I wanted to share an example of how majoring in Classics has seriously modified the way I experience the world.

So, after discovering Dr. Horrible's Sing-along Blog, I went into serious immersion. I watched it several times, and I listened to the soundtrack over and over again. And . . . the things I think about while I listen to it are not the things I would have thought before studying Greek and Latin.

The most obvious example is at the end of the song "So They Say". If you haven't watched Dr. Horrible and you'd like to see what I'm talking about, it's the first song on this section. (Spoiler warning: that's the last part, so if you plan on watching the first two, be warned. Actually, this whole discussion will be spoilery, though.)

Billy (aka Dr. Horrible) and Penny sing a few lines in duet, and I find the way they construct their sentences very telling. The lines go as follows . . . some of the words they sing are the same, and some of them are different, and the differences are important.

Penny	Billy
There's no happy ending	There's no happy ending
So they say	So they say
	Not for me, anyway.
Should I stop pretending?	Stop pretending.
Or is this a brand new day?	Take the chance to build a brand new day!

(I hope the table works okay. It's been ages since I've had to use one. I'm surprised I still remember how.)

At this point, Penny is sitting alone in the laundromat, where she and Billy usually get together to hang out, clearly disappointed that he didn't show up. Meanwhile, Billy is locked in his mad lair, missing the chance to be with Penny because he's so bent on plotting destruction for her new boyfriend.

So, look at the last two lines. Penny is in doubt. She thinks this should be a good thing, but she doesn't feel it. And her language reflects that. She uses questions--this is a good thing, isn't it? Should I stop pretending that everything is going to be wonderful and take the next best thing?

Meanwhile, Billy is changing, from the sweet, good-hearted, but rather ineffective villain he was in the beginning, to a more hard-hearted, bitter, and dangerous villain. His language indicates that as well--he's speaking in imperatives. Stop pretending. Take the chance. He's both exhorting himself to do something that's against his nature, and becoming a more assertive character, less of a push-over.

This is a far cry from his language in the first song, "My Freeze Ray", where he literally can't make himself speak. ("Wanna say / Love your hair / Here I go: / [incoherent mutters] . . . mumbling.") As Billy undergoes a transformation as a character, he undergoes a linguistic transformation as well. (Also related: in the first scene, Billy is practicing his evil laugh, and it's pretty pathetic, and very sweet. At the climax, after this transformation, Billy lets out a very long, impressive evil laugh.)

And it's so artfully done, too, because Penny's self-doubt is intertwined with Billy's growing resolve--they balance each other perfectly.

. . . anyway, yeah. I probably should turn that urge to analyze things back in the direction of my theses, but . . . it's sure more fun to analyze things that are so much fun.

Cicero, my crappy but well-used Acer Travelmate, has been slowly disintegrating ever since I bought him almost four years ago. First, right out of the box, there was something glitchy about the bootup that would sometimes prevent the system tray from showing all of the programs that were running in the background. (I never did get that one fixed--I've been working around it all these years.)

Then the hardware problems kicked in. When the computer was still quite new, that bright splotch appeared on the screen and wouldn't go away. There was a scary period when the fan got cranky and the computer kept overheating, but magically restored itself a few days later. Then I had to replace both parts of the power cord at different times, because they're so poorly made. Then, when the computer was only a couple months out of warranty, the touchpad stopped working altogether.

Yesterday, the hinges that hold the screen broke, and now it's a balancing act to get it to stay up, when I can get it to at all. I'm pretty sure this is the result of carrying the computer around a lot this semester but that was pretty unavoidable, and really, it ought to be able to hold up to that, if you ask me. Also, his battery capacity is down to half of what it originally was. (I used to get a good four hours . . . now I get less than two.) But that's just the inevitable result of age, I'm thinking.

Also, it has the STUPIDEST design--the button that turns the wireless on and off is on the front of the computer, so if you have the computer in your lap, it's ridiculously easy to accidentally shut off the wireless. Why is it stupid?

So, yeah. I don't recommend Acers. I will never buy an Acer again.

Anyway, I fear Cicero is on his last legs, and I'm pretty worried about being left computer-less in my last semester of college with two theses to write.

