August 20, 1998
Dear Everyone:
Well, there’s Good News and Bad News on the
computer
front.
The Good News is that Oberon is fine.
In fact, the PC fixer-person couldn’t find a darn thing wrong
with him. Ran diagnostics
all night and turned him off and back on a dozen times with no problems.
I guess this was just a childish ploy to get out of the house and
meet other computers. Maybe
staying two nights in the hospital scared him into behaving himself for
a while.
In the meantime, I used the office PC to get out
last week’s Letter. But that
didn’t help in the envelope department.
Not only had I gotten used to being able to print, rather than
write, envelopes; but it turns out the only place I had “Byron’s” latest
address was on the envelope. So
I had to improvise a bit.
Hopefully, all that is behind us because my handwriting gets worse every
year.
The Bad News is that moving “Jeannie’s” computer,
especially without a diskette in the floppy drive, was a mistake.
When she got it home Sunday night, it wouldn’t work.
This is much more serious than Oberon, since it’s “Jeannie’s”
livelihood, rather than just the convenience that it is for me.
When she got into the office Monday morning and asked, “Who
repairs these things?” the answer was, “No one.”
In fact, the company that made this computer
doesn’t even make parts for it anymore.
They’d much rather sell you a whole new system.
For around $14,000.
(Nice racket.)
“Jeannie” did manage to find a guy in San Francisco
who used to work for the company.
He said he could fix it with parts he still had on hand.
So she’s back in business by today.
But it’s definitely time to look into upgrading.
As for upgrading Oberon, I think we’ll wait until
we see what “Jeannie” needs.
Maybe she’d like a nice 486
“hand-me-down” with just a slight personality problem and lots of hard
disk space.
On the home front, I did go out and look at
ceiling fans.
This appears to be the only way to cool the upstairs rooms.
First, I went out on the Web and looked at
Hunter
Fans. Everyone says these
are the best; and the house where “Jeannie” had done her fateful
house-sitting had them and I noticed how very quiet they were.
So I checked out Hunter Fans and found out that the
local dealer is none other than the Big, Orange Hardware Warehouse
Store, which is about a quarter-mile from where I live.
I could have walked there, but it would have been tough getting
home with two 52” fans in boxes.
Now I just have to find someone to install them for me.
The trouble with all that do-it-yourself stuff is that I don’t
generally want to do it
myself. And especially if it
involves pulling electrical wiring and drilling large holes in the
ceiling. I want someone who
knows what they’re doing to do it.
So far, I have a couple of people looking into possibilities for
me. Fingers crossed.
Movies...
Yes,
The
Avengers really is just as bad as they say it is.
The fact that the studio wouldn’t let any critics see it
beforehand was the first clue.
The second clue was in the timing.
If a studio has hopes that a summer movie will do well, they’ll
release it as early in the season as possible.
That’s why so many blockbusters show up over the
Memorial Day
Weekend. The studio wants to
keep the film out where it will sell tickets as long as possible.
Think
Jaws,
which ran for one whole summer because people kept going back to see it
again..
Even a July release date means the studio thinks
the movie has a good chance.
But August? The kids are
heading back to school in a few weeks.
This is when Hollywood dumps the dregs.
Think Ernest...
As for The Avengers, as “Jeannie”
says, ”It’s so bad on so many different levels.”
Ralph Fiennes
is, well, fine as Jonathan
Steed; but he
lacks that good natured twinkle that
Patrick Macnee
always had in his eye, as if he knew that life was one big joke and the
joke was on all of us. And
as for Uma Thurman
as Mrs. Emma Peel,
puhleeze! She’s even worse
than you could imagine.
High tech action sequences can’t replace the
chemistry that the two original actors had.
If you liked the
series and don’t mind wasting some time and money, go ahead and see
the movie. If you
really liked the series, spare yourself.
Many thanks to “Mame Diamond” who sent this week’s
funny (and the stamps).
Love, as always,
Pete
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