Really? Wisconsin? Did you ever get dragged up to the capitol to see our stuffed eagle? (The Wisconsin regiment during the Civil War had an eagle that rode on a standard and would flap his wings during a battle. He survived the war and came home to live in the capitol building, but he died during a fire in 1912. So they stuffed him and he's still on display.)

I don't think they ever took me to Madison on family visits. We were mostly in the environs of Fox Lake and Milwaukee. So no eagle for me - OTOH, I did go to the House on the Rock a few times when I was a kid. I'd love to go there again, but don't know if I would enjoy it as much now.

I'm hanging in there. How are you?

Hungry, tired.

I don't think they ever took me to Madison on family visits. We were mostly in the environs of Fox Lake and Milwaukee. So no eagle for me - OTOH, I did go to the House on the Rock a few times when I was a kid. I'd love to go there again, but don't know if I would enjoy it as much now.

I've driven past House on the Rock but never gone in.

I'm hanging in there. How are you?

Hungry, tired.

Me, just tired. We had to get my mother a new printer/scanner/copier yesterday.Her new one is actually less user-friendly, so I'm expecting more problems.

Oh dear.

Welcome back, Viv!

I spoke with Vivi on Skype.

Yes, and she had to repeat what she had said only twice!

She is a very classy, very beautiful lady. :)

And she has a wonderful accent.

Thanks, Viv!

You're a lovely lady, too. :)

Me, just tired. We had to get my mother a new printer/scanner/copier yesterday.Her new one is actually less user-friendly, so I'm expecting more problems.

Ugh, I feel your pain. My mom and dad are as computer challenged as it can get. Chris has had to reinstall everything and wipe down their hard drive at least five times. O.o

Yes, and she had to repeat what she had said only twice!

Did I? I don't remember. She speaks very good, really nice English, with that very nice, sing-song Brazilian accent. She spoke in Portuguese and I understood! :D

I only said 3 words in Portuguese, though. :P

Ugh, I feel your pain. My mom and dad are as computer challenged as it can get. Chris has had to reinstall everything and wipe down their hard drive at least five times. O.o

Well, the hell of it was that I might have had half a chance of getting the damn thing working again if my mother had not managed to lose the software installation disk that came with it. You see, the black cartridge was not functioning, despite my mother and son insisting that a new black cartridge had just been installed within the month. But when I tried to print a test page or check the ink levels, the HP Director seemed to be missing entirely. The screen icon was there, but that 'segment' of the software wouldn't open. I got a message about 'invalid path'. Is it possible to uninstall a portion of your software by clicking the wrong button? Because this is something my mother tends to do -- she just clicks and pushes random buttons until she can 'get it to work', which usually fucks things up royally instead.

And now, the new one has touch-screen, and she has to go through three screens just to make a black and white copy. I have a bad feeling about this.

Don't start me on HP. I have had problems with their software before.

They have really awful software. It used to slow down my iMac. My i7 processor iMac! There was a huge memory leak with one of their components. I had to uninstall it and do a bunch of things, so your mum may have not done something wrong. It may have been a faulty update from HP.

Well, there was one thing she was doing that can't have been a good idea. This all-in-one had different buttons you pushed for scans and either color or black & White copies. She would push for a copy and then push 'scan' right away, which is telling it to do two different things at the same time. Her computer is probably filled with those scan files she had no idea she was doing.

Hi, Viv! *Huggles*

Hello persons!

Well, I guess I didn't have anything better to do today. I suppose I might as well go fork over in excess of $500.

Er, what?

It depends on what the $500 is for.

Books. Several of which will run me close to or over $200 and I'll be using them for one day a week, for half a semester. They just love picking the most expensive books they can.

$200 for a book is highway robbery. What is the rationale behind charging that much, except that it's being sold to a captive audience?

I meant $200 total for the whole set of books I'll be using once a week. But given it's only two books, it's still robbery. It's a money-grab by the university. Given how much money I have to pay to the student union every year when they do jack shit, I should be getting my damn books for free.

I spent $200 on a book once. But it was a folio copy of Duc de Berry's Très Riches Heures, but not for a damned textbook that you'll eventually have to resell for $20 bucks. That's bullshit.

Agreed. That is bullshit. Have you tried second hand copies off amazon?

That's scandalous, Al. They should have these books in their library.

Our public library subscribes to a database services called Safari that provides access to text books. Maybe your institution's library provides something similar?

That is seriously out of order by the college Al.

The sad thing is, I recall on at least two occasions in college where I was forced to buy a textbook for a class and then not even using it. Seriously, the 2 profs' entire friggin' courses were based on their notes and lectures, and I didn't even look at the books. I felt like beating them about the head and neck with those damn useless books. Bastards.

But I didn't bludgeon the profs because blood, clots of hair and shredded skin would have damaged the resale value of the books.

We had one incident of a professor not delivering the content of the course as advertised, blethering instead about some hobby-horse of his, and then telling us that we'd find all the contents of the course in his book for which he was now passing round order forms. Needless to say, we avoided him like the plague after than.

I remember a lecture last year that was supposed to be about the League of Nations and its relations to power politics in the 1930's, but instead the speaker blathered on about the minutiae of its internal bureaucracy. An hour and a half of my life I will never get back.

The most pointless seminar I ever attended was a linguistic one about oral communication. The professor was so totally rubbish at speaking that we regularly fell asleep.

Know the feeling.

I spent $200 on a book once. But it was a folio copy of Duc de Berry'sTrès Riches Heures, but not for a damned textbook that you'll eventually have to resell for $20 bucks. That's bullshit.

Agreed. Luckily I'm able to re-use some of these. Some, however, are entirely pointless. And most I'm not even able to resell because they use different ones every year. I'm using two as a stand for my laptop right now.

Agreed. That is bullshit. Have you tried second hand copies off amazon?

I don't own a credit card, and my computer isn't the most secure machine in the world, so I wouldn't want to risk using one.

Our public library subscribes to a database services called Safari that provides access to text books. Maybe your institution's library provides something similar?

The library has all that stuff for essays and such, but they don't put the textbooks up there. They wouldn't make ungodly amounts of money that way :P. Besides, I can't stand reading things on a screen, and printing something of that volume would be very infeasible, even if it were an option. I need the books, but I know damn well they aren't worth what they charge for them.

The sad thing is, I recall on at least two occasions in college where I was forced to buy a textbook for a class and then not even using it. Seriously, the 2 profs' entire friggin' courses were based on their notes and lectures, and I didn't even look at the books. I felt like beating them about the head and neck with those damn useless books. Bastards.

That was most of my first year classes.

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