Memory loss.

This morning, while hacking away at my laptop, I had the strangest realization: half the memory was missing. Instead of the 128K, it reported having only 64K. What's more annoying, when I rebooted the BIOS reported the same thing. After powering down and removing all peripherals, I cold-booted and all the memory came back.

So now I know: never cold-boot with a PC card in. That seems to be the trigger that makes the memory disappear. Why this should be, I have no clue. But I can consistently make this happen on my Thinkpad 600E, which annoys me no end. Another-work around seated in physical habits. I can't stand those.

"Are they made with real Girl Scouts?"

So, omahas orders a box of Girl Scout cookies from one of the people where I work. No, let me re-iterate: she ordered six boxes. Apparently this was more than one poor little girl scout could handle, because she didn't have the six boxes today. So, I have to wait until tomorrow for them all to show up, and she doesn't want to sell them to me piecemeal.

I hope Omaha's not too teed off...

Mexican Food and Alchemy

That is such a pretty song. Too bad I don't know a word of Mandarin.

So I had a positively lovely date last night with a good friend who, unfortunately, was suffering under one of the many bugs that are floating around and laying every one I know flat on their backs, but not for anything recreational. Both the kids are sick, too. I seem to have shaken off whatever was bugging me last week but for a slight sniffle.

After meeting her at her workplace, we headed down to this amazing Mexican restaurant, mostly vegetarian, that I am not gonna disclose because they don't need the business: they need to publish a cookbook. I had their chicken tacos with this delicious purple cabbage topping mixed with tomatoes and mango, and a salad of jicima, tomatoes, pineapple, and touches of cilantro and parsley that I'm just dying to make at home. It was beyond delicious.

We're lucky we made it there in one piece. Her cold must be knocking her out pretty bad; she wasn't fit to drive. She almost got creamed by an oncoming firetruck as she maneuvered around a bicyclist. And firetrucks generally don't care: they're much bigger and have a low center of gravity.

And we went back to her place, where we sat and snuggled and I caressed her skin gently and we spoke about mortgages and families and her dream kitchen and the things she would make in it if she had the time, and I complained about wine-based chilies and wheedled out of her promises of more vigorous nights to come. When she's well again. It's such a pity that she was floored by some rhinovirus, though; she's such a sensual creature, so deserving and rewarding.