And I shall call him little Sam: part deux

So....the buttheads at Apple have decided that it's actually cheaper to give me a new computer than to fix my old one. It's $280 plus tax (that's $280*1.08625) for a new ibook withe the new OS, 120gb ram and 1 gb of memory (still not sure what the memory does).

These jerks have been pulling lies out of their asses for the past week or so. What the fuck do you mean you don't have any motherboards? I don't know much about computers, but I know that motherboards are important. It's not going to take you 3 weeks to get one in! Anyway, I think it sounds like a pretty good deal, no?

I just hope I can keep the carcass of little Sam. I was so fond of him.

Hopefully they'll give me another free ipod that I won't use. Heehee.

I'm going to freeze to death

So, you remember that time Sam was in Germany and the hot water stopped working? Yeah, she washed her hair in ice cold water because she's just crazy like that. And then she realized that the refrigerator wasn't working anymore, imagine that! After that she found out that the reason she was shivering violently was not because of her icy wet hair, but because the heat wasn't working either. What happened afterwards, you ask? She fiddled with the fuse box and plugs for a fruitless half hour before taking a blanket and huddling on her bed with her laptop, relishing the warmth coming from the computer's exhaust. Wasn't that hilarious?

Go ahead, laugh.

The most attractive first sentence ever

When I went to bed at twelve thirty last night I had the absolute worst case of postnasal drip imaginable. It was disgusting. Indeed, I did have to wake up several times during the night to blow my nose. When my alarm woke me at 9 am I discovered that, along with the terrible postnasal drip my breathing was also obstructed by solid green mucus. After clearing my sinuses I decided to go back to bed for a little bit. I woke up again to discover upon looking at my computer that it was in fact 3pm. I just woke up and it's going to be dark in about fifteen minutes. My body is being incredibly stupid.

That is all

[Edit: it is 5:15 pm and I think I could go back to sleep right now.]

Look at me!

I arrived in Berlin about two days ago where I realized that Tegel airport is much dirtier than Schipol (Amsterdam) and also much less...English-speaking. I had lots of time to realize how nice Schiphol was because I was there for about five hours.

The apartment I'm staying in is huge. Apparently, come Monday. I will be sharing it with someone else. No matter, as long as I have internet everything is fine.

They (aka those people) lost my luggage somewhere in Amsterdam (I think). This means I had one pair of underwear and two pairs of socks which I just kept washing in the bathtub until someone got here with my big pink duffel bag. I am also apparently getting sick. I keep waking up with a sore throat and I just can't stop sneezing. Also, I cannot find a supermarket. After searching for one yesterday I finally gave up and went to the pan-Asian restaurant downstairs. I couldn't find one today either. I have eaten once in the past 60 hours, and the scary thing is it doesn't even bother me all that much. I will go out tomorrow and find a supermarkt, now that I have google maps to tell me where one is.

I took the u-bahn and the h-bhan today. They are very tidy. Very, very tidy. The u-2 was an old car from east Germany renovated. It was...interesting.

Anyway, all this sounds like I'm being pessimistic and terrible but I'm not actually having a bad time. I get to be all by myself with my computer and my books. I also get to walk around a really nice city that's safe! And, I'm finally out of the country.

I'm going to stop now because my sneezing is impeding my typing.

My computer

For someone who supposedly grew up during a time when everyone started using computers I am remarkably technologically inept. I need someone to hold my hand while I buy a computer. I trust them and, like a child listening to her parents talk about Santa Claus, place complete trust in whatever they say.

About a week and a half ago I turned my [formerly] reliable mac on and received an error message. Little Sam told me in about four different languages that I had to restart it. I turned it on and off again several times, the problem persisted.

In a mild panic I did the only thing I could think of: I called everyone I knew who had some knowledge of computers. Three pleas to an uncle, two trips to the mac store and a hard drive wipe and reinstall later (and a partridge in a pear tree) little Sam still refuses to work


Little Sam is motherless. She has a motherboard problem and it's going to take a long time to fix her broken heart. In the meantime I have this acer. He's decent except he just goes into hibernate mode sometimes and doesn't come out of it. The one good thing to come out of this: I can play maplestory. I'm downloading it right now.

Starbucks: What image are they trying to project?

