Mini Me

I’m not sure what to say now! Three comments about being funny and/or witty and I am starting to feel the pressure. Then again, as you are basically all laughing AT me and my misfortunes, so long as bad things keep happening, this blog will keep making you all laugh… Which, when I pause to think on it, is probably even less reassuring :S Worry not, normally service will resume shortly I am sure, and I will go back to being the dull and normal Claire you all know and love.

Either way, what new is there in the world of Cas that I would like to share? Hmmm.

I spent the last three days dealing with the aftermath of the Great Flood of 2005 and trying to teach my mother how to use a computer. For yes, she is finally on the verge of joining the information age. As a family we were lucky, we had one of the first pc’s, and it has been an unbroken love affair ever since. I still have vivid memories of paying my brother 50p a time for lessons in dos and then C. From the very beginning he enjoyed mucking around with the hard code to make something new, whilst I preferred to take existing software and apply that in new and interesting ways. I may have fought the inevitable in the middle with that abortive attempt to get into vet school, but the lure of computers is clearly too strong. And now it has snaggled my mother as well. She fought a good fight (her glazed look at the Sunday dinner table as the rest of us discussed computers was a joy to behold and a mainstay of my childhood) but the time has come for her to wave the white flag and come over to the dark side. We got her a MacMini for her birthday and this entailed a quick dash back home to get it set up this week.

(The train journey down was fine, though it made me miss the car all the more; the journey back was horrible and worthy of an entire post all to itself.)

The Mini is a wonderfully cute and shiny little toy! So tiny! But so easy to set up – I was quietly dreading it but I am not lying when I say it took longer to dismantle the old pc than it did to set up the Mac. I checked: 20 minutes of swearing and cursing untangling the pc from its assorted rat’s nest of wires; 5 minutes to plug the Mini into the assorted bits (5 wires only, 2 of them keyboard and mouse, 1 the modem cord), to boot it up, and to enter all the details, and all without a single swear word uttered! I admit there was a bit of minor cursing when it came to trying to connect to the internet the first time, but that was because I had transposed a couple of digits in the number, doh! And then spend the next seven hours writing a ‘how to’ guide for my Mum. You don’t realise how complicated, and how much like a foreign language computing is, until you are trying to teach a total beginner. By total, I mean TOTAL. Previous experience with PC’s or Macs: Zip, nada, rien. We managed to fit in a few lessons before I had to leave on Saturday afternoon, and I know she will get it, but I did chicken out and tell her to do a course at the local college: I am a totally PANTS teacher!

Other than that, the few days were uneventful. Got my hair cut at my favourite hairdressers back in Wells. Why, you may ask, do I have to go home for a haircut? Surely, you live in a city, there must be one nearer you could use?! You would think so, wouldn’t you, but you would be wrong. There is a dearth of affordable, good, hairdressers in Soton. I’ve known people who’ve lived here for five years and more, who still take the two hour journey back to their home town to get a trim. The relationship between a girl, her hair, and her hairdresser is an odd one. I finally found someone who I like, and more importantly TRUST, to cut my hair nicely (and not to break the bank in the process), and that is worth the trip back home. Just that the last few time’s I’ve booked an appointment to go home, something’s gone wrong. The car crash back at the start of February, the Flood this time… Third time is the charm? Which reminds me, I have finally heard back from the Insurance company, and they say they will give me more money for the car! Colour me rather surprised. Now I have to decide whether or not it is worth getting a new (new to me that is) car whilst living in a city. It is rather decadent to keep a car just to go to the supermarket once a week, and back to Somerset once every few months.

The Orange 241 film this week was Sahara. To quote, “fun, silly, and a semi-naked Matthew McConaughey. What more could you ask for?” The Sahara review. Apparently we’ve seen upwards of 20 films so far this year. And that isn’t counting the dvd’s and movies on TV. Ouch!

Lastly, look, no OED! Dad came through with a fantastic computer stand: Shiny new stand. Far superior to what I was expecting! Major *huggles* to Farv for providing me with total ergonomic goodness for my computing experience. (Stand, keyboard, typing chair, lack of RSI, all courtesy of the parental unit.)

That is all I have to say, because I really really should be writing proposals. Not as much fun as this I am sure, but this isn’t getting me a masters degree. Toodles.