Totally non-stripping topic that might be interesting.

C'mon Yoda, martinis are manly. Ever had a pitcher full? Ever tried to get a hard-on after? Now that's manly.

If this keeps up you guys will be exchanging sewing and laundry tips before too long....

FONDL, I agree, someone has to man the barricades. Even though they don't follow Ceasar's original recipe I still can give a pass to Betty Crocker for at least recognizing that a proper Ceasar salad has to be made at the table and consumed immediately.

Yoda, if it makes you feel any better I have a very manly chili recipe that uses beef, not ground beef, no beans, no tomatos but 3 different chilis. I also can do a mean rack of ribs. Tonight I'm making steak. Don't let all the salad talk fool you.

I am of course refering to Texas chili. While there is a debate within the Texas chili community most defer to the original recipes from the 19th century around San Antonio. They contain no tomatoes. How's your mole sauce?

maybe you "guys" should check out this site....

marthastewart.com

AN, the reason I care about stuff like this is because of the slippery slope. If we permit martinis without gin and Caesar salads without anchovies, what's next? Pretzels without salt? Potato chips without fat? Dancing girls without clothing, writhing on the laps of total strangers? Marriages without women? Thus does civilization die, for lack of a decent martini. One must be ever vigilant.

AN, I don't doubt your wisdom, I'm just saying that it has been common practice to add anchovies for many years. I wonder when/where that started? Any ideas?

Actually I almost never order a Ceasar salad anymore, not only is it hard to find a good one but they give me heartburn. In fact there are only two things that almost always give me heartburn - Ceasar salads and martinis. Unfortunately they go really well together at a good restaurant, and are guaranteed to keep me awake all night long. But one must sometimes suffer for the cause.

And as I said, wostershire sauce instead of actual anchovies, I know it's basically anchovie ketsup. Also as I said, the "real" recipe doesn't use anchovies, I don't doubt many have move on to other recipes, just as one often has to ask if you want a vodka or a gin martini now.

I don't know about yours, but my Worstershire sauce contains anchovies. As I said before, every upscale restaurant that I've ever eaten in put anchovies in their Ceasar salad as the second ingredient - right after mashing the garlic they always scrunch the anchovies in the bowl. Maybe the original recipe didn't have any (other than in the Worstershire sauce) but the commonly accepted recipe has included anchovies separately for many years. I don't argue with Betty Crocker.

Ceasar Salad; Original Recipe by Ceasar Cardini

2 heads Romaine lettuce 1/2 ts Fresh ground black pepper 1/2 ts Salt 8 tb Parmesan cheese 10 dr Worcestershire sauce 2 md Lemons, juice of 4 oz Garlic flavored oil 2 Coddled eggs 1/2 c Croutons

Break romaine lettuce into 2-inch strips, discarding outer leaves. Then pour oil over lettuce. Sprinkle pepper and salt over lettuce. Toss several times, add eggs, Worcestershire and lemon juice. Toss several times again. Sprinkle with cheese, add croutons, toss one more time. Serve immediately.

I'm tellin' you the original didn't use the anchovies, only the wostershire. I'll look it up.

"Caesar Salad -

1. Rub large wooden salad bowl with cut clove of garlic ...
2. Mix anchovies, oil, lemon juice, Worcestershire sauce, salt, mustard and pepper in salad bowl.
3. Add romaine; toss until coated; sprinkle with croutons and cheese; toss." -- from Betty Crocker's New Cookbook, 1996, p. 318." She left out the raw egg. Guess that's considered risky these days.

Every high-end restaurant I've ever been to where they made the Ceasar salad at your table, they started by crushing anchovies in the bottom ot the salad bowl, then adding the other ingredients including a raw egg. I have an old recipe book that tells you to do that as well. I'm pretty sure that's the original method of making a Ceasar salad.

FONDL, hate to pop your bubble but the "real" original Ceasar salad recipe has no anchovie, it uses worschester sauce. Me, I like the anchovies, but a lot of people find them foul, so I'll excuse that one. I think the big olives are supposed to portray luxury or upper end. Anyway I used to think the same thing about people who wanted the martini with 3 olives. Thought of another drink we used to call a gin salad (or a vodka salad). It was a martini served with both coctail onions and olives.