First of all, circumstances dictate that I hate the world right now. My little mac laptop has ceased to work (I keep getting error messages when I turn it on, which means I can't turn it on). I also have incredible PMS (the first step is admitting you have a problem) which just exacerbates the situation.

I noticed a lot of strange things in the [meta]city today, most of which I have forgotten:

1. Times Square: people seriously just go there to see the advertising. They go to see the advertisements. There are so many things wrong with that.
2. New York is basically a basically a hodgepodge of different cities put together. Chinatown, Little Italy, Times Square, and Central Park all don't seem like they belong together. Other boroughs aside, Manhattan is a perfect example of how America doesn't work together as a melting pot.
3. What would Baudrillard say about Chinatown? Is it any different?

Putting those aside because they make no sense...

The thing that puzzles me the most: Starbucks. You really cannot walk for more than five minutes in New York without seeing one. I was told to "camp out there" while waiting for someone. It's become the defining feature of most cities. It is the corporation, and it knows it. However, there are some interesting contradictions present.

1. The logo. First of all, the person on the logo is a woman. A woman with a star on her head. She looks like the statue of liberty. the circular nature of the logo with a person in the middle of it makes it look like currency. American currency. You would almost expect "in God we trust" to be on either side of the her. To top it off, the place is green. The Starbucks logo might as well be currency. What does this signal? This place has no qualms about telling its customers that it is all about the money in every way imaginable.

2. The name. The name (I don't know what percentage of the population knows this) is actually taken from Herman Melville's Moby Dick. It's a relatively original name for a coffee shop. It attempts to invoke the literary history of America. However, the corporation's logo would not have let you know that. There is no indication of Queequeg, a whale, or even Captain Ahab on the logo. The thought processes in making this decision might as well have been: the name has "star", a flashy word, and "bucks", a word for dollar in it. Maybe they thought it just sounds nice and would make the place seem trendy.

3. The art/emulation: What do you expect to be in a coffee shop? Art. Starbucks has it in abundance. It adds to the atmosphere, no? However, look closer: it's art about coffee. People make coffee shop art, but not about drinks. It's essentially advertising thinly veiled as art.

4. The names. Tall, venti, grande, whatever. Someone asks you what size you want. You reply, "large" and they stare at you as though you are from outer space. At first you feel alienated, out of your element Then, you get used to it. You feel savvy in contrast to the Starbucks noob behind you who asks for a medium. There's the "I ordered a venti mocha frapuccino with whipped cream and I know what I'm talking about" mentality. Perhaps it gives you some sort of identity. Maybe you just feel smart. In any case, minus the people who won't go in because they are intimidated and have no idea what to order, Starbucks succeeds here. They make people feel good about themselves.

So, the verdict: Starbucks knows exactly what it is. Perhaps it is maintinging a thin facade that it is a real coffee shop. However, it is everywhere and people know that it is a chain. They know Starbucks is everywhere in abundance (and unnecessarily so). There is also no way anyone is swallowing that synthetic art as real art. People take this place at face value. Perhaps Starbucks is simply maintaining civility with its surroundings.

Ever since I got home...

It's as if recently life has been trying to make up for the constant monotony and boredom of the past three years. Last night after a 3-hour trip from western Mass. to New York city some friends and I decided to go to that noodle place, you know the one. I ordered the chicken udon although I was warned against it. After taking a few bites a girl I was with received a phone call telling her that she had to get to the apartment she was renting immediately. I couldn't let her go alone in a cab so I abandoned my dinner and went with her. It's okay, the chicken udon tasted kind of like vomit anyway. I have lived in New York city my entire life, and I have never had to hail a cab. Getting two of them in the same night was quite stressful. The place was sketchy on the outside, chewy on the inside. Seriously though, it was really nice...actually kind of frightening.

In other news, post a visit to the dentist I drove my sister to school for driver education. When we got into the car we realized that the steering wheel was actually smoking. Yes, a string of smoke was coming out of the button that turns on your emergency lights. We turned to the age-old solution: turning the car off and turning it back on to see if the problem persists. It didn't, so we pressed on. Traffic was backed up to high heaven the whole time and I was almost assaulted on my way back. The news when I got home: someone was shot at a diner a few blocks away from my house. Think what you will.