Thursday, March 6, 2008

Random Thoughts

I know there's been a lack of posts here recently, Mr. and Mrs. 14thandYou have been busy doing whatever it is hip, trendy kids living in a hip, trendy neighborhoods do. Namely, vacuuming, doing laundry, working late hours and cleaning cat puke off the carpet. Ah well, who said the cool life is always interesting? Anyway, there's been a number of thoughts kicking around Mr. 14thandYou's (mostly) empty head, and he finds The Internets a great forum to express these thoughts. (He occasionally also makes use of The Google.)

  • So, has the crime in Columbia Heights gotten worse with the opening of the Target store and its DC USA box store retail brethren? Some people seem to think so. Personally, I'm of the opinion that ColHeights hadn't turned the corner as much as some people (namely, area real estate tycoons and government cheerleaders) thought it had. Yeah, it's miles better than where it was a decade or so ago, but so long as people are getting mugged in broad daylight on Metro escalator steps, well, that's totally not alright. But, yeah, it will continue to improve, and one can only hope with a sizable investment now taking shape in the neighborhood the city will have a greater impetus to crack down on violence and crime there. (Sad, but unfortunately true.) Oh, and all of the "gentrification" talk--come on, the development includes a Target, a Marshalls, and a Giant. That's about as "high end" as our 1998 22" color TV with the broken picture tube.

  • When in the world is the Q St. destruction, er, restructuring going to be completed? They're at least three months behind schedule--at least according to the original project timeline. Really makes Logan residents wet their pants with anticipation over the pending 14th St., 11th St. and P St. projects, eh?

  • "Heat pumps" are like "fast food": wrong on both counts.

  • Hillary Clinton is accusing Barack Obama of having ties to shady real estate investment deals? Golly, who else does that remind me of? Thinking...thinking...

  • The 14thandYous are looking at upgrading our household technology--which could only be fairly described as "Pre-Cambrian". Chief among this project is an upgrade from our current computer, a 1982 Commodore 64, replete with a 5 1/4" floppy drive and pre-installed versions of Oregon Trail and Where In the World is Carmen Sandiego. We've done a little research, but if anyone has any tips or suggestions--we're all ears. (Serious suggestions only, please--no "Speak and Spells" or "IBMs").

10 comments:

IMGoph said...

blogger sucks, i posted a comment earlier, and now it's saying there's nothing there...grrrr...

well, if it does come back, this will be repetitious. anyway, i was recommending that you get a new 24" iMac, as you could use it to replace both the television and the computer in one fell swoop.

Brian said...

At last Wednesday's ANC meeting, Chairman Reed said that DDOT had told him they were probably going to start paving tomorrow, now yesterday.

Of course, they've been telling him for months now that it was almost done, so....

Mr. Other Upper NW said...

Yeah, we've heard Chairman Reed at least twice now assure us that he'd been told the Q St. project would be done "in a couple of weeks."

Gotta love the vague timelines.

imgoph--we've had entire *posts* disappear before, so I'm not surprised your comment went off into the ether. We're looking at iMacs as an option--the Mrs. is a big fan of color coded spreadsheets and Consumer Reports (a lethal combination if ever there was one), so I'm certain I'll be receiving the executive summary of her research along with recommendations any day now...

Anonymous said...

Thank you for keeping on the topic of Q Street. Seems like they've just stopped working.

Keith said...

Ditto on the Mac. Any Mac would do.

AVOID ANYTHING WITH VISTA!

chelt said...

If you're a fan of spreadsheets, get the Mac just for Numbers (Apple's spreadsheet application). It's so much more intelligently organized than any other spreadsheet program I've used.

mediocre bad guy said...

Can I just say that when I clicked the comment button I was going to say dump windows and get an apple but I feel all warm inside knowing that multiple people beat me to it : )

La Chingona said...

Are you looking to dump the Commodore 64? I have such fond memories of Oregon Trail (yes, I even "bought the shirt" that has a covered wagon and says "You Have Died Of Dysentery" AND playing Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy on my old C64. I'd gladly take it off your hands - I can be reached at amber.d.garza at gmail.

Mr. Other Upper NW said...

la chingona--Ah, sorry to disappoint, but I may have slightly exaggerated the depths to which our household technology had sunk. What we actually have is a 2001 IBM Thinkpad, which these days seems to have the processing speed of the Commodore 64--but without the kitsch.

And what a coincidence, I died of dysentery a few times myself. It sucked.

Unknown said...

Ditto on the Mac recommendations. There's a lot of advantages, and don't forget that, should you really need it, you can run Windows on it. I've had no fuss whatsoever with mine, although I would recommend that you install Firefox for your browser; Safari is the only application that ever crashes on me.

If you go the PC route, I highly recommend that you go with Dell. Their hardware is solid (in all categories), and although it's faint praise, their tech support is the best of any that I've dealt with. I'm a buyer for a technology company, so I deal with all of these companies all the time both on the purchasing side and getting repairs done, so please benefit from the many frustrating hours I've spent with some of these companies. My experience with HP, which would be my next highest PC recommendation, has generally been that each person you talk gets info from you and then decides that they are not the one that can help you and passes you on.