a tragedy averted, and a question

[constance]

I had dinner once with Richard Leakey as part of a programs committee event at my university, and he told our group, after the student sitting next to him ordered a Coke, that they sometimes soaked their especially filthy digging instruments in Coke before washing them, because Coke was so famously corrosive, and they'd never been able to find a made-for-the-purpose dissolving agent so cheap and effective.

It was a little rude of him to put his fellow diner off her drink of choice in that way, wasn't it? But his story has left me with a residual frisson about Coke. I do still drink it, and more than I should, but I sometimes wonder as I'm drinking it what exactly it's doing to my inner workings.

And it's not altogether surprising that the frisson developed into a fully-fledged Episode yesterday when I was putting together a new weed-eater and through a series of events now hazy in my mind managed to tip a Coke straight into my laptop.

I took the entire thing apart as quickly as I could, patted each piece dry, and put it all back together again, and nothing; and I had visions of the Coke eating away at my computer until it just dissolved completely into a puddle of useless goo. But I guess all it needed was a little time to dry out, because it's been gradually coming back: first the power supply, then the monitor, the hard drive. Last night before bed I got the beginnings of the operating system but not all of it, and this morning I reset the clock and was back in business. Thank fuck.

Not that I'm not making absolutely sure to get current backups. The puddle of goo is still floating around in my brain. But I'm a lucky girl to be typing this, this morning, and boy do I know it.

:::

Also, on Friday, one of my coworkers made some crack about my baby-blue eyes over the phone, and when I informed him that my eyes are not, in fact, blue, he had to come downstairs to take a look for himself before he would believe me. "Huh," he said to me. "I guess you just strike me as the kind of person who ought to have blue eyes."

And ever since then, I've been wondering: what sort of person ought to have blue eyes? Have you ever felt that someone's eyes should be a certain color, regardless of what color their eyes actually are?

Comments

[tofty.livejournal.com]

I cannot even describe to you the relief I feel at my laptop's hardiness. (I keep reminding myself that laptops are actually a pretty hardy breed, but still, it's not something I'll want to test EVER AGAIN.) Not only am I very, very fond of this laptop, but I really cannot afford to buy another computer, laptop or no, right now, and if I were to lose mine at this juncture, I'd just have to live without for a while and subsist on beans and rice to save up for a new one.

I did not know that root beer could serve as a battery cleaner! I will have to research this matter more thoroughly. And I would take you up on the offer of a baby tooth so I could perform a Coke experiment, but, I mean, is it even legal to ship baby teeth across state lines? :D

And! Yet another thing we share as regards our taste in men! In fact, I'm beginning to think that the Venn diagram of our taste in men isn't so much a Venn diagram as it is just a single circle.

[laurelwood.livejournal.com]

Such is my fascination with thrift and home economics that now I'm fumbling for an equation that would tell me how many months of beans-n-rice = a new laptop.

And you're right. I'd forgotten about teeth being a class A forbidden substance. And how could I, when the guy at the post office always rattles off that litany, "Does this package contain any substance that's fragile, liquid, explosive, or is the rightful property of the tooth fairy?"

Hahahaha- it really IS just a single circle with the taste in men. Tall, dark-haired, thin and big-nosed, right? With an optional side order of spectacles?

Reposted for careless math mistake *facepalms*

[tofty.livejournal.com]

Okay, let's see.

A typical meal would cost an average of about $5.00 in my house, since I eat out much more than I should. And a pot of beans-and-rice would cost about $1.50 to make (the rice is free, because I got ten pounds of the stuff for Christmas, and the rest is the beans and onion and various spices) and would serve about six meals, so about $0.25 per meal. Which gives me a savings of approximately $4.75 per meal. And I generally eat two meals a day, which is bad for me I know but it is my habit so let's be honest here; so an average savings of $9.50 per day.

Now to the computer. I'd probably research my brands and models and then buy my laptop on ebay, because they're cheaper as long as you know what you're looking for and what to look for in the product description. But prices on ebay fluctuate, and so for convenience's sake, I just found the least expensive laptop that fits my needs on the Best Buy site, which is $649.99. If I add say $75.00 for a memory upgrade and figure in the 7% tax for my city, then the total cost would be $775.74.

Divide $775.74 by $9.50, and you get 81.65. So almost three months to save for a laptop, assuming I ate pretty much nothing but beans and rice during that time.

God, it's a good thing I love beans and rice, and bean soup, so much. :D

:::

Hahahaha, I hope to hear my postal clerk ask me about the Tooth Fairy one day!

And yes about the men. That is exactly it.