• 2:20 AM
  Propinquity: #1 predictor of attraction

So, if you're me and you're at work and you look to the right, this is what you see. Looks like I'm still using the same laptop from like 5 years ago. Tiny and lightweight, it is nonetheless hard to use as a travel computer, because all the peripherals dangle off of cables. Want to open a file on a CD? You need that grey square thing on the left plugged in. Want to use more than one USB device? Well then you need the extra USB fob (also plugged in on the left) and/or the "breakout" module (on the back there with the cute bluetooth device).

Picking it up results in a dangly mess of expensive and heavy objects. Of course, if you just want to write something on a plane or use some (non-CD locked) software, or look at the web, it's fine for that (as long as you don't mind using a touchpad for pointing). Oh, except that it gets so hot that your pants get soaked in sweat in a 12" square.

I have not replaced it because I'm clinging to my track record of never actually having purchased a laptop. Every one I've had has been a loaner of some sort. I wound up with this one because of a slight mix up wherein a certain company drop shipped me two $3000 laptops instead of one, and somehow lost track of that. One laptop I returned to the company, and this one doesn't officially exist.

That office telephone often rings with wrong numbers. Ugh, the public. You think I act grouchy when I talk to people I LIKE on the phone? Strangers interrupting me when I'm at work must think I'm in mourning or have a fatal disease. I try to hang up on them as efficiently as possible, disbursing just enough information to ensure they don't call back.

The philipe starck mouse is pretty and glows blue, but I'm pretty sure I hate it now. The two grey hemispheres are all mouse button. There's a pivot point somewhere in the mid-to-back area. Let's say you want to move your pointer down. You grab this mouse and exert pulling pressure. Click! You clicked something and dragged it by accident! Oh, did you copy a 5 GB folder across the network? Welp guess we're waiting a while.

The way to use it is to gingerly hold the tiny area in the middle of the sides which won't click with your thumbtip and pinky (or ringfinger), and use only those fingers to exert movement force. Ergonomics disaster. The buttons also will click any time the mouse runs into that phone cord there, which I'm always throwing behind the desk to get it away from the mouse.

Up on the wall is my cork board. Cork! Cork! Cork!

And those yellow rectangles are Post-It notes. I love Post-Its. I will Post-It on anything, with the weakest of excuses. Many people (including Helen and Tristan Farnon) call them "stickies", which is ironic because the whole point is that they're only kind of sticky, and you can easily remove them once It no longer needs to be Posted. "Kind-of-stickies," though, definitely not as catchy. Brett tells me one name originally considered for them was "Jot-n-Jerk," fortunately rejected. You don't want the word "jerk" anywhere near something you're trying to sell. Even jerk chicken makes you think twice.