Tuesday 17 July 2001

Pic of the day: Will I be able to make do with only one computer here? May be too much to hope for, but ...

Suddenly it worked

Well, what do you know! I was innocently playing my only Robert Miles CD, Dreamland on my PC. As I started to type in names of tracks, the media player helpfully offered to fetch it all from the Net. Now this was on the new PC, which had only connected to the Net at half speed the first day or two, and then not at all. But time heals all wounds, so they say, and I plugged the modem in again. Since I already had a trackball on serial port COM1, I had to use COM2 instead. (No, the trackball did not seem to help my hand. It's the typing that is the worst anyway).

Now I'm downloading Star Office like mad. Yes, it connected on first try. Was it the serial port? Was it just a random fluctuation in the probability fields? Parts that needed time to settle? Right now I don't care. Woo hoo! A computer that actually works! It borders on the miraculous. Oh happy day and stuff. Now to hope that it actually holds up long enough to download StarOffice.

***

StarOffice is a competitor for MS Office. Even though they have developed somewhat differently, it is still pretty much file compatible and does the usual things in the same way. It is also free, except whatever it costs you to stay on the Internet. The German (I think) company that made it was bought up by SUN Microsystems who keeps posting it for free, no doubt to spite MicroSoft. I actually like MS (because they spite IBM ... this shows my age I guess) but this beats "borrowing" an Office from work or somewhere. I'll no doubt have enough sins to answer for without stealing from my friends at MS.

I have used a scaled down StarOffice on the portable, and it was nice as far as it lasted. With the full version, I should finally get a spelling checker (or spell checker, as they say who believe it to be magic). Somehow my entries always look perfect when I post them, and then when I visit the "year ago" link there are errors with alarming regularity. I may even go "pussy" and have the program generate my HTML code rather than writing it myself in Programmers File Editor. OK, perhaps that's a bit over the top.

But my very few attempts indicate that I write funnier when I use word processing software than an ASCII editor. Perhaps not a coincidence ... we are all subtly influenced by the environment, are we not? Like I can drink more than twice as much cola when I'm with my best friend before I get sick. Or that I can eat oat porridge back on the farm, but if I try it here the intestines revolt and tie me to the porcelain throne. Oh yes, you all need to know.

***

Oh yes, and Robert Miles. Why would I play Robert Miles? Well, I was kind of restless for a change. So I wanted to play "One & One". Evidently the lyrics are by Billy Steinberg, and (no offense to Miles) this song is the main attraction for me, even though he has some nice instrumentals too. And originally it was my best friend's sympathy for the "Children" music video that made me notice Miles in the first place.

And yet, much as I admire and love (in a reasonably platonic way) my best friend in the world, I'm not thinking of her when I listen to the words ...

After all is said and done,
one and one still is one.
When we cry, when we laugh
I am half, you are half.
Look how far we have come:
one and one still is ... one.