Gainesville, Gainesville

I saw this last week, in the parking lot next to what used to be T.I.S. Bookstore and is now Textbook Brokers.

As I walked past, I had the sense to pull out my phone and snap a picture (I would have stopped to talk but I was running late for class). He called after me, and asked me to pull a didgeridoo out of the knapsack leaned against the wall. I did and handed it to him, and he proceeded to continue hula hooping while playing the instrument.

This is why I love Gainesville.

Multilanguage Tech?

I'm in Miami for the Winter Break, and chanced into conversation with a family that speaks Spanish and minimal English.

While trying to explain what I'm studying and what I'd like to do with myself after college, I had a lot of trouble finding the right words to describe what I do. I ended up using Spanglish, examples and sign language to make myself clear.

I'm fluent in Spanish, but I don't have the vocabulary for many of the things I do. How do I describe the intricacies of the Web, how I bought a domain and wrote my own Web site, blogging, and such in another language? I understand these things so easily in English, but I don't know how to translate them.

Adventure #78935

::shakes fist at Microsoft::

Ever since I got my computer running again, Windows crashes every time I try to play a song or a video. Granted, I'm only really using this partition to run Dreamweaver, but coding without tunes? Not gonna happen.

So I get a hold of the motherboard cd, and reinstall the correct drivers. Aha! Now the music flows.

Pop-up window: "Since installing Windows, you've made serious changes to the hardware. Please re-activate Windows."

::shrug:: *Why does re-installing drivers make my Windows activation invalid?*

::click:: "This cd key has expired. Please enter a new key."

Huh? Come on now, I'm one of the few computer savvys I know who actually uses a legal version of Windows. And I'm punished for it because it took me a while to find a working driver?
This is ridiculous.

An Adventure!

I mentioned that the hard drive in my desktop computer had died. For two weeks I ran it off the Ubuntu Live CD while I waiting for a new hard drive to come in. I gasped in awe of the 250 GB I got for $75. Yay, Newegg.
So today, the hard drive came in. While I was putzing around, I played with my laptop for a bit, which has also not been working. Through a magical combination of random keys that I hit in frustration, the thing came to life. Since I don't remember what I did, I won't be restarting it for a while.
Then to the desktop. I realize I don't have the right power cord, call a friend, it's on it's way. Said friend takes over my feeble attempts to do things myself and soon, I have my computer back: a beautiful dual-boot of Ubuntu and Windows.
Le sigh. Glee.