And while I still hate the touchpad mouse, I am getting better at it. I think i could live with it if it weren't for the lack of the middle scroller wheel. Damn, I miss the scroller wheel.

My biggest obstacle today (other than the guilt of using this brand new beast on a card table right next to my old computer, all lit up and humming expectantly) was the barren quality of a new machine. Reluctant as I am to copy some of the more dubious content from old computer onto the new one, the result is that I am limited as to what can actually be accomplished. Everything I can do works much better, though.

I also spent the afternoon fixing someone else's computer. Frustrating experience. Frustrating because I just got my computer and had planned to spend the day playing with it instead of frigging with someone else's, and frustrating because the job was such a monster. After a few hours of Ad-Aware scans and virus scans and deleting this and that from the registry and going folder to folder deleting stuff I ended up reformatting the drive and installing a newer version of Windows from the Dell recovery CD that came with the client's daughter's PC. The total formatting job took about twenty minutes. Amazing the time that can be wasted. I didn't mind too much; they're friends of the family and they paid decent for the time I was there.

I posted the following at an internet forum concerning the Olympics:

I just like the atmosphere it creates. For instance, the Greeks cheered when the American and Iraqi teams were announced during the Parade of Nations. It's like world takes a break from its petty infighting and takes a momentary pause for a unity through fair competition.