Say it with me, class: "Abulia"

Thank goodness for TV shows about brain disorders or I wouldn't be able to laugh at my life nearly enough. Last week's "House," which I am only watching today on account of not having a television, was kind enough to provide me with a word I've been needing for a long, long time.

"Abulia" is, evidently, the inability to make decisions or act independently. This, unfortunately, describes almost every man I've ever dated.

But more importantly for IT people, it describes almost any community of users. Not any individual user--they usually have some idea of what they want, and if you were going to give it to them in a vacuum where there were no other users, they'd be really, really happy. But the unfortunate thing about any IT enterprise is that its product must be shared by many, many people. And as anyone who has ever attempted to rent a video with more than five people can tell you, decision-making is not generally the strong point of a large group.

It's a really, really useful concept. Abulia.

Stack-Heeled Mary Janes Make Jesus Weep

Read Francis's explanation of Easter in Sweden. I had no idea about the trick-or-treating for Easter there, and the idea of slipping a priest vodka after mass is priceless.

Paul

I didn't know this kid, but I have been hoping for him and even watching for him since I got the news that he was missing in September. I know the link is perverse, and that I should really link to something more like this, but I just hope we're more than how we end. I knew in my heart that Paul probably wasn't alive--he seemed like such a good kid, and I couldn't imagine him watching his parents and friends suffer and then just kicking back somewhere. But it was still a shock to hear tonight that his body had been found, and to know that he had killed himself. There are so many things I wish were different about this story. I wish we knew. I wish we could re-write it. I wish his friends and family didn't have to go through their grief and anguish all over again, for real this time, with no safety net of hope (aside from the eternal hope, for those who have it). Mostly I just wish this hadn't been a week so heavy with lost possibilities, and that we didn't have to lose things to know how precious they are.

I bite my thumb at Windows!

Okay, Bill, here's the deal. Windows has given us many wondrous things. Excel. OneNote. Kudos to you.

But I despise your stinky, stinky media player, and let me tell you why. I go to CNN.com for news occasionally, and damned if every story I want to "read" isn't a video, as though we were a nation of complete morons who can't read a single word of English. Fine. I'm hardly an intellectual elitist--I watch plenty of bad television, and I'll play along. I'll play your damn video if you're too lazy to write a story about it. That's cool.

But it isn't. Not really.

I have installed the Windows Media Player approximately 937 times. I've got version 11 right here, baby! But every single time I click on a CNN story, it tells me, "Sorry Charlie, you need the Windows Media Player." In vain I yell at it and tell it that I HAVE the damn media player. Look AGAIN! I shout. But no. And daily, I swear on the tattered remains of my mortgaged soul, CNN's content becomes more and more video and less and less text. Because apparently the folks at CNN have no opposable thumbs and have been forced to compose their stories entirely with their index fingers and a remote control. Dang, that Anderson Cooper looked like he had thumbs. Fine figure of a man to be reporting on all manner of world injustice without a single thumb--my hat is off to him, for truly, he is a thumbless inspiration to us all.

(Actually, Cooper's blog is one of the few reliable sources of text, so I take it back. But only the stuff about him--CNN is really catering to feckless illiterates. But only feckless illiterates with Windows.)

So I'm cutting out the middleman. I'm just going to administer myself a powerful electric shock when I go to CNN.com. Because, really, it's just a lesson in annoyance and monopoly, and although it's convenient, it's not as though it's an international symbol of reporting excellence, and for the love of all that is holy, I really don't understand why the site won't just PLAY THE DAMN VIDEO.

In conclusion, I believe that the Windows Media Player and CNN are joint harbingers of the end of days. I await the coming apocalypse. I just hope I don't have to try to watch it on CNN.com.



------------------------------

Inside jokes (just because):
For Natalie, "Why for you no have tattoo?"
For anyone with encyclopedic knowledge of the Dick Van Dyke show, I bet the good folks at CNN have also lost their sense of humor.

Settling In

Today I was looking for something to do outside, since today was gorgeous and tomorrow is supposed to be a rotten day. I've been far too cocoon-y, although this is always the way I get accustomed to a new place. I tend to hunker down and expand my comfort zone slowly, making my home base habitable and relaxing and homey and then working out block by block. It's a sort of punctuated equilibrium--for many days or weeks I'll just sort of cuddle up at home, and then I'll need something and so I'll get out and get familiar with a whole range of places, people and things.

But I was damned if I was going to let this all-too-rare sunny Saturday go to waste, so I sat here with my cup of tea trying to figure out what exactly I wanted to do. The Brooklyn attraction that I'm desperate to see is Green-wood cemetery, which I'm hoping will be a bit like Highgate in London. Highgate has a serene, park-like quality that I enjoy, and there are many fine gardens in the vicinity. Plus, there's the whole cemetery vibe--nothing like spending an hour in a cemetery to remind you where your priorities should lie.

Alas, no tours of Green-wood today, and I'm not up to a self-guided tour just yet. But I did find a tour of nearby Prospect Park that was just the ticket. The Big Onion has a variety of NYC walking tours hosted by graduate students, and our guide was knowledgeable and enthusiastic. The tour party included three long-time Brooklyn residents who gave us a lot of information about what the park was like when they grew up here, which was really nice.

Among the many reasons I will never fit in as a true New Yorker is the fact that I can't feign disinterest in the beauty of the Northeast. There were huge clumps of daffodils dotted around the park (all because no spring day is complete until you have a flashback to your grad school seminar on the Romantics), and other bulbs as well--hyacinths, bluebell-looking things--all very exotic when you're coming to it from Phoenix. The park was full of squirrels, all frisky and chasing each other around, leaping from tree to tree like little acrobats. And I saw a hawk patrolling his little section of the park--just gorgeous. When our tour was over, we ended up in the farmer's market, and it was all I could do to restrain myself from buying a little pot of purple crocus bulbs--I adore them, but they'd be dead in no time flat if I so much as touched them, I'm sure, and although they were cheaper than cut flowers, I just couldn't indulge in that kind of cruelty. I think the crocus is right up there with my favorite flowers.

The same tour company does a tour of the cemetery next weekend--I hope the weather is good. In the meantime, I spent the rest of the afternoon stocking up on tea and comfort to prepare for the upcoming storm. Tomorrow will be a fine day to be indoors with plenty of quarters to do laundry, plenty of varied cups of tea, green nail polish (for a winter pedicure) and a little beer. It'll be a pity to ruin it all come Monday.