Abodes.org

It’s called a new lappy. I bought a refurbished (don’t laugh, the last place I worked we bought a lot of new and refurb Dells and the refurbs had a much lower failure rate) Dell Inspiron 1720. 17″ screen, pretty good graphics card, a moderate amount of RAM that I already upgraded (cheap cheap on Newegg).

So that parts good. But then I had to buy a laptop case. You see, my laptop bag that I held my 12″ PowerBook in was not nearly big enough for the beast that is this lappy (it has a full numeric keypad!). While shopping for lappy bags, I thought to myself, “Self, this lappy is so big that if you carry it in a soft bag you will bash it into everything. Maybe you should look into a hard sided lappy case.”

Thus I purchased a Solo Attachè on Newegg. (God typing the grave mark over a vowel is way more of a pain in Windows). It’s sweet. It’s big. It’s heavy. It’s sweet.

Closed case on my stove.
Case with lappy and accessories
Case with objects to give relative size

Now, before you say “Wait sloth, that looks really bulky for a lappy. Why did you buy that?” let me point out that there is nothing light or easily portable about a 17″ laptop. I bought it for three reasons: 1) my desktop sucks by modern standards, 2) I wanted a new machine to game on, and 3) I wanted a new machine to code on. A big portable desktop that happens to have a battery included was the perfect solution. This case is basically an armored shell to make sure it survives from point A to point B. If point B happens to be on the other side of point IRAQ it had better well make it unscathed.

Also, if you ever need a large amount of money carried somewhere I have the perfect case for it. I only charge 5%.

The wife and I (primarily her, I have RSV2 to play) and it got me thinking, “What could we really use a katamari for?” Here are some suggestions. Add your own.

• Garbage pickup (like BFI or Waste Management)
• Removing pet hair from practically everything
• Strip mining
• Fishing
• Farming (replace harvesters)
• Really awesome snowballs
• Mowing the lawn (after rolling up a bunch of razor blades)

I really want a katamari. Maybe if I get one I can roll up some presents too. Maybe even cousins.

So sometimes… late at night… I think about nearly improbable situations. It appears I am not the only one!

Now I say ‘nearly improbable’, since being a physicist, among other things I’ve learned it is possible to throw a ball throw a solid wall. It just would take near elevenity-million-billion tries (on average) to get one through. We later discovered the wall would crumble and the earth would die before we’d have time to make that many tosses at a given wall.

So besides the past, I think about the future, terraformed Mars (unterraformed is useless, I’d just die – end of exercise),  an alien space ship, and just about anywhere else outside of here and now.

Sadly, Bonsai Kitten is no longer in business. But we can get their old site on archive.org – yay for the way back machine.

Bonsai Kitten

Turns out the woman is good for something, pointing me here.