What the dell?

Greetings and salutations, it is 9:15 and I am listening to smooth jazz of some sorts at Starbucks. Yes, that’s correct, I’m writing to you from Starbucks coffee, which means that yes, I’m now the proud parent of a new Dell Inspiron Laptop. So what does this mean to you, fair citizen of New Prussia? It means, hopefully, that I will be doing more writing, which means that you can read more of my blogs, among other things. So I’m finding that learning to type on a laptop is much more difficult then I thought it would be. Additionally it may give me carpal tunnel syndrome because after about five minutes my wrists already hurt. However now I can be that guy, the guy you always see hanging out at coffee shops, looking cool and trendy with his laptop, typing away at some important document. Is he a businessman negotiating a deal? Maybe an attorney writing a brief? Mayhap, he is a blossoming new writer, on the cusp of discovery and fame and fortune. Who knows as mysteries surround this dashing young man, but whatever the case, dang, doesn’t he look important and cool? And now I get to be that guy. Here is the scenario I can now picture happening. Read as it unfolds.

Handsome and mysterious Jeff walks in and sits down with a cup of coffee and begins to write on his laptop. Soon a hot, dumb, blond chick comes in, orders a nonfat Chai Latte, and sits down near him. She eyes him curiously and thinks to herself “hmm he is awfully dapper and working on a laptop at a coffee shop, surely he must be rich.” She moves over and smiles at me.

Curious, hot, dumb blond: “Hi, I’m ____” (her name isn’t terribly important but it is probably something like Tiffany, or Candi or something hot like that.)

Handsome writer Jeff: “Hello, I’m R. Jefferson Jordan.”

Curious, hot, dumb blond: “What are you working on?” She says as she bats her eyes and leans in close. (She hopes it’s a bank merger worth millions but she doesn’t really care as long as it makes me/her wealthy.)

Handsome writer Jeff: “Well, it’s a story about the selling of human heads as a novelty item, but really it’s a satire about post world war two America and the mass commercialism it produced to help cope with it’s fear of a nuclear Soviet Union and it’s possession of the A-bomb. (Or perhaps I say, “It is a sci-fi story set on planet mars about a werewolf coming to grips with his homosexuality but in actuality it’s really a metaphor for the fall of the Antebellum south and life during the civil war and subsequent Union occupation.”}

Now completely bored and disinterested hot, dumb blond: “Um, ok, nice to meet you. Bye!” She says in a complete lack of comprehension of everything I said. She then rolls her eyes and struts away.

Suddenly the pretty, artistic girl dressed in Bohemian garb and a stylish peasant shirt who, I failed to notice due to hot, dumb blond, but was sitting in the corner reading a collection of essays or possibly Atlas Shrugged looks over at me and speaks.

Pretty Bohemian girl: “Really! That is incredibly fascinating! I love post world war two satire. Tell me more. Do you write much?”

Handsome and shocked writer Jeff: “Well I do now.”

Pretty Bohemian girl laughs at my witty remark: “Hi, my name is Sabine.” (Or some other cool name like that.)

We start with small talk and as the coffee starts flowing so does the conversation. We chat lightly about existentialism, discuss the viability of ruling parts of central Europe, stopping briefly upon art and if it can have meaning in a post-modern era, and diverge into other meaningful dialogues. We exchange numbers, go out and spend the next few years together. Maybe we move to New York or maybe we travel to Bohemia and tour other parts of central Europe (as I show her my future domain.)

All during this time I continue to write, become published and get very rich and famous. I begin to move in the upper echelon of high society, mixing and mingling (you knew mingling had to be included) with actors and writers, diplomats and royalty.

Then one day at some random gala event, I look across the room and see her. Hot dumb blond all dolled up and on the prowl. She notices me and walks over. She smiles and introduces herself. She feigns both interest and understanding as we chat. Soon we exchange contact information and depart. That night I dump pretty Bohemian girl for hot dumb blond and the rest is history.

Well that is more or less the scenario that I envision and I think it is a good one.

What’s in a name? Well having a laptop means I need to come up with a name for it. So I’m asking for suggestions. I have two lines of thought here. First of all, the name must be female because all guys name machines after females, (i.e. The Memphis Belle or the Indianapolis Ho) so a female name is defintaly in order. Here are some names I thought of.

Natasha- The old fallback name.

Sabine- In honor of the Bohemian I will some day dump.

Danika- I like this name but I actually new a girl with this name and I would hate for her to hear this someday and think I named it after her.

Isabelle- This leads to another name as well.

Coraline- I stole this from a Neil Gaiman title.

Adaline- I like this name to, it’s also the title of a Elliot Smith song.

Ok. that’s the first list. The second list stems from the fact that my laptop is a Dell, and involves puns made from it. I nominate these names as well.

Adel - get it? A dell.

Isadell- This is kind of funny because it’s a take on Isabelle ...Is A Dell

Adelline- This is funny to because it’s a take on Adeline. A dell-ine.

Madeline - Mad-dell-line- and possibly in honor of my friend Brian’s daughter, which would be weird.

Della- A take off of Ella- also another friend of mine's daughter, which could also be weird.

I’m leaning towards Isadell. Who knew that female names with Dell could be so much fun?

There is one more thing to discuss. In my last entry, so long ago, I mentioned astronauts as hero’s and Kelly said she never thought of them as such. To girls they probably weren’t but to little boys they have always been held up as heroes, even though I contend they now aren’t. Worst of all, Rhino suggested that, by my logic, athletes aren’t hero’s either. I fail to see this. Granted, they don’t have mutant powers or slay orcs, but that doesn’t mean they are not heroes. In fact, they may be the only hero’s we have left. Think about it, they are the modern day equivalent of ancient warriors. They perform great feats of physical prowess, doing what very few can do. Slinging stones? Wielding a sword? Fighting in hand-to-hand combat? There were all skills based on physical ability. Modern athletes are a continuation of this theme. They battle against each other in arena’s and the have tremendous athletic ability. What is more glorious then making a clutch buzzer beating, game wining three point shot from 23 ft away to win a play off game? What could beat a running back, twisting and turning, juking and hurtling over defenders, to score a touch down to defeat the enemy and win a super bowl? What about the Olympics? See they ARE great.

Until next time, keep your underwear on and keep it dry.