Rebecca's laptop is in the shop for repairs. This is the second laptop she's had and the second one that has had some catastrophic failure. Although two data does not make a trend, it would seem that the common denominator is Rebecca. She needs one of those military-grade laptops that are hardened for battlefield use. Then perhaps the CD drive would stand up to being stepped on (previous one) and the hard drive wouldn't crash (current one). I had visions of needing to pay an exhorbitant repair bill, but had forgotten that we had done something very smart in buying a 3 year service policy for this machine. We *never* buy the extended warranties on any household items, but this one seemed to be crying out for one. Shouldn't there be some actuarial science applied to figuring out insurance policies on computers based on the age of the primary user? I've got to believe this is like cars - younger users are far more prone to calamitous damage. But then there would be cries of discrimination and such, so just forget I asked that.

I was reading about new digital cameras (I think I'm going to get a Minolta Dimage Z1, even though it's much bigger than the tiny slip-in-your-pocket varieties - there is something to be said for heft) and came across the term "dark noise" for the electronic graininess that can be introduced into pictures at long exposures. It gives me the chills even to see those words together - they seem to be right out of a nightmare concoction of Stephen King's and Anne Rice's bastard child.

Movies: The Big Bounce. This is not big. It does not bounce. It is completely deflated and without any degree of coherence. It lumbers along like a blind-folded cow in a pasture of sink holes. Every single actor seems trapped in a character that won't allow them to breathe (except, perhaps, Willie Nelson, who seemed pretty happy). Sara Foster's character is described as being "a knockout, in a slutty kind of way", which is an affront to sluts the world 'round. There were no laughs in this movie, and no smiles either. The deep turquoise blue waters off of Hawaii were the best feature - 90 minutes of waves would have been preferable to this disconnected mess.