2009-10-08:

 So my trip to the layer's place was smooth sailing. I thought, wrongly, they might have replaced their large printer/copier and that's why they called be. But it turned out to be the tiny one. Which is fine, I mean, I'm grateful for the work, all half an hour of it. What interests me is that it was still just sitting there in the box, untried. Now, the two ladies that work there are not stupid. They work in a law office, after all. And one of them has to be around my age, so she grew up with computers. But neither even tried. I can understand (all too well) trying and failing. Then you call an expert. But to not even try? Though, as the saying goes, "an once of prevention" and all that. Perhaps they figured it easier to call me in the first place to make sure it was done right. But then came #2. Luckily I have experience with this person, who can turn the simplest job into a four hour 11:00-3:00 endurance test. I try not to book anything after this person for hours for this very reason, so it was rather fortunate I didn't actually have anything scheduled later. She insists on having all these useless "protection" programs on her machines to scan for (nonexistant) Mac viruses and prevent (impossible because she is behind a hardware firewall) intrusion attempts. But hey, machines are fast, right? Better safe then sorry, right? Well, somehow "her son" told her one machine to block all communication with her laptop, so they couldn't share files anymore. Took me awhile to work that one out, never having seen actual Mac security software before, I was unsure how it worked. Then on her son's machine contentbarrier was giving us all kinds of problem, again, that I had to figure out from scratch because he could ping stuff just fine, just not use safari. But uninstall, and problem goes away. Well, I guess it was kind of doing its job, right? Can't see internet smut when you can't see the internet! *rolls eyes* And of course everything has to be locked down to the gills (if that makes sense) so every little thing I want to do I have to go get her to type her password. I'm promised the next time I come she'll have changed it to be something temporary so I don't have to do that. Usually I have to shush people when I need a password. I gesture at them to type it in at the keyboard and say "Password please." and they start to say something and I say "no, no, no, I don't want to know your password. Just type it!" Guess I just have a trustworthy face. So many people have said to me "Oh, I don't mind if you know it." Yeah, well, better for both of us if I don't, really. Then experts wonder why identities get stolen so easily. But not there, no sir. So I got to eat lunch at 3:30. Drew and colored a comic, so I'm back on track. That took until about dinner time... Well, I was also watching some Dragon Ball Z, so my focus was split and I had to take a multitasking penalty to my dice rolls. But anyway it was just then out the window that I saw... the prettiest tortoise shell print cat sitting out by my driveway with no collar! So beautiful! So I grabbed my cat treats and went out there. He/She initially ran away, but because I know what I doing, (protip: never run after a cat, that will just make them run away faster. Instead, stop, practice patience, and let the cat come to you) I got (oh, I'll just call it a him) him over. But he turned his nose up at yummy cat treats! Huh? Well, I knew I wasn't going to find him there if I went to get something else so I scooped him up. Sadly, he did not find this pleasing and made this displeasure quite clear to me. Not wanting to get seriously scratched or bitten I let him go again, and he ran across the road. Good luck pretty kitty, hope you find your home. Made calls, just two for tomorrow at this point. And a leisurely Saturday as well, unless I get some panicked calls tomorrow that necessitate me going out on that day. Got ready for tomorrow, don't have to make my lunch, they're at 9:30 and 2:30, so I should be back home between them. The plan now? Hummm.... perhaps my BFF will write me, and I shall reply? Perhaps ODST? Perhaps more thought on the nature of the cosmos and how everything we do effects everything else? Nah! Current existential query: If the question of what it all means doesn't mean anything, why do I keep coming back to it? And while I was proof reading this, BFF did email me, so now that question is answered. So I leave you with this saying: Patience is a virtue, practice when you can for it's seldom in a woman and never in a man.