Oh, to see a drive!

Today I went nuts and bought some gadgets. Actually, I've screwed up
completely this week and bought way too much stuff.

First there was the tea binge. Then there was another tea binge.
Then there was a mini tea binge where I just *had* to go to a half a
dozen stores looking for a tea strainer. Yeah, I know, I don't NEED
one, but I just found out about them and wanted one. Well, despite
the imminent beauty of this area, it's all practicality. No store
within 10 miles of here seems to have a tea strainer, special pots,
infusers, etc - I finally did see a tea ball or two, but eh, I have
those...

However... I happened upon Staples in my travels, and had had this
conversation with someone at work about copying stuff off a laptop
drive when Windows won't boot, and... well... Yeah. So, $200 later,
I have a 160GB Maxtor One-Touch III Drive, a teensy 2GB flash drive
(it's hardly bigger than my thumbnail), a nice little retractable
cable kit, some more pens, and another set of batteries. In all
honesty, I think I did pretty well in there for the pricetag, but...
$200 is still $200, right?

Anywho, I had to format the hard drive as ms-dos so Mac, Windows, AND
Linux could all read it. Funny, Mac reads everything it seems. Not
a bad thing since it's my primary computer these days. The drive is
wicked. It weighs about as much as my old Visor Edge with its case
shed. One "Y" cable connects it to the computer, and so far I've
only needed one of the USB connectors because it's getting plenty of
power from both Shady and Raven. (It supplies the Y cable - and thus
two USB connectors - in case a computer can't supply enough power to
the drive.) NO power cable. No switch. It basically acts as if it
were a flash drive. Only this flash drive has 160GB of free space on
it, plenty for copying files off a little laptop if necessary.

In conjunction with Knoppix, of course. Hehheh.

The little 2GB is a backup because it's teensy, was half price ($20;
I tell ya, technology prices are dropping insanely), and I figure
it'll stay put in my little tech kit because it's so little and is
encase in some tacky rubber folder thing. My other 2GB drive slides
out of its pocket and I often worry I'll lose it because I want it so
accessible.

So, then I ended up at Bed Bath & Beyond and found a nice shelf to
put on the counter to hold more teastuffs and [hopefully] keep things
neat there. Rearranged the pantry a bit, got a mortar and pestle
(always wanted one; handy for grinding herbs), a few jars and
suchness, and voila, kitchen and pantry look nice again.

Off to a concert soon, so I must end here.

~nv