Gadgets and gizmos

Among the several computers I use is a Gateway laptop I got in late 2000. I had gotten it because I was about to go away for ten days to write, and the only laptop I had was my work laptop that belonged to my employer. So I bought a too-expensive laptop from Gateway and transferred all my personal stuff from the work laptop to the new one, and went off to my writing retreat. I felt very smart for having done that when, a week after I got back from my retreat, I got laid off. Instead of worrying about all the pornography on my machine -- that's what I had gone away to write, I was finishing my book How I Adore You -- all I had to do was pick up my desk lamp and a few other things and walk out the door.

That was the last time I ever had to go to Pleasanton, a godforsaken cow pasture at a freeway interchange 40 miles east of San Francisco. Today I went back there, because the Gateway store where I bought my laptop closed and the next closest was way out there in Pleasant-not.

The trip turned out to be a waste of time. I went out there because I thought only Gateway would have an ethernet card for the laptop; but ethernet cards turn out to be an interchangeable commodity, and in fact they didn't even sell them. Fortunately there was a big Comp USA next door, so I went over there and bought a cheap network card and, somewhat on impulse, a Handspring Visor Neo. I did that to inoculate myself against buying a more expensive model. I don't need one that has a phone built in; I've got a cell phone.

But things were strange at the Comp USA (a huge electronics chain). Their section of PDAs and phones was completely unattended, and when I got somebody to help me -- all they had to do was unlock a case and hand me a box, I could see it right in front of me -- the guy who finally showed up didn't have the key to the case. He went to somebody and they wouldn't give him the key. So he just sort of came back and complained to me: "Man, why don't they give me the key?! I work here -- they should trust me!" Finally we waved somebody else down and, after about ten minutes, a manager with a very harried attitude came and opened up the case. Then he went away without locking it again, so I hope somebody goes in there and walks away with every single PDA, including the expensive ones with phones built in.

Then I ate lunch at a Chevy's and drove back to SF, listening to the ballgame. The Giants are playing the Dodgers -- I've got tix to tomorrow's game -- and they're doing crummy. They lost last night and they ended up losing today. I hope that makes it more likely they'll win tomorrow.

I found a place to work and wrote about 1100 words of the first part of chapter 18 of the novel I'm working on. I didn't get as much done as I wanted, but maybe tomorrow, after the ball game.