Switching

First the big switch: I hope everyone had a wonderful New Year's. O and I actually went out instead of doing our usual stay-at-home- and-have-champagne- and-light-fireworks thing. We went to see the Presidents of the USA, along with a couple of other bands, at Paradiso and it's the first time I've really gone out for New Year's since I rang in 1998 with Sleater-Kinney in Olympia (and then 1998 turned out to be a very good year). The show was pretty good, but it felt like a lot of the audience lost interest at some point. It definitely didn't compare to the energy of the first time we saw them in Amsterdam. There was a quite wacky band that played before the Presidents and lead in the ringing of the new year. They were called Misty's Big Adventure and they featured an interpretive dancer who is apparently called Erotic Volvo. They were a lot of fun and they seemed to have a little fan club section dancing their hearts out at the front of the stage. The evening also included yummy caipirinhas and free champagne and indoor sparklers and huge Happy New Year's balloons being bounced around the crowd. More fun than dodging flying fire outside.

The more personal switch: O finally convinced me to ditch Windows and change over to Linux. Even a year ago I would have never considered it because I thought Linux was only for real computer geeks, but after O installed it on his computer and I saw what it was like, I thought maybe I might like it. I have mixed feelings at the moment, but that's probably because I'm not good with change and I was whinging for days just about my fonts all looking funky and wrong. I know, it's just the stupid letters, but everything looked different and I didn't like it. I think I am getting used to it now, just in time to go back to work tomorrow and be back on a Windows computer. But then other things weren't working quite right, like I can't use Adobe Elements anymore to edit my photos because there isn't a Linux version, and the alternative that does exist in Linux I found to be crap, so I was very frustrated for a bit, but I sorted out a solution eventually. This afternoon I was getting really pissed off with the MP3 player not doing what I wanted it to, but I also needed lunch, so I was extra cranky. I think I'll be happier in the end though, once I learn how things work and get used to it.

So back to work tomorrow, no more days of sleeping in til 11:30. I did get a lot done that I wanted to over the holidays, though I feel that I could still use at least another 2 days off. Oh, and the cat went back to his home on Saturday. It felt so quiet without him, though if you ever had to put up with the racket he makes when he wants to be fed, you'd know just how silent it suddenly was. But it was sad to go to our closet and know he wasn't in there sleeping in the corner he'd claimed, or have him come out and sit on our laps while on the computer or watching TV. We might be able to watch him again this summer though, so he'll likely be back.

Last Wednesday I went into the heavily-fortified American consulate to renew my passport. There was a guy ahead of me at the gate going in and I noticed he had on an Oregon State Beavers hat. So I asked him if he was from Oregon or if he just went to Oregon State and he looked a bit sheepish and even ran his hand over the front of the hat, like "Damn, forgot I had that on and now someone goes and recognizes it...". He said he actually went to the University of Oregon, but didn't explain why he was wearing a Beavers hat then (the two schools are age-old rivals). But yeah, not something I see too often here...