I'm working with my mom to pull together funds to buy a little netbook (a tiny, very portable laptop, which will be perfect for me), but it's going to be hard, since there's all the expenses of graduation coming up (train tickets and car rentals, not to mention incidentals). But, the computers I'm looking at are within the $400 range, so it's likely I can come up with it. (If not, Courtney has generously offered to let me borrow her old PC for a while, so actually I won't be left computer-less no matter what. Which is a very good thing.)

I've narrowed the decision down to two models of Asus Eee PC: the brand-spanking-new-still-in-preorder 1000HE, or the 1000HA.

I don't have to make any decisions yet, since I don't have any money yet, but I'm still going to ramble here to try to work it out. See, the 1000HE is obviously a better choice--it has longer battery life (7 hours seems to be the realistic report), a better keyboard, and a few other nice extras. But, it costs a little more, and it's still in preorder, and although theoretically it should be literally starting to ship any day (at which point the cost will go up even more), reports are kind of varying about when it will actually ship, and I'm worried that there won't be a large enough stock. I don't want to be stuck waiting for months--kind of the reason I'm looking at an Eee PC at all is that I need something relatively soon.

On the other hand, the 1000HA has almost all the same features, in a less advanced state (4-5 hour battery life, a keyboard with a weird right shift key, and less cool extras), and it's not in preorder. And Amazon has a pretty sweet discount if you buy one together with a case and extra memory. (Extra memory on a computer this size is a pretty good idea.) But, it seems kind of dumb to buy an older model when there's a newer (and legitimately better) one out.

Anyway, like I said, it's a moot point since I don't have money yet. But I had to type all that out, because it's been running around in my head and dammit, I have a lot of homework left to do that won't get done if I'm distracted by tiny tiny computers.

Poor Cicero. I feel kind of bad trash-talking him and using him to ogle other computers. He can't help that he was made crappy, and he's served me as well as he can since I've been in college.

Oh my gosh. I finally got around to watching Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. I know, I'm probably the last geek on the Internet to watch it . . . but if I'm not, and one of you hasn't, GOOD LORD GET THEE TO HULU. For verily, it is the most awesome thing I have seen in a long time. OMG.

we are small but we are many
we are many we are small
we were here before you rose
we will be here when you fall

(Is anybody else psyched about Coraline?)

YOU GUYS YOU GUYS. Why has no one ever told me that Neverwhere was a TV show before it was a novel? WHY?

HOW DID I NOT KNOW THIS?

I am RIDICULOUSLY excited. I know what I'm buying after I get paid!

Dudes. Can you imagine the effect that Kevin Bacon appearing on the Colbert Report is going to do to peoples' Bacon Factors? Seriously! Everyone in the audience now has a Bacon factor of one! Everyone they know is down to two!

I got my mail-in ballot today. I'm afraid I have a confession: I was disappointed. I had kind of hoped that the paperwork didn't go through, and I wasn't going to get one, and so I wouldn't have to make a decision. I'm still divided, guys--either way I vote, I'm going to compromise my beliefs. I'm kind of nostalgic for the days when I could just say, "Hey, Mom, who should I vote for?"

Also, I've been spending too much time in the library lately using the library Macs instead of my own dear Cicero (who is a PC). My fingers are beginning to remember the Mac shortcuts BEFORE the PC shortcuts. It wasn't until I started actually having to log in to all my usual websites (on Cicero the passwords are saved, because I'm lazy and not paranoid) that I realized that the three websites I log in to the most often have three different usernames, which all begin with the same letter. This gets very annoying when I'm not paying close enough attention. On top of that, a couple school related websites have the same username, but different passwords. It's madness!

Also, I'm finally, truly "bitypial". My mom coined this word five or six years ago when I switched keyboard layouts from QWERTY to Dvorak.* She was insanely proud of herself. I didn't use it much, though, because it wasn't true--as soon as I learned Dvorak, I almost immediately lost all ability to type in QWERTY.** However, I can't change the keyboard layout on the library's Macs, so I've been doing a lot of typing in QWERTY lately. I can't quite touchtype yet, but I'm pretty damn close, and I can switch back and forth without too much confusion. I seem to have the most trouble on a few weird keys--I'm actually using Cicero tonight, and I've been mistyping quotation marks all evening.

An unexpected result of all this Mac use is that . . . I hesitate to say it . . . I'm almost thinking my next computer should be a Mac. (Though, this is a much more difficult decision than for whom to vote, so it will require much more research. Fortunately, it won't be a problem for the next three or four years!)

