i need to get a job so i have money so i can buy a mac

Ryan will be interested to know that Microsoft Word just froze on my computer.

Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve used Word? Also, it’s been a long time since I had a crash that was unrelated to World of Warcraft. Like… a year. Because like… I haven’t used my computer for anything but WoW for a year. I’ve had only one WoWcrash since getting my hard drive replaced.

This brings me back to high school when my computer crashed a few times every day and you had to compulsively press “save” every time you wrote half a sentence. But that was back when AOL took 5 minutes to dial into on our 9.6k modem and Windows took more than 5 minutes to load. And the computer had a turbo button. No, literally. Next to the power switch (they were switches then, remember?) there was a button–yes, a hardware button–labelled “turbo.” When we played Oregon Trail, we would turn turbo on and off and giggle maniacally as the oxen’s little feet went supersonic speed, then normal, supersonic, normal, AN AXLE HAS BROKEN! RAYMOND HAS DIED OF CHOLERA!

And then we used pagemaker on Lynbrook’s ancient, decrepit macs and you had to be careful to plan out every move you were going to make because you had to wait 45 seconds between each click. I remember making those dotted-line borders for text-wrapping–what was the process called?–and if you made a mistake, you’d have to wait the usual 45 seconds as it redrew everything on the screen, then fix it, then wait 45 seconds to see if it got fixed. Everybody liked using the PCs more, but only because the PCs were newer. We would start up the computers and watch as each little puzzle piece appeared on the screen. “WTF how come mine has more puzzle pieces than yours, it’s not fair, yours is loading up faster.”

I don’t even remember coding on the APCS PCs at all. I know I must have at some point. I remember that the computers were at the sides of the room while the center was filled with desks in the usual manner of high school classrooms; I remember talking to Sharon and Hsiao while tipping back in my chair while sitting at a computer, but not what the computers were like.

My sister has Mr. Peck (our APCS teacher) for Chemistry. (Yeah. Chemistry? WTF? That’s like the PE teacher Mr. Battaglia teaching my 1st period History class. Except less sketchy.) I told her to ask him about OhBinky!. Hahahahahaha.
Mr. Peck: Computer romance?
Us: Well, you know, online dating and stuff.
Mr. Peck: Oh, I thought you meant… well that’s a nice hard drive… oh binky…
Us: ….

On private variables: “Usually, only I can access stuff that I keep in my pockets, like my keys and my wallet. However, I can set permissions so that someone else, like my wife, can reach into my pockets as well”

My window is open and I smell some kind of gasoline. I hear a garbage truck–groaning machinery, metallic bumps, monotone beeps.