Tour in the 80s. Encore after encore. The man LOVES to perform.

Legendary Pink Dots: up close & personal. Edward Ka-Spel is a VERY intense man.

Dead Can Dance: the power of Spiritchaser and older DCD tunes, in all their lively, hypnotic glory.

Lisa Gerrard: spellbinding. Simply spellbinding.

Blondie: gotta love that signature Debbie Harry scowl.

Sisters of Mercy: an interesting night, crowd and all. Danielle Dax opened for them.

The Four Tops: yes, I'm an old Motown addict and proud of it.

Chris Connelly: he's actually a better crooner in person than in the studio.

Duran Duran: back when Andy Taylor was still with the band.

KMFDM: surprisingly good and entertaining live.

Sugarcubes and Public Image Ltd. (with New Order): Bjork's voice is amazing live. Razor sharp power.

There are others. I just don't remember them right now. Pity that I never saw Love and Rockets, Skinny Puppy, Morphine. I think of the bands I've not yet seen; I don't want to forever miss them too.

April 22, 2002: And more randomness

It's nice to know that some people actually appreciate my voicemail messages.

To the folks I've called who told me so: thank you.

Of course, the danger in leaving voicemail is that the recipient now has a recording of my voice to replay and make fun of. I know Sean does it all the time. (That's okay; I make fun of his messages in my voicemailbox too.) Voicemail is fun. (Toll-free, even.)

Why does Sean make fun of my voicemail messages?
Because he's a bastard, that's why.

(I meant "bastard" in a good way. Really. Honest.)

My version of Keyboard Survivor has three tribes
: Togi, Poga, and a mysteriously nameless tribe far across the eastern valley. This 3rd tribe has no letters; only numbers and symbols. (Well, unless you count "NumLock" and "Enter.") "1" was ousted from this 3rd tribe months ago; it's rumored that "3" isn't far behind. The Togi have lost "S" and I think "V" is on his way off the board. And "L" was recently voted out of the Poga tribe. "M" is sure to follow.

Can't wait til my new toy arrives!
I'm listening to some wonderful Diablo II mp3s right now (legal mp3s from the official Diablo web site, I might add). Yes, I'm a sucker for RPGs. Yes, I'm an even bigger sucker for good RPG music. I think I'll have to break down and buy Diablo II. It looks so much better than its predecessor, in so many ways. Then maybe Sean and I can do multiplayer mode; that way, I can literally kick his ass for being such a bastard. Yep.

Have you ever felt terribly let down by certain sites for which you had high hopes?
Case in point: The Cell. In all fairness, once I got past that first pointless/cheesy movie, the main site interface was kinda nifty. Unfortunately things took a fast downhill tumble from there. Look, if you're gonna cram a kabillion Flash movies down my throat, please at least make them meaningful and worth the long downloads. (I visited from my office - on a LAN conection for cryin' out loud - and the loadtime was pure agony.) Don't make me wonder, "and the point of these Flash movies is...?" Better yet, just lay off some of that overbearing Flash. And don't tell me the web designer(s) couldn't have made that site as visually interesting as the special effects in the movie's TV ads.