A random thought I just had coming from the transoms of my sleep deprived mind (hurray conference deadlines)…
In an exchange of not-really-witty e-mails, a friend wrote something that he knew would annoy me. (If you’re curious, one of my pet peeves is the misspelling “prolly” — “probably” has three syllables! You can’t just remove the middle one and expect it to be okay!) In response, I simply wrote to him, “I hate you.”
But of course, I don’t really hate him… in fact, I hate very few people, if any at all. (Although I can certainly think of a number of people I dislike.) After I sent the e-mail I then wondered: if there was someone I actually hated, is there any situation in which I would send them e-mail that simply said “I hate you” with no further explanation?
I don’t think there is. While the concept of sending such a terse line to certain politicians is amusing to think about, if I truly hated someone and wanted them to know it, I would also want to expound upon why. So if in the future you receive such an e-mail from me, rest assured that I don’t mean it.
But, damn it, it’s P-R-O-B-A-B-L-Y.

First things first, I got a new phone number: 952-431-9500
Things I’ve noted throughout the day…

• Virgle — Easily the most entertaining April Fools joke
• Click on any video on You Tube’s homepage
• Custom Time for Gmail
• Open up a google word document and then go to File, and look at the line under “New Document.” (Thanks, Lou, for the heads up.)
• More from Google
• Livejournal announces a new advisory board member
• The microwave and toaster oven in our downstairs kitchen were mysteriously upside down today… as were all of the glasses, which were also filled with water. Gee, wonder who did that…
• My housemate, who has a tendency to forward every crime alert notification she receives, forwarded an e-mail that appeared to be a crime alert notifying us of jaywalkers on our street. The suspect descriptions seemed oddly similar to certain roommates of mine. And upon further inspection, the x-sender was not the same housemate as the from address.

I’ll add more as I discover them… although I should note that I’m officially bored with the RickRolling… ha, ha, we get it. Find a new joke.

I bought a new computer yesterday. It shipped last night. Now, to prevent myself from becoming smug and annoying, I’m not going to tell you what it is. (But if you want a hint, I got scores of advice from Quinn.) However, in line with my standard computer naming convention*, it will be called Octopus’s Garden.
My current laptop is four years old, no longer recognizes a battery (any battery — so I have no idea whether my current battery is dead, though it functions nicely as a paperweight), and has a fan louder than a jackhammer. Seriously — people have requested that I turn it off because of the noise. Others have just mocked me for the sheer size of the thing. Six months ago I decided it was time to replace it.
After much hemming and hawing and weighing of options (and letting price and the fact that I own a free Zune lead the charge), I actually placed an order for a ThinkPad in October. But thanks to Lenovo’s inability to ship it to me in a timely fashion, I got buyer’s remorse and canceled the order a week later. This led to six more months of hemming and hawing and weighing the options, this time discounting the ThinkPad due to a severe lack of customer service.
In the meantime, my eight pound laptop kept me chained to the wall, my savings account grew a little, and a housemate told me about boot camp, the $15 copy of Windows XP available to all Michigan students, and the words “educational discount” and “refurbished.” Suddenly price and the Zune weren’t issues anymore. And yet, I still hemmed and hawed for another week because I really don’t like spending money. But yesterday, I did it. I gave away my credit card information and hit send. I figured that, like in October, if I wanted to change my mind I could do so. Eight hours later, I got an e-mail saying they had shipped it. There’s no going back now.
But for the love of Pete, don’t call me a “switcher.” I hate that term.

* – My desktop is Strawberry Fields, my current laptop is Abbey Road, my printers have both been called Penny Lane, the two wireless networks in my house are Pepperland and Across the Universe, my now-belongs-to-my-sister iPod was Yellow Submarine, and the Zune is Glass Onion. Various hard drives have been Polythene Pam, Mean Mr. Mustard, Dear Prudence, Lovely Rita, and Nowhere Man.