Just thought of another annoying restaurant question: "Would you like anchovies on your Ceasar salad?" That's like asking if you want bacon on your BLT. If there ain't no anchovies it's not a Ceasar salad.

AN, why have all the bars switched to the great big olives for their martinis? Their flavor is way too strong, it destroys the drink. The little Spanish olives are just right but you never get them anymore unless you go to a little old-fashioned neighborhood bar.

Incidently, a lot of the big chain restaurants like Outback charge considerably less than 2.5x retail for their wine (as well as keeping other drink prices reasonable too) which I think is a major reaon for their success. But than they can buy cheaper too.

Chitown, I think a reasonable fee is 2.5x retail cost, eg. if I can buy the bottle for $10 at the liquor store I expect to pay no more than $25 in a restaurant for the same bottle. Which means that their markup is probably over 200% since they can buy in bulk at a wholesale price. I've noticed that restaurants that charge significantly more than that don't sell much wine, so I it costs them money to charge higher prices. The BYOB restaurants around here don't charge anything to serve you your own wine, and there are a lot of such places in PA because there's a limit on liquor licenses.

What do you think is a reasonable premium, above retail price, for a bottle of wine? I've seen some restaurants that don't clip the wine drinkers as much as other restaurants do, but a 300% markup seems pretty common, and I've certainly seen higher. I have seen some restaurants, even some pretty good ones, let patrons bring in their own wine for a $10-15 corkage fee.

"A meal without wine is like a day without sunshine." I rarely have dinner without wine and I always have wine with dinner (and often with lunch) in a restaurant. And I don't patronize restaurants that overprice their wines. Restaurants that expect wine drinkers to subsidize non-drinkers is probably my biggest pet peeve of all.

Topping this non-RL topic...

A day or two on a red is fine, but I agree more than that it should go. I'm not a big wine drinker, but I do love to cook. Given the above whenever I make a dish that uses wine the rest of the bottle must be used within days. I also agree with you on the proper temperature of wine. My sister informed me of that one after a wine class. Remember the guideline was room temperature, for castles and underheated European homes. Also red should be stored chilled since most cellars are much cooler than our typical room temperature. Still the whole point of wine was that it kept pretty well.

A side car is brandy, Cointreau, and something else, don't remember what. I don't think anyone orders them anymore. They're kinda like an LI iced tea in that they are all booze but don't taste like it. Dangerous stuff.

Really good reds should be allowed to breathe a little, but we're talking 10 minutes or so, not a week. But I don't drink stuff that good very often - too expensive. If I don't finish a bottle of red, I refrigerate what's left. That's not as bad as it sounds, reds are meant to be served at 55-60 degrees, which is considered room temperature in Europe, not the 75 degrees of our overheated homes and restaurants here. In most US restaurants the reds are too warm.

Sidecar is brandy and something, can't remember right now, but I can't recall making many. You can keep wine fresh for a very few days with the vacuum things, and there are those who believe that red at least needs to breath a bit to attain it's full flavor. The best resturaunts use a system that pumps Nitrogen into the empty part of the bottle to keep it fresh from what I hear. Never seen one, but it makes sense.

AN, ever make a sidecar? I used to drink those quite regularly. Until I had too many one Sunday afternoon - my worst hangover ever, it lasted 3 days. Nothing like being young and foolish. I used to know a young girl who pounded brandy alexanders like there was no tomorrow. That was a nice after-dinner drink.

Now I only drink wine. My typical bar conversation: "What red wines do you have by the glass?" "(names several), which would you like." "Whichever one was opened the most recently." If you're in a bar that doesn't toss all opened wine out every night at closing (they should, and I always ask), I either order the house red (which is likely to be freshest because they sell the most of it) or if I want one of their more expensive wines I ask them to open a fresh bottle for me. I've found that a lot of places will.