Tomorrow is Wednesday, which means the crappy half of my week will be over. My weeks get much easier in the second half.


* I can't do anything like normal people do. I'm pretty much a software vegan. Or at least a software vegetarian--I use open source software where ever I can, but on the other hand, I do still use Windows.

** Besides which, if you're looking to parallel "bilingual", I think you should try to use a body part. Bilingual technically means something about two tongues, so maybe something about two fingers? Bidactal? Bidactyal? Bidactyl? (That last one sounds like a poetic meter.) I dunno, I'm just an undergrad with delusions of linguistics.

I just e-mailed my Greek professor to tell him that I had stumbled across a couple of lines from a play of Aristophanes that were really easy to scan (they're in iambic trimeter, and the comic version tends to be a little tricky).

This pretty much means that not only was I scanning Greek for no good reason on a Saturday night, but I also got excited enough about it to e-mail my professor.

. . . um. I'm pretty sure this isn't what college is about for cooler less fulfilled other people.

The new Firefox fixed the problem with long tooltips on images!

Finally, I can fully enjoy xkcd and Dinosaur Comics without a twinge of annoyance each time.

How on earth do people deal with concept-based science fiction?

When I tell people I'm interested in sci-fi, I often end up in a conversation during which I have to explain that, no, I actually haven't read much of anything by Asimov . . . or, actually, any other of the greats. I try to explain that it's just that I prefer something character-based, like Orson Scott Card, but I always end up feeling a little embarrassed.

So, a little while ago, I checked out Starfarers, by Poul Anderson. I'd heard of him, and cover quoted USA Today as calling him, "One of science fiction's most revered writers," so I figured it would be a decent place to start reading some 'hard' sci-fi.

. . . I tried, people. I really did.

I sifted through the first few pages of unconnected vignettes that didn't actually introduce any of the characters who had been listed in the dramatis personae helpfully provided at the front of the book, but had several talking heads setting up the stage for the ideas to come. Then I suffered through a long and very technical account of a television interview with a physicist which was clearly just as much an attempt to introduce the concepts the book was focusing on as it was relevant to the plot.

Finally, the scene jumped again, and I saw several repair men watching the plot point soaring through the sky. They talk about how they'll brag to their grandchildren about seeing the sight. And then, one of them says to the other, "That is what they are lately calling the quantum field gate drive. Have you not heard? A ship springs from the energy state normal in this universe, what they call the zero level, to the superhigh energy level it gets from below the universe, and then falls back to down again to normal, over and over."

I couldn't take it. I snapped the book shut. Setting aside the fact that the 'interview' (read: thinly veiled exposition of the science behind the story) already covered this ground--and I could forgive it more easily there, because it was a physicist being asked to explain his theories--people don't talk like this. Not in casual conversation. And the fact that these are yet more throw-away characters makes it even more annoying. Their purpose is to appear, convey information, then never be thought of again.

My creative writing teacher last semester had a quote she loved, and I'm kicking myself for forgetting the exact wording, but it was something along the lines of, "The worst purpose of dialogue is to convey information. 'You know why we're on this space station, Caruthers--to save the world!'"

I can see that if I'd hung on one more page, I would have started to meet the real characters of the book. But that's no good for me--you don't get 23 pages to win a reader over. The fact that only the ancestors of the main characters appear in the first chapter, plus all that emphasis on technical detail, makes it clear that this book has very different priorities than the kind of books I read. I'm sure it's a great book for the kind of book it is, but I want to read books about people. I like science fiction and fantasy because they provide vehicles for exploring things about people. I don't read for the spaceships.

Likewise, I don't read fantasy for the swords and elves. As far as I'm concerned, Tolkien and all the millions of cheap imitations he spawned fall into the same category, only in this case the author is saying, "Look at this cool culture I made up!" instead of, "Look at this cool science I dreamed up!" So, instead of having a first chapter full of characters espousing scientific theory, you have a first chapter that tells you everything you ever wanted to know about Hobbits. (Incidentally, though, that chapter was the only thing I liked about that book.) And I know I shouldn't criticize these books, because they're doing what they set out to do, and I can't try to make them do what I want them to do.

