Wednesday, August 28, 2002

At home on the range: Yesterday I went to the local driving range, where they give you 90 balls per bucket -- far more than anyone else -- because they haven't changed them since about last February. And, be still my beating heart, the new balls had arrived. There was an audible buzz. The remarkably friendly crew who work there couldn't wait to tell me. They were thrilled. I was thrilled. Everyone was thrilled. Naturally, they reduced the number of balls per bucket to 75 (still more than you get from other, more upscale, establishments) but I wasn't about to object. And I couldn't stop. I hit four buckets. That's probably about 150 more golf balls (especially range rocks) than anyone should ever strike in a single session, but I couldn't stop. Twenty or thirty more yards on every drive is, of course an illusion, but when it comes to golf I'm heavily into self deception. And the word was out. This was a Tuesday afternoon in the middle of August, at a time when the range is usually relatively quiet and people kept driving up and emitting yelps of joy as they headed to the dreaded mats. It made the fact that I went out and joined Costco last night quite an anti-climax. 10:53:23 AM    comment []

Dentistry for cats: Okay, I admit it, I have three cats -- or they have me. Two black smokes and a silver tabby named Spike (whose original name was Sprite, but he seemed a little too muscular and tough, so I changed it.) Anyway, the silver tabbies in this neck of the woods seem to have dental problems, and other peculiarities of purebreds. And Spike, at age eight, has developed a cavity. Of course, they don't fill cats' teeth, they just yank them. And this, I am told, will cost me somewhere in the neighbourhood of $500, give or take, including teeth scaling in the hope that this will stem the tide of tooth decay. I, of course, can not let my guy suffer, so I'm going to fork out the amazingly large number of bucks. We have also been sent home with a tiny toothbrush and some fish-flavoured toothpaste. My wife will clean the teeth if I agree to take over clipping the cats' nails. Every time something like this happens I vow never to get another cat. And then I get one anyway. 10:38:52 AM    comment []

Tracking the Jaguar, nervously: I have now installed OS X 10.2 -- aka Jaguar -- in my test laptop. The installation went smoothly, although it did take about an hour and fifteen or twenty minutes. I didn't do a clean install, just put it in overtop 10.1.5. And everything works, with the exception of the help menus, but there are easy cures for that. However, I read on various Mac sites of all the potential problems. Printer drivers not working, software refusing to do what it should, even disappearing type on Web browsers. And I step back and say, maybe I shouldn't put it into what the IT guys at work call a "production machine." This happens every time a new version of an operating system comes out. And, like a wise person, I hope, every time I wait. 10:30:25 AM    comment []