No, Becky isn’t cheating on me… and no, I haven’t replaced my problem-plagued PowerBook. Though you might say I’m cheating on it, but more on that in a moment.
First of all, about Becky’s “boyfriend” — which is actually a body pillow, not a “boyfriend pillow,” but she refers to it as a “boyfriend” anyway, just to annoy me. :) She’s been talking for weeks about getting one, anticipating the need for extra comfort when she becomes unable to sleep on her stomach later in pregnancy. So today, we finally went to Target and bought it. Here’s a photo of Becky in bed with her new boyfriend:
Note the cute pajama pants. They have puffy clouds on them, and they’re fuzzy. Also note the teddy bear. I gave that to her years ago. His name is Brain (because he has a giant head). Oh, and that cute girl in the photo? She’s got my baby inside her belly.
(Which reminds me of yesterday’s funny-exchange-of-the-day. Me to Becky: “You’ve got a baby in your belly.” Becky to me: “It’s not really in my belly. It’s in my uterus.” Me, indignantly: “It’s in your belly. Don’t you question my euphemistic biology!”)
Anyway… Becky has a thing about naming inanimate objects. Her car, for instance, is Janet. So naturally, she wants to name her “boyfriend.” So far, the leading contender is “Alejandro,” but suggestions for alternative names are welcome. Meanwhile, I think I might name one of my pillows “Megan.” Turnabout is fair play, right? ;)
As for my new computer… I’m sorry, darling PowerBook, but I’m cheating on you with… [cue horror movie music]… a PC!!!
That’s right: I bought a used Compaq Armada E500 at Computer King this afternoon. [Horror music continues, then gradually subsides, replaced by sad-sounding violins.]
But… but… it’s not what you think, PowerBook!! I don’t have feelings for the Compaq! Our relationship is purely professional! And anyway, I had to do it!
See, the Colorado Board of Law Examiners lets you take the essay and performance-test portions of the Bar Exam with a laptop, but it has to be a PC because Examsoft doesn’t support Macs. I type much faster than I write, so this is very important for me — but my old Dell Inspiron isn’t reliable enough for bar-exam purposes. Its battery doesn’t hold any charge whatsoever anymore, so if the power supply came out for even a second, I would lose all my work. (Back before Notre Dame’s cheating-prevention program honor-code supplement of choice, SecureExam, supported Macs, I actually took my first-semester 1L exams on the Dell, with the power cord masking-taped to the desk so it wouldn’t come out. It was a nerve-racking, rigged-up arrangement, but it worked. I’m not going to take that sort of risk with the bar exam, though… especially since masking tape probably isn’t allowed in the examination room.)
My original plan was to either borrow a laptop from Kristy or V, or rent one when we get to Denver. But then yesterday, I found out that I needed to download and register Examsoft on my computer by this Monday, so that meant I had to get one here in Knoxville, and fast. I called Rent-a-Center yesterday and they said I could rent a Toshiba for three weeks for $125, so I went in today planning to pick it up. But then they said they couldn’t give me the laptop until they’d confirmed my references and such, and they wouldn’t be able to do that until Monday. Because I’m taking a PMBR multistate mock exam at UT on Monday, and then the Examsoft deadline is at the end of the day, that was no good. So I went to Computer King and, after listening to their rental options (as well as some rambling nonsense about the Illuminati by the oddball shopkeeper), I decided to just bite the bullet and buy a used laptop for $300. It meets Examsoft’s requirements, and hopefully after the exam, I can resell it and get most or all of my money back. So this might end up being a better deal than renting, actually.
So, yeah. Becky has a new “boyfriend,” and I have a new computer — officially the fifth laptop that we own. (My PowerBook, her current iBook, her old barely-functional iBook, my old barely-functional Dell, and now the Compaq.) All in all, an eventful day in Loy-land.
July 14th, 2007 at 9:42:00 pm
Becky, your new boyfriend, impresses me with his obvious caring and sophistication. When I showed my pillows his picture they immediately said “That’s Beauford G. Thaddeus Beauregard”!