But it frustrates me, because speculative fiction has so much potential. Creating an alternate reality is a tried and true method of exploring human nature in our own world. Sometimes this can be overdone to the point of preachiness, which is also distasteful--see Ursula K. Le Guin's Left Hand of Darkness. Actually, I just read her Gifts, which is much more subtle, and is, unsurpisingly, classified as young adult. I love young adult fantasy. It does such a better job of saying something that means something than most adult fantasy or sci-fi. If I ever do get around to becoming an author, that's what I'll write.

Anyway, I'm guessing this is a side-effect of my being in humanities instead of science--I feel like the only stories worth telling are about people first and concepts second.

I rarely actually laugh out loud at things, but I read this lolcat and I laughed and laughed and laughed.

I'm such a sucker for Oregon Trail jokes. Dang, I'd like to play that game again.

So, research is going well. It's harder than I expected, reading all day, and sooner or later I need to figure out what my project is . . . I've been reading a lot of Greek tragedy, though, and NOTHING is a loss when that's the case. Also, Prof. Casey has started doing some Greek with me. It feels really good to be doing Greek again . . . I'm starting to actually get excited about being able to work on translations instead of reading all these silly articles and books.

In my free time, I've been doing a lot of knitting and crafty stuff, which means that the new hobby blog has been seeing more action than the LJ. So, you should all go see the things I've been making! Speaking of the hobby blog, I'm looking into ways of crossposting my posts there to LiveJournal--stay tuned for updates on that.

Also, via CuteOverload, I just discovered The Daily Puppy, which . . . oh my gosh. I just sat here and gaped. It's got the overwhelming cuteness, and it appeals to the dog lover in me. (I've always been more of a dog person than a cat person.) The only problem? It's crashed Firefox on me twice in the past few minutes*. I'm all like, "zomg, adorable puppy!" when suddenly! "Firefox has encountered an error and must close." What gives, The Daily Puppy? This is my sad face: :(




* Granted, since it is Firefox, I can just open it back up and pick up browsing where I left off. The "restore session" feature has been my favorite ever since it came out. I constantly have tons of tabs open, and it's so nice to just be able to close the browser when I'm ready for bed, and be able to pick up where I left off. I often use it to open links I mean to blog about. They sit there for days or weeks in my tabs before I finally give in and close them. One such link was a page about knitting leprosy bandages for India--I couldn't make this up.

I've become so reliant on this feature that when it fails--say something opens in a new window and gets minimized, so that I end up inadvertantly closing my main window without closing Firefox, thus erasing all of the tabs I have open--I become very upset.

Sometimes I forget that the knowledge I have stored away in my brain isn't all part of what we called "the common cultural consensus" back when I was homeschooling. In Hebrew today, Adam (the chaplain, teaches the class) was trying to make a point using Yoda . . .

Adam: Right, it's like Yoda, you know, you don't get to be 600 years old without learning something . . .

Me: Except, Yoda was 900 years old, not 600.

The Entire Class: . . .

Me: . . . okay, I guess my nerdy is showing.

So, when Adam misquoted Yoda a few minutes later, I refrained from correcting him--but only barely. I did however, quote the, "When 900 years old you reach, look as good you will not, hmm?" line. Complete with Yoda voice.

Just got off the train in good old Colorado. I'd rather wait to post for when I'm not so tired, but I have a feeling if I do that, I'll never actually make the post. So, in no particular order, some things from the trip:

On the train to Chicago, I was munching on some Cheez-it crackers in a bowl (this was my main form of sustinence for the past three days), and a lady walked by and said, "Awww, little snack-ums! That's the way to travel!" When she walked away, I made eye contact with another lady who was sitting across from me, and raised my eyebrows: wtf? The lady across from me raised her eyebrows in agreement: wtf.

I finished reading Anansi Boys. I read the first two thirds over Thanksgiving Break, but then finals hit. Up until the end, it was a really good book. After the end, it was a great book. Neil Gaiman is so amazing.

Which leads me to . . . after I finished Anansi Boys, I was a little bummed, because I had realized that I actually had less reading material than I had thought for my three day trip. And I was all, "Woe is me!" Then I happened upon one of those shops you get in airports and train stations, the kind that sell packs of gum and magazines and overpriced souvenirs. Usually the books in those places hold no interest for me--it's basically all romance novels and war novels. Oh, and Sudoku. I swear, I was in an airport this summer that had no less than six different Sudoku books, and not a single science fiction novel. So, anyway, I definitely didn't expect to find anything of interest, but it was worth a shot.

