"Gourmet soap" and "If you open it, you buy it. Don't get caught!" and "We Don't Except Checks": seen at Food King yesterday.

Drove with Mom for the first time and second time yesterday. She is willing to help me practice again: a good sign.

Today I saw Angel for the first time in months. We Did The Mall. That is, I actually said to my mother, for the first time ever, "Mom, we're going to the mall." After window-shopping (literally, in French, "window-licking"), we ate and lingered at the Food Court. We also toured Barnes and Noble, where I introduced her to Tonight's Episode. What, you'd like to hear some?

• When Good Corpses Go Bad
• The Only Good Corpse is a Dead Corpse
• See Spot Die. Die, Spot, Die!
• Set Phasers to Murder
• Who Wants to Kill a Millionaire?
• Nickelodeadon
• Uncle Sam Wants to Kill You
• When You Care Enough to Kill the Very Best
• Murder of the Artist as a Young Man
• Me Die Pretty One Dead, by David Sedeadis
• Pre-Dead for Your Convenience
• Die Safely
• The Good, the Bad, and the Dead

They're really much funnier when you pile them up like that. Until you get sick of them.

Oh, and the author of the play The Raisin in the Sun is Lorraine Hansberry, which I tried to remember while near an airport in Piter. Of course, I've forgotten something else rather memorable, namely, the gift I gave Katie on our last day in St. Petersburg.

Seen on the spines of mystery novels:
I Know my First Name is Steven by Mike Echols
and
Who Killed My Daughter? Lois Duncan

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Originally published by Sumana Harihareswara at http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2001/8/16/184546/293

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Uncle Sam Wants YOU Not to Bike in the Mall

Thu Aug 16th, 2001 at 11:44:31 PM PST

You know, I'm really glad I don't use Windows and I don't go crazy installing new hardware or software that often. Right now I'm trying to be methodical about finding out why my father's computer won't recognize the driver that I've installed for his new scanner. But my life is more interesting than that right now -- no no, really.

Oi, oi, oi. Which sounds like "Today, today, today," in Spanish, Angel informed me today. (Which led to the decrees that words for "today," in any language, should be at least two syllabes, and "beer" three, unless there's a silent 'h' involved, and so on.)

Sad news. I've tried three different inanely obvious things, and still the computer doesn't recognize the scanner. Dumb machine! *kick*

Oh, and today my mother, for the first time in quite a while, again made an "if only you'd gone into engineering" remark. Because, after all, I have the mind for it. Mechanical fiddling is my strength, right? It's such a shame that I'm wasting it by not majoring in engineering. *gag* I had thought that she was over that!

And something's up with the Net. Dude, Where's My Google? And my ocf.berkeley.edu? (Or my.ocf.berkeley.edu ? Not that there is such an abomination.)

Okay, yob eto. Which is basically "screw it" in Russian, as far as I can tell from my miniscule Russian obscenities lexicon, and refers in this context to the scanner problem. I'm just going to take a deep breath and call the tech support line tomorrow, since I'll be home all day, and maybe they'll have an in as to why this connection seems so reluctant to occur. Maybe the Dell family and the Visioneer clan have some ancient feud that the Quick Installation Card didn't have room to explain.

Be. I read a blurb on the K5 front page that Be, Inc. went out of business, or will soon. Dan is one of the few Be users whom I know. I used the BeOS on his box a number of times and liked it quite a bit. A shame.

Weird mall signs. In one of the two malls in Stockton (they're right next to each other, on Pacific Lane, across from the community college), Angel and I happened across a sign on a bulletin board. It was directed towards people who ride bikes -- already, Angel points out, a mistake in medium choice, since if a person is riding a bike in a mall, will that person read, or even see, this sign? But, in any case. (My math and science teacher from seventh and eighth grade, Mr. King from Henderson School, said that all the time. It was the solid-state recording gag, even.)

So, in any case, this largish blue paper sign read ATTENTION BIKERS at the top. On the right side was a hand-drawn Uncle Sam-type figure, speaking via a speech balloon..."we want you to please stay off the ledges."

Verbatim from the sign:

Don't street ride. Take my word for it. I've went down that road before, and it lead to a dead end. Now that I know it's wrong, I'm trying to convince you to go in the right direction.

Uncle Sam was a street biker?

Happy news. I had an enlightening conversation with Angel, I had a terrific conversation with my sister, and I got fantastic emails from Leonard and Seth. As well, I found out that I can practice driving as long as some over-21 person with a license is in the car with me and can grab the wheel if necessary. (Before, I thought the age limit is 25 and over, but I discovered today that the 25-and-over restriction only applies if I'm under 18, which I'm not.) This expands the pool of "people brainwane can practice with" to include more of brainwane's friends. I win!

I'll go to sleep soon and try to dream of happy things, e.g., returning to Berkeley in less than 48 hours. Berkeley, where my strong will counts for something, a few people consistently consider me good-looking, and I have many friends, all of whom are far above average.

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Originally published by Sumana Harihareswara at http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2001/8/17/24431/1246