Also, for some reason, the video card doesn't quite fit right. Arthur has shown me which one is the video card, and how to remove it, jiggle it around a little bit, and reinstall it. About once a month, it gets out of position, and I have to do this. Sunday night, I came home from work, and D. said the computer was dead. I was all set to jiggle the video card, but he said he'd tried that. He jiggled everything, in fact. I played with the video card, but it did indeed seem to be installed properly, so I called Arthur for advice. He said he'd try to come over later this week to look at it. Today, I was seriously jonesing for an internet fix, so I took the case off again. This time, I noticed that although the video card was ok, some of the other ones didn't seem to be inserted entirely. Silly D. I got them all fully attached, and like magic, the computer started. Yay. Even though I know that anyone reading this who knows anything at all about the innards of a computer is probably horrified ("She can't do that! She doesn't even know what she did! Anything could have happened!"), I feel quite technologically clever now.

***

For reasons not entirely clear to me, D. accepted a free trial membership for digital cable. Through this special offer, we pay the same amount, but we've suddenly got about a hundred more channels. We get this deal for one year, and then, in theory, we'd pay full price. Of course, in theory, the point will be moot by then. In practice, we get digital cable for maybe two months. I was teasing D. last night.

"Are you sure you wanna move?"

"Um..."

Seriously, digital cable is pretty sweet. I highly recommend it. Besides the dozens of music channels and the hordes of HBO's, we now get Noggin. Noggin kicks ass. It's apparently owned by CTW, and they show vintage Sesame Street. You know, back in the days before goddamn fucking Elmo was even born. (Man, I hate that perky little bastid.) Back when Mr. Hooper ran the store. Back when Mr. Snuffalupagus was still imaginary. Real Sesame Street. D. and I relived our childhood for about two hours last night.

A quote from D that pretty much sums it up: You know, it makes sense now, all the drugs we've done. Look at the fucked up stuff we watched as kids. (ten minutes later) Actually, it's kinda surprising how few drugs we ended up doing. Look at this!

Remember Ernie, singing the "D" song, and Cookie Monster trying to act it out? Remember "one of these things"? Remember Grover, teaching "heavy" and "light?" Remember the counting thing, that always ended with the baker falling down the flight of stairs? We saw them all, and many more. Noggin is my new all time favorite channel.

There was one skit that probably would have bored us to death as kids. Bob and Bert and Ernie and some kids were sitting together, trying to come up with a list of things that everyone did, or something. D. and I didn't learn a lot from that, to be perfectly honest. We were both watching this one little girl who was sitting next to Bert, not paying attention to Bob at all. You could actually see her three-year-old mind boggling as she looked at Bert.

Just imagine that. You're three, and you've had a pretty normal day so far. You woke up, had some breakfast, maybe Mom or Dad took you to the park, you played a bit, and then you went and met Bert. You've never seen anyone like him. He looks like a toy, but he's almost as big as you are, and he's talking and moving and stuff.

She kept touching his nose. Bert would wiggle his eyebrows at her, and rub his nose like she had made it itch. Then, he stared at her till she touched his nose again. Then, she tried to look down his shirt. Bert shook his head at her, and whispered something. Then, they hugged. It was the cutest damn thing I've ever seen, and I would have totally missed that as a kid. They were off to the side. The main action was Bob and Ernie and the rest of the kids.

Feh. I've gotta start getting ready for work now. I've probably ruined your entire impression of me, by admitting that I enjoyed watching Sesame Street last night. Um, I'm still a bad-ass. I can prove it. I think this is hilarious. Parental discretion is advised.

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