July 14th, 2007 at 9:57:37 pm
Becky’s dad’s name is Thaddeus, so I think that might be a little weird. :)
July 14th, 2007 at 10:13:02 pm
Yeah, and Beauregard is one of my basset hounds.
So, are you going ahead and shipping the PowerBook off for more work and relying on the Compaq til after bar exam, or what?
July 14th, 2007 at 10:29:49 pm
No, I’m deferring action on the PowerBook until after the bar exam — except perhaps for sending a slightly modified version of my letter to Apple’s corporate address, if I decide to go that route. Now that Mail is working again, the other problems I’ve been having, while irksome given that this is a $2,500 machine with a world-class OS that really shouldn’t have such problems at all, are not crippling.
July 14th, 2007 at 10:55:10 pm
Any excuse to link to Megan Fox is fine by me.
July 14th, 2007 at 10:58:43 pm
Oh, you guys are pregnant? I hadn’t heard.
July 14th, 2007 at 11:00:39 pm
A body pillow is great, but I totally recommend a pregnancy peanut pillow. You can get them at Bed Bath & Beyond. She will use both of them for different areas.
July 14th, 2007 at 11:01:30 pm
If the Computer King will give you your money back, I found a P3 IBM laptop running XP for $150 on Craigslist. We could go run pick it up, if you’d like to save a few bucks.
July 14th, 2007 at 11:07:55 pm
BTW, here’s a link to it
http://knoxville.craigslist.org/sys/373371066.html
July 14th, 2007 at 11:11:59 pm
Jay, I saw that too, but I hate those IBM laptops. I find them awkward to use, and wouldn’t want to take the bar with one. I know, it’s a weird tic, but one of my former workplaces had them, and I just didn’t like them. In any event, “all sales are final” at Computer King, barring defect or whatever. (If I try to return one, I think the shopkeeper will send the Illuminati after me, whereupon they’ll throw me in one of the concentration camps that Homeland Security is building for the illegal Mexican immigrants, don’t-cha-know. … Strange man, the Computer King shopkeeper.) I was loathe to throw down $300 before more fully investigating other options, but the reality is, I had to get this computer this weekend, and Computer King is closed tomorrow, so if I waited and then the Craigslist options didn’t pan out (there was also a $250 Dell on there), I’d have been screwed.
Hopefully I’ll be able to resell it for a similar price to what I paid. If not, oh well. The points I’ll gain (or rather, won’t lose) from not having to hand-write my answers are worth $300.
July 14th, 2007 at 11:13:30 pm
Oh, and Anonymous, if you don’t want to hear about our pregnancy, you may want to stop visiting the blog for about six months.
I know, it’s very weird for a couple expecting their first child to want to talk about it a lot… very strange indeed. What can I say, we are bizarre people like that.
;)
July 14th, 2007 at 11:53:12 pm
And it is Brendan’s blog after all…
July 15th, 2007 at 12:46:40 am
Brendan, you can use my laptop if you want. It works pretty well, so long as you rest it on top of a bag of ice (or frozen veggies/pasta) since the fan sucks and causes the hard drive/processor to freeze up. The trick is to change the bag of ice after an hour or so, before the condensation from the bag starts dripping all over your lap….
July 15th, 2007 at 12:54:44 am
I’s just sayin’ — if this is what you meant by “we probably won’t be blogging about this stuff as much as you might think,” then I’m sure that by January we’ll be treated to a full blown “DiLoytionCam”, complete with hi-res JPEGs of the discharged mucus plug.
July 15th, 2007 at 12:58:02 am
January, December — whatevs.
