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was the name of a Sunday-morning radio show that I frequently enjoyed whien I lived in upstate New York. 

It’s also how I spent my Saturday morning, after (finally) recovering many gigabytes of music from the dead laptop. 

So far, as far as my own personal usage patterns go, the new Mac gets a solid “A” in every category except one.

Fewer people than normal at the bus stop this morning.  That’s always a good sign, because it means a less crowded and more quiet ride to work.  And the bus was strangely clean, almost sparkly, as if it had been washed,or perhaps sprinkled with unicorn dust.  So that was nice.

Until the lady two rows in front of me started having an argument on her cell phone.  For the next 45 minutes. Loud enough, mind you, that several people dragged out headphones to try to drown her out.

Including the guy directly behind me, who decided the best way to deal with her annoyance was to listen to speed metal at full volume.  For the next 45 minutes.  Loud enough, mind you, that I could hear it just as clearly as if the headphones were cupping my ears.   And I am not, in general, a huge fan of speed metal. 

So, to you, Cell-Phone Lady, I say:  thank you for sharing the intimate details of your sister’s divorce with the rest of us.  And to you, Speed Metal Guy, I say: thank you for broadening my musical horizons against my will.  Also, I hope you both get bitten by stray dogs.  And that the dogs run away and you can’t find them to determine whether they have rabies, so you have to go in for the rabies vaccine and that it’s really uncomfortable.  Just like in that episode of Different Strokes.

My trusty laptop died earlier this summer.  Well, it didn’t really die so much as start wetting the bed and wandering around the house in 3-sizes-too-small Underoos while calling me “StackOverflow” and demanding that I make it a milkshake right bloody now because otherwise we won’t get to the Copa in time to catch Benny Goodman.

And I didn’t really kill it.  I just, sort of, lobotomized it.  But, like all responsible brain surgeons, I didn’t bother to check to see whether I actually had backups of all the critical driver software before pulling the plug, er, reformatting the hard drive.  Which meant that getting it back up and running wasn’t just a couple of hours of work.  Kinda hard to download replacement drivers when you don’t have a working ethernet card.  

Lesson learned there, I want to promise you.

So, yeah.  People.  What is the deal with them?

A comment on my previous post reminded me of yet another odd telephone conversation I had.  This was quite a long time ago, when I had to call the telephone company to clear up a question about my bill.

Today, while at work, I had occasion to remember the strangest and most frustrating telephone conversation I’ve ever had with a coworker.  (Yet, anyway.  Given time, I’m sure this can and will be surpassed.)

It happened a few summers ago.  Along with another coworker (one who is neither crazy nor rude, and actually quite the opposite of both), I’ve mentored several college students in summer research projects.  It’s a very pleasant and rewarding experience.  But it can be a lot of work, even before the students arrive and the resarch begins.  Many hoops must be jumped before a student can get up and running.  These hoops involve (but are by no means restricted to) establishing a workspace for the student; getting a workstation configured for the student; and ensuring the student is up-to-date on all required training.  That last point can take half a day or more, depending on circumstances.  If things don’t go well, it can be a week or more before a student is able to begin his or her summer research.

So, because of that, my co-mentor and I have made it a point to attempt to be as efficient as possible when it comes to arranging things for our students.   Which means that I once made the baffling mistake of calling the “training help desk,” which is supposed to field simple questions about the training program.  Because this took place several years ago, I obviously don’t remember the entire dialogue verbatim.  But I do remember the progression of the conversation quite clearly, and I do remember certain statements because I wrote them down.

May lightning strike me dead if this isn’t an honest rendering of the ensuing conversation.   It’s not a transcript, but it’s a good-faith effort to convey the sense of the interaction.  It’s also an honest rendering of the tone of the conversation, on both sides.