update

A quick post for all zero of you who've been on pins and needles (and a chance to test the new Blogger widget): My computer is - knock on virtual wood - restored to health. And I have to be doubly grateful for that, because the problem was, ack, the motherboard, so the out-of-warranty repair cost $928... except that my New Best Friend American Express paid the whole thing. Who knew they double the warranty (up to an extra year) if you charge something with their card? I didn't, but I'm glad the Apple Store Genius - big shout-out to my man Aaron at the Beverly Center - did. Wow am I glad.

Thank you, Amex. Thank you, Aaron. As a longtime proponent of the till-now-empirically-incontrovertible dictum "nothing ever goes right," you have well and truly shut me up. If it weren't for the sock in my piehole, I'd plant a wet sloppy one on you both.

sickly

My computer is not well. I had a string of unrecoverable b-tree errors, which persisted despite zeroing the drive and starting from scratch, repeatedly. So I replaced the drive. But the machine is still being wonky at startup, in ways that could mean anything from a jumper that's wiggled loose to a dying logic board.

This is very annoying.

It's as if the poor iGuy was a 78 year old man who, I don't know, maybe got shot in the face by, say, the Vice President - and now birdshot is wending its way through his system, wreaking havoc.

Full disclosure: This has been going on for well over a day at this point, and I haven't even considered alerting the public till now. And I'm not going to apologize for that.

my hero rides again

And this time, no blockquotes, because Salon doesn't wall off content. But don't be lazy just because it's a link - I swear, it's worth it. Maybe the most important work being done in the world right now, if you ask me. May reason save us from deadly superstitions. Amen.

Read the interview. Please. "We cannot let any group, however devout, blackmail us into silence by their expressions of hurt feelings whenever they feel that we are getting close to the truth." That's a meme worth fighting for.