Why do I keep spelling Cherry like a strippers name?

Shadow, that was the secret to my Old Fashioned. Most books say muddle the orange and cheri with the sugar and water, and to top with soda. Blasphemy. You use a lemmon peel, muddle it with the sugar and enough water to disolve it (about a tsp each), then after the sugar is disolved add the boutbon and bitters and very little ice, then add the orange wedge after a quick light squeeze, stir, and garnish with the cheri. We'd always wing it the first time, then go get a lifer to show us how to do it properly after hours. The book is ok if you need to wing it, but can't really teach you.

Shadow, the old drinks are dead, hate to say it. I had one regular customer who came in because he said I was the only bartender he knew who could make an Old Fashioned. I got constant requests for Mudslides, B52's, Sex on the Beach, Lemmon Drops, Manhattans (shudder), and Kamikaze's. The most traditional thing I got on a regular basis was a Long Island Iced Tea and the occasional White Russian. I don't think I've ever made a Tom Collins, nor can I remember having one, but I must have. One of the other bartenders and I had a regular thing. When we got hit with a new drink we'd go to the waiters bar (the one open till 4AM after all the others close, every town has one) and get the lifer there to make one for us. We both got hooked on Old Fashioneds for a while. The other I liked was a Robert Burns. Never heard of it before or since. It is like a scotch martini, but different from a Rob Roy.

AN, my hat is off to you, you are obviously a gentleman and a scholar. There's nothing that annoys me more than ordering a martini and having the waitress or bartender say, "gin or vodka?" I always feel like yelling, "IF I WANTED A VODKA MARTINI I'D ASK FOR ONE." Something else that annoys me, why does the waitress or bartender always ask what brand of gin I want but never what brand of vermouth? Don't they know that the vermouth adds much more flavor than the gin? They're probably using a bottle of cheap vermouth that been sitting open on the shelf for a month and has turned to vinegar. Give me good vermouth that's just been opened and I don't much care what kind of gin you use, the drink will be just fine. I used to work for a guy who would buy a bottle of gin, pour a few drops off the top into his drink, fill it back up with vermouth, and put the bottle in his freezer. No ice, no dilution whatsoever. Best martinis I ever tasted.

Every Christmas I used to give myself a bottle of good cognac. It never made it to New Year's Day.

FONDL, also wanted to mention I agree on the cognac. About two years ago a friend gave me a bottle of Hennessy XO. (He is in the resturaunt biz, apparently got it wholesale, but still.) I made it last a month, even after we both sampled liberally the first night, which I thought was quite a feat.

FONDL, former bartender here. A martini has gin. If you order a martini I will make it with gin and vermouth, because that is the recipe for a martini. IF YOU WANT VODKA SAY SO YOU FOOL!!!!!

I don't know how many people sent martinis back because it had gin instead of vodka. Why do you think James Bond always specifies a VODKA martini? Because that's different than a martini! Oddly, the "shaken not stirred" makes absolutely no sense for a vodka martini, unless your goal is to water it down. Martinis are traditionally stirred because gin, being rather fragrant and full of volatile compounds was supposed to be mixed, but not agitated (which breaks the volitale compounds down) so that when it hit your mouth the full fragrance and taste were released. With vodka it wouldn't matter, except for the fact that shaking is going to break up and melt more of the ice used to chill it into the liquid. So Bond was actually ordering a weak, wet vodka martini.

Shadowcat, how old is your granddaughter? I saw the movie when I was probably 4 or 5 and remember being quite frightened by parts of it. That's why I remember seeing it. But with TV maybe today's kids don't frighten quite as easily.

AN, I know what you mean about scotch not agreeing with you as much as it used to. I used to drink martinis (back in the days where that meant only one thing - gin and dry vermouth, but don't get me started on that subject, it's another pet peeve) and cognac in winter (nothing better than a bottle of cognac, a roaring fire, and an Agatha Christie novel on a cold winter night.) But it got to the point where I liked them more than they liked me. Now I only drink wine. It's called "aging."

