reesesWeb

Airport wireless is better than naked women covered in cheese.

Well, maybe american cheese. Or that weird chalky green swiss crap that tastes like rotten nutella. Recycled.

I might have blogged this before, but I certainly can't be bothered to read back through this dreck to find out for sure.

About one and a half to two years ago, I lost my sense of smell. I was living in Manhattan, and I figure it was either age, or a defense mechanism. Heaps of trash on the streets, washed down by gallons of eau de vagrant, leave a certain je ne sais quoi hanging in the air.

Anyway, about a month of that, and I discovered I couldn't smell anymore. At all. Nothing, except the occasional whiff of something really, really foul. I didn't like food as much, and just felt vaguely dissnortiented.

About this time, I lost my short-term memory. Gone. Completely. This struck me as a far more devastating loss, and I worried that it would progress. Alzheimer's at 30, nursing home soon after. That'll teach that woman for marrying me. You thought leaving the seat up was bad, wait until I go out to the grocery store with you and I forget to wear pants!

Anyway, I have taken measures to recover the short-term memory. My "it couldn't hurt, even though I am exceedingly skeptical that this will work" experiment in new agey herbal supplements has paid off in spades. My short-term memory is back to near-adolescent levels (read off a ten-digit phone number at breakneck speed, and I can actually remember that you told me a number, and dial it, when I get to the phone across the room), and now, praise the gods of sniffery, I can smell.

Food is once again the pleasure that it was all my life. Seafood is heavenly, saffron is a treat, cumin and curry in a dish are enough to make me grin with glee. I can't believe how happy it makes me to try all and sundry things again, and remember how fantastic they are. I drool now, to think of it.

This does NOT give you the right to spring a cold cream-based soup on me. Seriously. Some things are just not done.

OK, pursuant to the previous -- erm, the one below this -- entry I caved and bought a PowerBook. Well, I ordered it, after playing around with it and trying to buy it in the nearest Apple Store. It means I have to fly home when it comes, since it's shipping there, but I'd rather not be packing two laptops around anyway. I couldn't buy it at the store because, while they were getting some in stock Friday, they didn't have the faux-DDR SODIMMs in stock, and they really didn't have any 5400rpm 80GB drives, both of which I need. NEED, I tell you!

I'm going to be so sexy with my new silver Mac laptop that, umm, err, the guys will be all over me?

I just have one thing to say to all the naysayers: kill -9 word

So there.

I'm having real difficulty not buying a g4 PowerBook. I need (ahem) a new laptop, and I'm really going to buy a Thinkpad T40p, but the slim little widescreen Mac calls to me. Never mind that I'd have to buy scads of new software (the $199 Action Pack subscription makes MSFT software almost free), put up with dog-slow web browsing, and a laptop on the trailing edge of technology for bleeding-edge price. (I'd have to get the 15, as the 12 is too, too small, and the 17 is too, too large, but 15 is just right.)

I'll do the right thing, but I'm also holding out hope for a 1.7Ghz or greater Centrino in the Thinkpad. You can never go wrong buying a T-series Thinkpad.

Wild.

I was catching up on weblogs 'round the world, and I see that Colin was probably within a stone's throw of me last weekend, well, the weekend before. I should shove a GPS up my kiester and notify people if they come within beer-tipping distance.

I have kind of reached this surreal state of mind when you don't really live anyplace, and are just travelling. I'm working the "store clothes at dry cleaners and pick them up on the way back through" scheme, and feeling like the Rick Steves poster boy. Underwear, socks, a couple polo shirts, and books, and I'm ready to go. Anything I forget can be bought or stolen from those slow people who get to the baggage claim too late. Next time, sit in the front of the plane!

Gotta get back to DC for Yom Kippur, which is the only tradition I actually observe, other than the nominal kashruth of airplane food and a good falafel from a glatt place. I make up for it with shrimp wrapped in bacon on a cheeseburger, washed down with a milkshake.

Poor kitties. And doggies.

Scrapbooks are webpages for people without computers.

That's my brilliant thought for the day. Or, it's gas.

Noisy. Kids. Outside. Hotel. Window. Can't. Sleep.

On the bright side, on the Budapest front, my research has turned up Magyar quarantine rules, which state that there aren't any for cats. Frankly, the obscene six-month quarantines in other countries is one of the biggest reasons I haven't moved overseas already, or at least spent a couple years elsewhere. Of course, it would also be a pain to find work. I've got all kinds of excuses. My piles keep me out of the army, etc.

While typing that, I realised that I didn't research EU regulations on animal quarantines, and those damned Irish may have the last laugh after all, keeping my kitties for six months.

At least all of the relocations in the past two years have made me the god of moving cats around the country.

No, I have no point. You didn't need to read this. I should do drugs.

Dig.