Of Mice and Mouses
Thursday, May 4th, 2006
I’ve had quite a time with the old computer today, and I DO mean OLD computer. According to my UltraSon, it is on its last legs, and will probably transform the strange, arbitrary errors and freeze-ups to total crash one of these days. I have experienced this a couple of times before, and have no doubt he is correct, but we make do with what we have, n’est-ce-pas? And since the latest crisis has been averted, I shall put my blinders back on and pretend all is well until the next time.
Today I installed a new computer mouse. The other one, a roller-ball, cordless little number, tended to get a little bogged down, and I would have to take its cute little roller ball out, clean it up, and we would usually be good to go. But lately this wasn’t enough.
UltraDad has a new computer game he loves to play. It is called Ning Po Mah Jongg, and is the classic matching solitaire game with numerous layouts and tile choices. I must admit, I quite enjoy it myself, and have totally frittered away entire potentially productive evenings mindlessly matching the blue butterflies or numbered bamboos. UltraDad works so hard and this was a way for him to unwind. But it somehow took the fun away when the mouse was jerky or unresponsive. I knew this was happening no matter where I was in the house by the sound of the mouse being thumped (hard) against the wooden stand holding the mouse pad. In the beginning, I would rush in and persuade him to let me clean the roller ball, but I soon tired of this fun game and started pretending I didn’t hear. I know, I was enabling. I should have taken a stand against this mouse abuse, but what could I do? Take the mouse away? He is larger than me and somewhat stronger. Call the SPCA? 911? I did nothing, and now I fear the mouse will never be the same again. It seems to have suffered permanent brain damage; at least that was the conclusion I came to one day when it refused to perform even the simplest clicking task. I soon found out I had to click 2,3,4 times before I got a response. Sometimes I would just go ahead and do multiple clicks, and that time it would respond on the first one, and I would be selecting random options in unasked for programs before I knew it. It seemed I had only one choice: replace it, and this time I was getting an optical mouse.
Optical mouse has no roller ball to get gummed up.. Optical mouse can operate on any surface and doesn’t need a stupid mouse pad. Optical mouse always behaves perfectly. Roller Ball mouse is Goofus. Optical mouse is Gallant.
So, it was off to Office Max. It seemed I was the only customer in the store that morning, and I received immediate help: Clerk:”May I help you find something?” Me: “I am looking for a computer mouse.”
Clerk: “Russ can help you. He will show you the mouses. Russ? Can you help her? She needs computer mouses.” Me: “Actually, Russ, I only need one mouse.”
Russ: (no trace of humor): “Here they are. Let me know if you need help.” (Disappears to far reaches of store). It was quickly apparent that if I wanted both cordless and optical that I was looking at more bananas than I wanted to spend on my ape of a computer, so I decided I could live with a cord. Then I decided I could probably find a better deal at Walmart. I was right.
Back home, I read the instructions. They were written in many languages and had lovely illustrations. It seemed I would have to shut down my computer, plug the cord into a port on the back of it and turn the computer back on. I was delighted to easily find the correct port, and when I rebooted, I was ecstatic to find that, not only did my new mouse work perfectly, but my old mouse also functioned after a fashion. How cool! But my laughter turned to tears when I tried to type an e-mail. The keyboard was dead. Not a flicker, not a pulse. Dead. I unplugged the new mouse and rebooted the computer, my favorite method of clearing out the cobwebs and making everything fresh and new. Still no keyboard. Finally, in desparation I picked up the red phone and called UltraBob on the super secret private line. A flood of strange, incomprehensible words met my ears, uttered in that familiar ulta-voice. I assume he was saying, in Japanese, “I thought I told you never to call me on this line. This had better be an emergency.” I stammered out my problem, and hoped for the best.
But I would have to mourn my dead keyboard later; UltraDad had the day off and wanted to go to town. Several hours later, the proud owners of a new weed whacker, 7 strawberry plants, 8 tomato plants and 10 bags of steer manure, we returned home, and I returned to the problem of my computer. I called the red line again, and this time Bob answered. He even spoke to me in English, an unexpected bonus. He was as puzzled as I, but made a few suggestions. “Go buy a corded keyboard to go along with your new mouse.” “Get rid of that computer and buy a Mac” “Try plugging the receiver box end (for the cordless stuff) into a different port. Crawling under the desk, I surveyed the back of my computer. Eureka, that was it! When I plugged the new mouse in, I had joggled the other cord out of its slot! I plugged it back in, rebooted yet again, and now I am golden. Whew! I can type on my keyboard and have my choice of computer rodents. Hmm, Russ, I guess I was wrong. I did need “mouses” after all.
Back in the land of the connected,
UltraMom
Yeah, we won’t mention that the first question UB asked was, did you accidentally unplug the keyboard dongle while you were fiddling around behind the computer?
Glad to have you back online, but please, don’t buy things from evil evil Walmart.
No, we won’t mention that.
So why is Walmart evil? Soon I will have nowhere left to shop. UltraDad says I shouldn’t shop at K-Mart because they are anti-gun, and Aunt Debi tells me she heard people are boycotting Target because they are pro-France.
I guess I need to write a blog post about why Walmart are evil, but they are better reasons than being anti-gun (I seriously doubt that, they are anti-being the target of anti-gun activists). And they are much much better reasons than being pro-French, that is quite possibly the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. I think I recall something about Target being anti-union which is a much better reason, but anyone who wants to boycott something because it is pro-French is seriously unfit to participate in society since they obviously can’t be bothered to pay attention.
Walmart is evil in part because you are paying for their employee’s healthcare: I’m not completely remembering the details so I’ll reasearch before I do a post, but a large percentage of the health insurance (care?) costs of walmart’s employees are paid for by the government. Walmart is anti union, and anti paying employees a living wage. Walmart is to retail as Simplot is to farming only much nastier. Finally walmart sources most everything from outside the U.S. so if you care about the loss of a manufacturing base in the U.S. they are one of the biggest purchasers and hence to biggest finger pointing target.
Mike has a theory about Wal-Mart. He too thinks it is evil. However, he does purchase certain prescriptions there. His theory is that pharmaceuticals are evil too, so there evil must cancel each other out.
Oh, and one of the reasons Wal-Mart is evil is because they are asking the states to help finance their employees health-care program and yet, they posted over 100 billion in profits last year.