my life as a nomad

it's wicked cold

maybe it's just me... but it seems rather absurd that i have to pay extra money for something to perform up to it's expectations

case in point: i've been relying on a rather outdated (as in, "over a year old") version of norton's antivirus software. and since i've been too cheap to cough up the coin for the yearly subscription, it's ability to protect my computer is probably suspect at best by this point. added to all this is the fact that i've noticed that my computer's been getting bogged down quite a bit recently, and i think i've pinpointed the cause to a couple of files/programs running in the background that have no reason to be getting as much attention from my processor as they are

so... long story shorter, i upgraded to norton 2006 (brief sidenote: why do they give model years to products that don't originate from that year? i'm sure it's just an advertising gimmick, but it seems rather silly to be able to buy a 2006 chevy or anything else with the '2006' prefix in 2005. then again, i do feel like an adept and suave consumer who's ahead of the curve when i buy stuff a year before it should be available, so maybe their marketing scam is actually working on me). and it seems to have weeded out the troublemakers without any real problem. so i guess that's good

nonetheless, i hate paying money for something that shouldn't be necessary. i mean, if there weren't evil computer genuises who have nothing better to do than to write stupid programs to infect innocent people's computers, then i wouldn't be out 40 bucks right now


which makes me think... what would i do with that forty bucks if i had it back?

probably something alot cooler than protecting my computer against adware, viruses, and worms. oh well.


i've been reading some old familiar favorites this week... just finished up "the pond" by robert murphy (superb short novel), and i'm re-starting "orthodoxy" by g.k. chesterton. i've never actually finished "orthodoxy," but it's not because the book is either poorly written or boring. it's actually the polar opposite. it seems that whenever i start it, i'll be plowing through it and loving it until i stumble upon some point that i hadn't previously unearthed, at which point i invariably put the book on the back burner while i mull some new idea or concept over. this time, though, i'm determined to read all the way through it, cover to cover, before i stop to really think. here goes nothing...

reading books you've read before is sort of like visiting an old friend. you know who they are, what they're like, and what's going to happen, but there's almost always some point or feature that had escaped your attention previously that comes to the surface, and makes you realize all the more just why they're such a welcome acquaintance.


plus, when you're a homeschooler, you tend to count your books as friends. it makes for a much more impressive number


(like, a positive one)


oh, did i mention that it was wicked cold today? windchill hovered around zero for most of the day. that's cold. especially when you're on a bike.


thank goodness for hot coffee.


-noonan-

posted by Patrick @ 10:48 PM