Shiny new toys
Jan. 22nd, 2008 09:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shewhomustThere is an outbreak of new and shiny things on my f-list: ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lamentables has a pretty red shiny, desperance had the Laptop of Heavenly Perfection. I have new and shiny, too, but I'm always wary of new and shiny: like the orang-utans, I am sceptical of changes in my cage*. Which version of the lightbulb joke is it that goes:
I have a new (to me) flatscreen monitor, passed on by a generous friend, and suddenly my world is no longer restricted to 800X600 - or rather, to the letterbox slit that is all that remains by the time my many toolbars are deployed across the top of 800X600. No longer do crucial buttons fall off the bottom of my screen, and I may even be able to use Flickr's map feature, which was previously closed to me. Better still, I can flick with very little effort between one display size to another, so that I can still check out my own page designs to ensure they work on both large and small screens.
There are things which will take some getting used to; my old screen was darker than it should have been, and I find this one startlingly bright in comparison - I've turned the contrast down to minimum and it's just about comfortable. Text is suddenly very small; that's going to take some getting used to.
And it's so - so flat. It doesn't stick out for yards behind. That's really very neat.
The new food processor, I actually went out and bought. I use my food-processor a lot, and this one was showing signs of wear: by which I don't mean the sinister cracks in the plastic of the base unit, but the nasty habit the grater blade was developing of jamming onto the spindle and refusing to come free after use (of course, these two things may be related). And this particular machine, which I inherited from my sister, never had the fine grater which I had used so much on my previous one - and, come to think of it, I miss my blender which burned out many years ago...
So when Sainsbury's offered me a two-in-one machine half-price, I bought one. Initial reaction: it's huge, and feels flimsy compared to the old one - this may be all in my mind, a reaction to modern, light-weight plastics (I'm always suspicious of light-weight things, heavier feels more real, more proper), but the bowl is as big and light and gleaming as a bubble. It will take me some time to find out what all the attachments are for, but the fine grater performed admirably.
More pleasurable than either of these, though, is a shiny new book. And I has a shiny new book, so shiny new that it hasn't been published yet, hot off my printer in batches of 50 pages (because I don't want it too hot off the printer). And it's full of good things: islands and pirates and a dragon - shiny!
*Very well, I admit it: like the zookeeper, I am also is very fond of rum.
lamentables has a pretty red shiny, desperance had the Laptop of Heavenly Perfection. I have new and shiny, too, but I'm always wary of new and shiny: like the orang-utans, I am sceptical of changes in my cage*. Which version of the lightbulb joke is it that goes:How many --- does it take to change a light-bulb?That's me. Nonetheless, I have new and shiny:
What's wrong with the old light-bulb?
I have a new (to me) flatscreen monitor, passed on by a generous friend, and suddenly my world is no longer restricted to 800X600 - or rather, to the letterbox slit that is all that remains by the time my many toolbars are deployed across the top of 800X600. No longer do crucial buttons fall off the bottom of my screen, and I may even be able to use Flickr's map feature, which was previously closed to me. Better still, I can flick with very little effort between one display size to another, so that I can still check out my own page designs to ensure they work on both large and small screens.
There are things which will take some getting used to; my old screen was darker than it should have been, and I find this one startlingly bright in comparison - I've turned the contrast down to minimum and it's just about comfortable. Text is suddenly very small; that's going to take some getting used to.
And it's so - so flat. It doesn't stick out for yards behind. That's really very neat.
The new food processor, I actually went out and bought. I use my food-processor a lot, and this one was showing signs of wear: by which I don't mean the sinister cracks in the plastic of the base unit, but the nasty habit the grater blade was developing of jamming onto the spindle and refusing to come free after use (of course, these two things may be related). And this particular machine, which I inherited from my sister, never had the fine grater which I had used so much on my previous one - and, come to think of it, I miss my blender which burned out many years ago...
So when Sainsbury's offered me a two-in-one machine half-price, I bought one. Initial reaction: it's huge, and feels flimsy compared to the old one - this may be all in my mind, a reaction to modern, light-weight plastics (I'm always suspicious of light-weight things, heavier feels more real, more proper), but the bowl is as big and light and gleaming as a bubble. It will take me some time to find out what all the attachments are for, but the fine grater performed admirably.
More pleasurable than either of these, though, is a shiny new book. And I has a shiny new book, so shiny new that it hasn't been published yet, hot off my printer in batches of 50 pages (because I don't want it too hot off the printer). And it's full of good things: islands and pirates and a dragon - shiny!
*Very well, I admit it: like the zookeeper, I am also is very fond of rum.
