Success!

[trinityvixen]

My mother is going on a trip to England and Norway on her actual birthday, so we celebrated this past weekend. All of my siblings and I banded together to buy her a new computer. Her desktop is so old and decrepit, it takes 15 minutes from pressing the power button to be able to use it. Since she only just uses it for e-mail and card games, she managed fine. But it had to go. We bought her one of the newest iterations of iMacs. We packed her and my Dad off to the movies (they were supposed to see Red, but a timing misunderstanding led them to see Hereafter instead) and began to set up the computer.

Man, I am not a Mac or Apple fangirl, but they are easy to set up. We had the machine set up, software updated, anti-virus program and Skype installed, and customized for her ease of use (prioritizing the MS Office programs she uses in the dock, etc.) inside of half an hour. I even had time to download a bunch of books onto her brand-new Kindle (my Dad's present to her). It then took twice as long for my youngest sister and brother-in-law to get Skype to work on video conferencing between my parents' house, my sister in California, and my brother in Nevada. (I got to finally meet my sister-in-law-to-be over Skype this weekend!) While she did that, I baked cupcakes, decorated them, wrapped the Kindle, some bottles of wine, and the mouse from the old computer. We only just worked out the kinks in Skype and put the finishing presentation touches on the gifts before my parents walked in.

It was a smashing success, all told. I wasn't sure about the Kindle--in fact, I'd warned my mother's best friend off buying it for her because I suspected that the learning hurdle with it would be too high. Not so. Although my Dad promptly stole it from her to fiddle with it (guess who's getting one for his birthday!), she worked at figuring out the basic controls and was downloading books for herself inside of the evening. The computer seemed to intimidate her a tad more, but she's dedicated to figuring it out. When she gets back from Europe. :)

Mostly, it was getting to talk to everyone, including her grandkids on Skype that I think she really enjoyed. I hope she continues to make use of it. But it's always fun when we all get together, and this was a proxy sort of meet up. She was almost in tears, and she said she did cry in church the next day recounting it to people there. We did good, and I hope the new computer really makes her life easier. We pulled off the surprise, we all had a great time, and Mom knows how much we love her. That's a good birthday.

In less sappy news, I came across this latest reboot rumor. I somehow managed to forget that they were remaking Escape from New York. I'm with the commentary on this post: why reboot when you can just get Kurt Russell to do it as an even older, even crotchety-ier Snake? This comment exchange, however, wins at life:
BlueLightRosie: Would just like to see a new iconic character, maybe inspired by Snake, then [sic] doing remake. But then we wouldn't be talking about the movie this early.
ManchuCandidate: Cobra Johnson in Staying in Boise!
BlueLightRosie: Already a better movie.

Former CIA superspy, Cobra Johnson, has chosen to retire lay low in Boise working middle management at a box factory. But his attempt to blend in have failed. Mainly due to his eye patch, hideous scar and pension for threatening the the copy machine with a Walther PPK. But oddly no one really seems to care that he is putting on this charade, untill...

A greedy up-and-comer from the mail room sells Cobra out to his enemies. Now Cobra must stand and fight and do all he can to stay in Boise.

I confess I LOL'D.

Comments

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

You have misspelled your subject line.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Oh noes! Teh fails!