I'd say the best way to acomplish that is to grope an 18 year old girl.

FONDL, I usually go more for beer, although I do often have some wine when I'm cooking something that requires part of a bottle. I also like a good single malt scotch, although that is going the way of cigars for me. I like it, it doesn't like me nearly so much as I age, so more often it's not worth the price I pay.

AN, you're right, the original question was what equipment we all use to communicate here. I use an old Dell laptop and a cup of coffee. So talking about Starbucks sounds relevant to me. (Actually if it's during the evening the coffee will usually be replaced with a glass of wine. So maybe we should be talking about wines as well.)

Starbucks must be stopped!

starbucks.co.jp

They also have a venti, which is italian for twenty. It is a twenty ounce coffee. No wonder we all work so many hours. I don't think Italians use ounces though.

FONDL, Well the original topic was about computers and what we each had and used. Now, wait, what is it about now?

I also hate Starbucks. I like Dunkin Donut's coffee more. Tim Hortons if you're in or near Canada works too. Also you don't have to speak Italian to order it.

AN, how can you say this thread has been hijacked? The titlae is "totally non-stripping topic that might be interesting." Are you suggesting that it isn't interesting or that it's become stripper related?"

Shadowcat, I wouldn't mind sharing my address with you but I'm not especially interested in the movie anymore. Didn't someone say that "you can never go home again."

And AN, you have hit on yet another of my pet peeves. I used to be able to walk into any coffee shop and within seconds get a black coffee to go for around a buck (actually it used to be 25 cents but that's another story.) Now I have to stand in line vof hzlf an hour behind all the yuppies buying their $5 concoctions that nobody ever heard of but that take 10 minutes to make. What's this world coming to? I won't set foot in a Starbucks because (1) they caused all this crap and (2) their coffee is terrible and grossly overpriced. The one thing I always hated about traveling to the left coast was that you couldn't get a decent cup of coffee, it all tasted like something else. End of rant.

Chitown, just kidding of course. I'm sure the thought of being sued never entered anybody's mind at Disney.

Now, AN, you can't lay this one off on my boys:

Louis Farrakhan: Not a lawyer.

Al Sharpton: Not a lawyer (this is starting to sound like Adam Sandler's Hannukah song)

Jessie Jackson: Not a lawyer (although his son and I went to the same law school, about four years apart.)

I nominate this for the most hi-jacked thread. Chitown, just for you;

amazon.com

It's obviously hard to get. Probably afraid of lawsuits. Damn lawyers.

I didn''t think DIsney sold "SOng of the SOuth" in the US, because it shows happy slaves. I would love to get my kids a copy. Somebody told me one time that you can buy English-language version videos from Japan--DIsney releases them in Japan (where they still sell "Darkey" toothpaste, so they don't have a problem with it), then you re-import it to the US.

Disney re-released it about 1971, so I saw it as a very young boy.

Yes FONDL, there is always a price, but considering that many people in major cities are willing to pay $5 for a cup of coffee with a fancy name (vendi or whatever) served to them by a "barista" who makes about $8.50 an hour (because forget the minimum wage, nobody will work for that in a major city), and we're all willing to pay about 40% of our income in taxes so that the average "poor" person in this country owns a house, car, color TV, VCR, microwave, cell phone, and gets cable, and is probably overweight, I'd say we made a decent bargain. What we decide to do with the wealth is up to each individual. One of my best friends refused to buy a TV, rode the bus or his bike and checked out 5 books a week from the library. He enjoyed his life, his job, and never wanted for anything. He recently decided to re-locate. He'd saved enough money that he was able to buy an $18,000 car cash and take 2 months to see the country before starting his new job on the west coast. The choices we make about how to live are still ours.

AN, congratulations, you can go to the head of the class. You are exactly right, our manufacturing is the envy of the world. And you're one of the few people who know that manufacturing hasn't declined in this country, only employment in manufacturing, which isn't the same thing at all.

