Now let us turn back to A Few New Eras and continue from where we left off.
* * * * *
But while the rehearsals for this gig were going on, components upon components for a new computer were being bought and assembled. This new computer from which I'm now writing to you is an absolute darling:
Motherboard: Abit KN8 Ultra
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 San Diego 3700+
Memory: Crucial 1GB
Graphics: Asus Geforce 6200 Turbocache
Sound: Terratec Audigy Fun 5.1
All within a gorgeous black with silver-trim Cooler Master Centurion 5. The monitor is a sexy silver LG Flatron 17" (L1717S), speakers are nice and simple Creative ones (black), and the keyboard is a lovely black Logitech Media Elite. The mouse is the one we used previously. A very good mouse mind you, yet it's made by Microsoft, and it's beige, so it doesn't fit in with the rest of the system. It's an IntelliMouse Optical. Very good, have had no problems with it, but I think we intend getting a new one. A Logitech one. But all the ones in our price range were out of stock at time of buying, and we haven't had a look since. But here comes the best part...
For whatever crime we had committed, for however long our sentence was due to last, we have managed to make a very good case for parole, and at last it has been granted. We are free, I say! We are finally free. No longer are we confined to the hopes of being moved from one bad wing to another - from the previous 98 Wing to XP Wing, or maybe to this new Vista Wing they've built recently - our shackles have been loosed, and we have since been despatched at the open gates of that terrible, windowless prison, and given a gentle push on our way into the big wide world. However, in the midst of my joy as we trotted out onto the luscious green meadow, I heared one of the guards say to his mate, 'They won't last long. They'll be out there for a few days maybe, and then they'll be back here, tearing the gates down, begging us to chain them up again. Harder this time, lest they fancy to try for parole again, as punishment for their own naivety.' I turned back and saw his mate nodding, but not the nod of a man convinced, for he wore the quiet expression of unsurety on his face. They were watching me, so I turned back and followed my family into the great wide world.
In short, we are now free in the wonderful world of Linux. We've been free for about a month, and despite a few niggles here or there (not at all serious, I must stress), we are having the times of our lives. The freedom is incredible. With Linux you know that if you want to have something a certain way, you can either find out how someone else has got it like that, or you can, if you have the knowledge, programme it yourself. You're only real limitation with Linux, we've found, is your knowledge. That and the relative shortage of games; but we don't really care too much for games, and the ones that we do want to play (I'm mainly thinking of Neverwinter Nights here, although there are a plethora of other games in the various repositories) work absolutely gorgeously. Next on the games list is FlightGear. Once we've got that, we'll be set for a very long time, indeed.
* * * * *
But now it's time for... yes, it is, we know what day it is; it's Wednesday, so that means it's time for:
Word of the Week
Durchfall
der Durchfall substantiv. diarrhoea. Literally translates as through-fall.
Translation courtesy of the Collins Easy Learning German Dictionary
Through-fall. What a beautiful image. It's so very picturesque, no? Very imaginative those Germans, aren't they? Lovely. Well, I'd better get on that damn toilet now, hadn't I?
