TBAY - About Representing Every Thread PLUS Tech Question
elfundeb
elfundeb at comcast.net
Wed Oct 9 04:59:06 UTC 2002
Chained to her laptop with a mere 850 more posts to catalog, Debbie hears a moan and glances over at Eileen, chained to the laptop in front of her.
"I get the point. I've found the first post of
> the "Who would I date?" thread and I'll look for the others I can
> remember. But you will let me off the hook for anything else I missed?"
>
Dicentra runs headlong toward Eileen, hoping to stop her before she
goes any farther.
"Nooooooo!" she howls. "Don't catalog that schlock! Please! For the
love of everything that is holy and some that is not, don't go there!"
Debbie leans back in her chair, a smug expression on her face. Vindicated! she thinks, for her steadfast refusal to catalogue post after post detailing what Hogwarts class they'd like to take and why ("CoMC, cuz I *love* pets" . . . . "Ancient runes, cuz I can already write Cyrillic and Elvish"). Some threads don't deserve representation, thinks Debbie. In fact, she's been very generous with her inclusions to date.
Standing defiantly and encouraged by Dicey's support, she ventures to ask a more mundane question.
"Erm, I've got some questions about this zip drive thing. I didn't have any trouble downloading it at home, but I tried to put it on my laptop today so I could take it along on a business trip and work on it in my hotel room, and it wouldn't save except to the a: drive, and after spending half an hour trying to pull it up on the screen, the only thing that worked was QuickView (which, truth be told, is rather slow). It won't give me the "save as" screen no matter what I try. Is there an alternative or should I muddle through?"
"You see, I'm really trying hard. I even updated the database today, instead of just conforming my entries to everyone else's additions."
And you thought nobody could be a worse Luddite than Elkins. But Porphyria has a point:
the database will only be updated
with 24 hours worth of changes every 24 hours whether we update it one keyword
at at time or whether we all collectively update it once.
"Yeah, the "collective update" conjured up a vision in my head of each of us poised at our computers at precisely 12 noon GMT each day awaiting the command: "Ladies, start your hard drives!" It doesn't matter when we update; a certain amount of realignment will be required at some point."
And about the sniper:
"Cindy, you seem to live in *my* neck of the woods. Is that you I've seen driving that destroyer around the neighborhood?" <waves wildly at Cindy>
But it's not a laughing matter, as Elkins said:
Even serial killers
usually don't seem to be selecting their targets purely at random.
This fellow sounds as if maybe he just plain likes killing and wants
to do lots of it, which I find a very frightening notion indeed.
Indeed, the sniper is more frightening to my kids than last year's terrorist attack down the street, because last year I managed to convince them that Osama bin Laden only attacked symbolic targets and our house just wasn't important to him. I can't do that this time around. I can tell them the odds are very slim but that doesn't satisfy: they want reassurance that it *won't* happen to them. Last year after 9/11 they could go outside to play and let off steam. Now the schools are in "lockdown" mode with police escorts at arrival and dismissal, and all outside activities cancelled. And we're at least 10 miles from every attack thus far. So we are left to pray for the sniper's capture.
Debbie
who doesn't want Cindy to be shot either
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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