July 15th, 2007 at 1:05:14 am
Doesn’t seem like they’re blogging about it too much to me…
July 15th, 2007 at 1:22:53 am
Anon, in that same post you’re referencing, I also said we’d be “playing it by ear” in terms of precisely what and how much we end up posting. The overall point was that we’re going to be “cautious” and not just blog every single thing we possibly could without thinking through the ramifications. And that has indeed been the case. Indeed, whenever there’s something in a baby-related post that I’m not sure about, I’ll send Becky a “preview” link to before “going live” with the post, so she can look it over first. And there’s plenty of stuff we haven’t blogged about, and that will continue to be the case. But I never suggested I wouldn’t frequently mention the baby in passing (as in this post) when it’s relevant to something I’m talking about (which is quite often!). Obviously, I’m not going to do the sort of gross-out, TMI stuff that you’re talking about. I hardly think occasional passing references, and a generic joke involving the word “uterus,” are equivalent to what you’re suggesting (or to the “liveblogging every moment of the delivery” that I mentioned in the previously referenced post). As for privacy concerns, those will become much more of an issue once the kid has a name, and is born. In any event, I fail to see how I have either engaged in TMI gross-out blogging, or blogged an excessive amount (15 posts since June 23 in the “Our baby” category).
July 15th, 2007 at 1:25:21 am
P.S. By way of context: there have been 184 posts total in that time, barely 8% of them being in the “Our baby” category (and several of those being multi-topic, like this one).
Is 15 posts in 22 days “a lot”? I suppose so, but for a hyperactive blogger like me, I actually think it might legitimately qualify as “[not] as much as you might think.” :)
July 15th, 2007 at 1:25:49 am
Alejandro never blogs about the baby. :P
July 15th, 2007 at 1:28:30 am
Yeah, well, why doesn’t Alejandro get a job, so he can pay for the diapers, and then I can just blog all day. ;)
July 15th, 2007 at 1:28:50 am
(Wait, I already do blog all day. Dammit.)
July 15th, 2007 at 1:56:55 am
According to the throw pillows on my sofa, your boyfriend’s name is Jacques Casanova. So sorry about the father and dog references on the first try!:o
He was named after a French architect who designed 50, Rue Lacépède at Rue du Cardinal Lemoine in Paris. Here’s where it gets fun, this is the location of Creche Collective (kindergarten).
On two sides, this building resembles the old, restored buildings of it’s neighborhood but, in the center of the facade, rounded forms, like pregnant women welcome children to this kindergarten.
I adore being in this building, it’s always filled with lots of light!
July 15th, 2007 at 2:06:36 am
To see a picture of this building Google “Rue Lacépède”. Under the image section it’s the first image on the second result page. The picture is no longer on the referenced website.
July 15th, 2007 at 8:41:22 am
Well, Brendan, given that you’re planning to take the bar on a used laptop that you bought for $300, I’d say chances are you’re going to be handwriting your answers anyway.
July 15th, 2007 at 2:29:56 pm
Hey Brendan–
A couple of tips for the bar exam… 1) take a long surge protector/extension cord with multiple plugs ins. They only have two plugs for about every 10 chairs, and you will quickly become everyone’s best friend.
2) take some liquids. But don’t drink so much you’ve got to pee every two minutes
3) EAR PLUGS. It gets way TOO loud with 1000 people in a big room on cheap wood tables and plastic folding chairs. I took some thinking I would never use them and they were a life saver.
4) Take some sort of pillow to sit on or put behind your back. They litterally have the cheapest folding chairs ever known to man.
5) Dress in layers…
6) If you’re not a fast food person, bring something for lunch. There is only burger king and wendy’s near the exam place. (Both are in walking distance).
7) Bring two cheap usb storage sticks. Give one to the exam people, save one for yourself with your exam on it. It will give you piece of mind the next three months and you’ll know that if they some how manage to lose your test, you’ve got a copy.
8) Remember, with the exception of your computer bag, if you bring one, everything else has to be in a clear ziplock bag.
I think that’s all I can think of for now. Don’t hesitate to email me with any last minute questions. I know the exam is a pain in the butt, but you’re going to rock it! Try to do something fun the night before, and between the two nights take in a movie, or dinner and just relax!
Courtney