They had Good Omens.

Not just, "Oh, hey, an author I like!" No, this was, "Omigosh, I'vewantedtoreadthisbookforages and NOW IT'S MINE!" So, I read that all the way from D.C. to Colorado. It was also very good. I'm redoubling my determination to write over break. (Although, reading the masters like Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett can be a little discouraging . . . except, it's so good that you mostly manage to forget that you will never compare.)

But you're probably interested in things that happened that don't involve me buying geeky books. Well, when I got on my last train in Chicago, the lady sitting in front of me turned around and said, "You're awfully young to be traveling all by yourself!" I told her, actually, I was 20. She said, "Honey, you don't look it." I'm going to hope that this was because I had been wearing my hair pulled back in a French braid. But, seriously--airlines stop treating you as an unaccompanied minor when you're 15 . . . so how young did she think I was?

Taking that Biology class has altered the way I look at the world. In Virginia, there are lots of deciduous trees shedding lots and lots of nice yummy dead leaves, which decompose into nice soil, from which spring yet more deciduous trees. It's self-perpetuating. Here in the Rocky Mountains, though . . . well, okay, there's a reason they're called the Rocky Mountains. We went through a canyon that had walls of solid granite going hundreds of feet into the air. But here's the thing--there were still trees growing there. One way or another, these trees--I think they were either spruces or firs, but my bet's on spruces--managed to scrape together enough soil on this solid rock cliff face to grow. I've always been aware of how much plants out here have to worry about water, but it hadn't occurred to me until just then that just finding dirt to grow in was also so hard. Plants are pretty amazing.

There were lots and lots of small children on my car from Chicago to Colorado. Believe it or not, I enjoyed this. Kids on a train really bring things into focus for me--they're so into everything. There was a family with four kids under the age of six. Apparently their minivan had gotten hit by a careless driver in Chicago and the insurance companies were putting them through some ridiculous rigamarole. The thing is, though, they seemed like they really had things under control. I mean, if I was traveling cross country with four kids--one of them a toddler--after having my vehicle destroyed and not knowing if I'd be getting the money I needed, I'd be pretty scattered. They get lots of bonus points, even though I'll never see them again.

I need sleep. Remind me to post my list of Goals for Break sometime.

I don't realize that I need drugs until much later than I ought to realize. That goes for everything from pain killers to asthma medicine to allergy meds. Tonight was the allergy meds. I had been sitting here and sniffling for probably a couple hours before I realized that I was completely miserable. I hadn't even realized I had been sniffing. This is very unfortunate, because Amanda is particularly sensitive to the sound of people making snorfly noises--it grosses her out. (Yeah, I know, and she's rooming with ME?) I could have saved her listening to that if I had noticed earlier.

On the other hand, now that the Claritin has kicked in, I feel lovely. It's that, "Oh, wow, I can breathe through my nose!" amazement that only antihistamines can give you. I spend so much time with my nose running that having it not running is a real treat.

Tomorrow is my final project for Egypt. This is actually not really a matter for stress at all--in lieu of a final paper in this class, we're doing "service learning". The whole class is marching out to the local children's museum. They happen to have an Egypt exhibit open right now, so we're holding an event there. My group is doing a puppet show and coloring station on the Egyptian gods. I put together a really fantastic coloring book for the station, if I do say so myself. So, tomorrow will be spent herding children and socializing a lot, which means that my introverted self should be thoroughly exhausted by the end. But, it will be good, and I'm sure I'll enjoy it.

This evening, we went out to Japanese for dinner, and afterwards went to Wal-mart. I bought myself a potted plant earlier this semester, and the poor thing was in desperate need of a bigger pot, so I finally got one.

( Click for picture! )

PS: Thanks to everybody who commented on my last post--I feel rather calmer now.

Latin quote of the week:

Nos omnes morituri sumus. Hoc vobis intellegendum est.

(Yes, we finally hit the active and passive periphrastics. I've been waiting for this over a year.)

In Latin today, I was asked, "Is it okay if I call you a geek?"

Ah, if they only knew. If they only knew, for example, what a HUGE kick I got out of Serpentes on a Shippe (link via Accidental Verbosity. I mean, I was having a pretty bad day, but that totally made my evening.

