I protest.

Stupid computers.

I haven't had a chance to do much catching up with the State of Things this evening, or to write here about them, due to an outbreak of extreme inanimate perversity. My wife uses Windows 2000 and Outlook for its support of Chinese input methods. Her mother doesn't read or speak English and they correspond via email constantly. Well, this afternoon my wife's computer wouldn't boot. "Disk error."

After hours of various attempts to fix things, I finally gave her my (nearly unused) Windows 98 box so she could at least take care of her email while I continue to try to diagnose the problem with her system. Since I don't use email on it, though, I had to install the various Microsoftian bits and pieces, which took more hours. My entire evening was eaten by a combination of recalcitrant hardware and just plain broken software. As a software engineer, I loathe the crap that Microsoft sells. Unfortunately, its ubiquity means that that's what the uninitiated know how to use.

But this is a rant for another time. Enough for now to say that of my eight currently running systems (including a couple of single-board computers), not one of them is running Microsoft software.

Despite tonight's great waste of time, though, I did want to point out a couple of good reads. First off, Natasha at "the watch" has a very informative two-parter about what it's like to grow up with Asperger's Syndrome. I'm glad to say that, from the attributes she describes, I do not suffer from Asperger's, although I'm almost certainly on the continuum somewhere toward the extremely mild end. This is just as well, since I already have enough to deal with.

I also want to point out the ever-entertaining (and often extremely cutting) wit of Tom of TBOGG. Today's chuckle was generated by this bit (links are broken again, someone please shoot the programmers who wrote and maintain Blogger, okay?):

Looks like the Bush administration unfurled the "Mission Accomplished" banner a bit too early. Someone needs to needlepoint a sampler for Karl Rove's office wall that says:

Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony." - Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

Heh. Indeed.

While I'm blogging around, I want to cast a quick vote for another under appreciated blog: Hi. I'm black!: Bret Boone on Steroids? You're welcome, Glenn, and with this vote you tie my showing of a couple of weeks ago. I find that I've already voted for Earl's entry a few days ago, without intending to do so at the time. I also want to cast votes for a couple of other bloggers on the left side of the aisle, first "Where We're Bound : lefty geek talks politics, macintosh, and community media," and second "archy." Fortunately, this archy can use the shift keys.

Finally, to do my part to get folks off that nasty Blogger software, if you run a low-traffic weblog like one of those above, want to leave blogspot behind and can afford to chip in a few bucks every now and then against hosting costs, drop me a line.