New laptop

Thanksgiving for us is a bit different than for other families. Part of this is just due to family stuff. We got tired of competing with my sister's husband's family for time on Thanksgiving, so a couple of years after they got married, we just started having our big family meal on Friday so they could join us and not feel rushed. We also for years have been a part of a Chinese fellowship that has a big gathering on Thanksgiving as a way to allow them to celebrate the holiday despite most of them not having extended family to share it with. It's done Chinese style, of course...it is a pitch-in, a nod to the American tradition, but almost all of the dishes brought are NOT traditional American dishes, with the exception of the turkey. However, participants do have the option to eat turkey in the style of Peking roast duck, wrapped up in little flour pancakes with green onions and hoison sauce.

Since part of the reason we have moved to this new town was to be closer to a newer fellowship that Leo started and is leading, we still had a group to have Chinese Thanksgiving with this year. Friday's big meal with the family was at our house (it was that or Christmas and I'd rather host a holiday now at seven months pregnant than at 8+ months pregnant). But I ordered a precooked turkey and trimmings from Kroger, and my mom and sister brought a few things, and I have to say it was probably one of the best meals we've had in a few years (despite me forgetting to put the sparkling grape juice on ice and my mom forgetting that she was supposed to be the one to make the sweet potato casserole).

Before the advent of the Friday Thanksgiving (which was also pre-kids), I did sometimes like to partake in the Black Friday madness of hitting the malls. It could still happen in the future, but not when I have young kids, not when I'm hosting the meal, and certainly not when I'm so hugely pregnant. Leo, however, kept making noises about going out to hit a sale or two, and when he mentioned he was particularly interested in a new laptop, which would be primarily for MY use, I said, hey! don't let me stand in your way! The turkey was in the oven, I had the schedule for the oven, stove, and microwave already mapped out, my parents were here to play with the kids, so I was good. Out he went, with my dad dispatched along with him to make sure he came home within a reasonable time period.

And here I sit now, typing on the computer he bought, a Toshiba A100/A105 (I'm not sure which...I just play with 'em, I don't pay attention to the model!). I'm liking the screen size (15.4 inches), and also the fact that the volume is adjustable with a small dial on the front, which means I don't have to scramble for the volume setting if sound suddenly blares out at me when Aislinn is napping.

One of the first things I always do when we get a new computer is play with the settings, primarily the theme. I was happily surprised with some new themes that our old laptop did not have; I can only guess this is Toshiba's addition since Windows Vista is still a couple of months out (I am pretty sure we have the option for a free upgrade when it does come out, though). I settled on DaVinci, though I'm still considering all of the options with this theme. It's got a nice desktop picture, and the screen saver is especially nice (reminds me a lot of some Myst ages, actually). There are also some "special" icons; the cursor is interesting, especially in the "waiting" mode, and the recycle bin is a nifty brown can with scrolls rolled up in it. I don't, however, like the fact that there are sounds for minimizing and maximizing windows (they are distracting and annoying), so I may have to fiddle with this theme a bit.

This laptop also came with the newest version of IE (6? 7? Like I said...), which so far I'm not terribly impressed with. I made the switch to Foxfire a few months ago, so I'm already familiar with tabbed browsing. IE's use of this does not make up for some of the bugs I've found. For example, I am having trouble getting the darn thing to accept that, yes, I really do want Google as my homepage. And there are some problems with images. I may not be able to leavc comments in Blogger for a while if you've got word verification turned on, because I only get a white rectangle with a red x in the corner...no word visible. And I've already tried to download a few pictures from different e-mails I received in the past few days...but only one of them has been able to be saved successfully. I suspect this is an IE issue, and I'm looking forward to downloading Foxfire ASAP, but Leo wants me to wait until he gets all of HIS settings set in his login, and for him to mess around with things a bit first (he always thinks I'm going to break the computer or import some virus. Hello! It's just Foxfire!!)

Oh yeah, one other nice thing I've been appreciating...I am a Solitaire freak, but in truth I played solitaire long before Windows even existed, with real live cards. Anyway, I have never liked playing Solitaire on a laptop much because I am a mouse person, and I have never really adapted to a touchpad. However, this touchpad seems much more responsive, and I don't have to double-click to drop a card like I had to on the old laptop, or wait two seconds for the computer to realize where I mean to drop it. The game seems much smarter, but since both computers run on Windows XP, once again I think this must be a Toshiba thing, not a Windows thing.