I have been getting a LOT of wrong numbers on my cell phone. As in, I've had two just this evening. The first one was asking for "Wes". The second one startled me like crazy when it rang, because to be honest, nobody actually calls my cell phone. All that person said was, "Wrong number, sorry." But by far the more interesting of my recent wrong numbers is a few days ago, when Microsoft decided that I was a girl named Staci and I needed tech support. I had to admit, I felt pretty special getting phone calls from Microsoft! Except, you know, they were poor techs stuck calling people about their problems. And, you know, they weren't even calling for me. But still! (Just to be fair to Microsoft, I'd like to say that the second call I got, the guy on the other end took me off the list and I didn't get anymore. So, it was handled.)

I've been meaning to make another post for days, only I've been kind of depressed. But this isn't a post about me being depressed--this is a post about me trying to remember all the AWESOME things I've been meaning to post about.

Like, um, webcomics. I recently picked up Starslip Crisis, which, given my interests, I should have been reading already, but wasn't, for some reason. It's an extremely excellent strip--funny, no-holds-barred satire, but also an original storyline. I love good science fiction! So, if any of you are looking for more webcomics to read (and who isn't?), give it a shot.

I also picked up Templar, Arizona, after months of telling myself to do so. (Websnark linked to one of the creator's side projects a long time ago, and I get the impression people have been reading that instead of her REAL project, so I felt guilty.) It's a little cryptic--it's kind of got that "indie film" vibe going (whereas, say, Starslip Crisis, has more of a "professional webcomic" vibe). But, once you stop being horribly confused, that's the charm of it, and there's something about the tone that I really like. It's got a neat flavor, I guess. Also, the artwork's gorgeous.

(Incidentally, the reason for both of these new comics, for me, was the Webcartoonists' Choice Awards. They both got like half a dozen nominations each. Not bad.)

Next thing I really ought to be reading, don't know why I'm not? Girl Genius. (No, I don't read Girl Genius. Yes, I'm a bad webcomics fan.)


Also, today I started poking at Google's customized homepage. I'm usually slightly contemptful of such things, mostly because I generally set them up and then never use them. But, I figured, hey, I'll give it a try. After all, there is this handful of stuff that I do all the time and it would make sense to have it all in one place. And, if nothing else, it made me get up off my butt and start plugging RSS feeds into Google Reader. (Except, wouldn't you know it, half the blogs I read don't have feeds. Go figure.)

Oh, and I guess before I end this post, I should mention that I got my cavities filled, and while it was utterly miserable, it's done. (One of the cavities turned out to be way bigger than the dentist thought, and now the entire biting surface of that tooth is plaster. I guess it was pretty bad. We got charged more for it, too.)

I was going to make a post about X3, which I saw yesterday. But then subsidaryforge made one that says everything that I had wanted to say, only better, so . . . just go read that one, eh? (Lots of spoilers, of course.)

( I will say a couple things, though (spoilers!) )

On a more interesting note, we went to Hastings afterwards, and I found this book, and I laughed until I cried.

So, another yucky aspect of the train ride that I didn't mention in my novel was that my MP3 player started spazzing out around midnight, which was exactly the sort of stress I didn't need at the time. So, I just put it away, and I didn't get around to trying to fix it until today.

My first impulse was to reformat it, in case it was just the songs themselves being corrupted or something. (I had some sort of vague suspicion that it might be rebelling with me for filling it up to within 10mb of its little 1gb limit.) However, just reformatting didn't help anything. It kept garbling songs up and randomly shutting off on me. So, I got on the manufacturer's website and, following their advice, reinstalled the firmware. (A term I wasn't familiar with before this experience--you learn new things every day, I guess.*) That seems to have taken care of the problem.

So, now I'm listening to music, just to make sure it's really okay. Except, now I'm remembering why I had been avoiding listening to music before; when I listen to music, I have this tendency to sing along, dance, or at least mouth the words and bob my head. Which is fine when I'm by myself, or in the company of my roommate, who is at least as goofy as I am about these things, but it does make me look rather silly.

I can resist the urge . . . I can do it! ^^;



*I may not be highly knowledgable about matters of computers, but I fortunately possess the ability to learn most things quickly, provided the technical level isn't too high. I once managed to install Linux on a laptop, even. That was an utter fiasco, but the installation did work--the fiasco was trying to get back to Windows afterward. I wonder if that means I know just enough about computers to be dangerous. Hm.