The only problem that I have with this is that it's come at a very high price, and the people who have to pay the price are a very different group than those who have recived the benefits. Personally I think we've worshipped at the alter of economic efficiency a little too much. I'd prefer a kinder-gentler society with a little less economic growth but more equitable distribution of wealth. I think most of us would be happier if that were the case.

But how to get from here to there? One way is to support your local stripper. Which is of course why I do. It's a great way to transfer wealth from haves to have-nots.

I'm going to disagree to one extent. One thing the modern technologies have done is allow the U.S. to remain economically viable in a global era. Our labor costs are much higher than the rest of the world, but we are also far more productive tan the rest of the world, so you can pay a US worker a living wage. True that were it not for technology we wouldn't be in a global market, but it's really not us or our buisnesses that keep us the hardest working people on the planet, it's the desire to keep ahead of the competition. Someone in Honduras that makes $1.25 a day. As long as we work more productively (sometimes meaning longer and harder in addition to smarter) we can maintain a standard of living that is the envy of the world. Now if you want to argue is that standard worth maintaining, that is a different matter. Remember though that we are about 5% of the world's population and 30% of the world's economy largely because we are a hard working technological people.

AN, one more early memory that I think you'll find interesting. My father wasn't able to enlist in WWII because he had children or maybe he was too old or something. Anyway he was in the state guards, which I think was supposed to be called up in the event of enemy invasion. When I was maybe 4 a stray dog came to our house and stayed with us for a week or so. If memory serves, it was mostly German Shepherd. Anyway after trying to find the owner and failing, my parents took it and enlisted it in the Army. The Army was looking for dogs, I have no idea why. It's the only time in my entire life that I've ever had a dog. I still sometimes wonder what happened to that dog.

I think the thing that disturbs me the most about modern technologies is the extent to which they've failed to live up to their promise, not because of the technology itself but how it's been misused. For example, when computers first came out everyone was projecting that we wouldn't have to work as many hours in the future because of the improvement in efficiency that they promised. Do you see anyone working fewer hours as a result of computers? I see just the opposite. Similarly when I'm at the gym it often occurs to me that the reason we're all there is because our modern conveniences have robbed us of needed exercise. Kinda funny when you think about it.

Wow, and here I thought I was the only one who was fond of Brer Rabbit and Uncle Remus. I bet I'm the only one who saw it in the theater in its original run. Must have been about 1944.

FONDL, I enjoyed your discourse on bygone days. I was always unusual among my peers because my father served in WWII. He never saw combat, he sat in the Alutians trying to get transfered to the Air Corps while the Army tried to get him to transfer in the the Corps of Engineers. Apparently they saw something in his tests. It must have been true, he was a lifelong hobbyist with electronics of all kinds. In addition to having parents about a generation ahead of most of my peers my maternal grandparents lived with us. All of my adult influences had lived through the depression and seen at least one world war. My Grandfather got a deferment in WWI because he was an engineer working in a war related industry and the company didn't want him to go. My other grandfather was a medic in WWI. I think I got a slightly different perspective than a lot of my peers.

I think my mother would agree with you to a great extent. We have so many more conveniences and luxuries and time, but we don't seem to know how to use them. As I mentioned in passing, there is the example of the wash. Washing clothes takes a fraction of the time and effort it used to take, but we now have so many more clothes, and we wash many after a single wearing that overall we don't save labor. We have TV instead of newspapers, but we're certainly no better informed. We have home theater systems, so now we sit on the couch eating cheetos instead of getting out on the town for a show or a dance. We used to have front porches, where all the neighbors would go on summer evenings to cool down and socialize. Now we have air conditioning and back decks with privacy fences. Kids used to just play in the neighborhood. Now they are shuttled around from activity to activity, never left without adult supervision, and hence never required to develop social skills to deal with others, or to develop any sense of themselves and their interests. I think so many are ADD because they aren't ever required to think for themselves. I see a lot of the things we've lost, and agree with you. Of course I don't want to give up all the advances we've made, I just think we need to keep them in perspective. They are things, and they don't define us.

What I find most amusing is that the PC patrols can't see that most of these things are actually anti-slavery or trying to destroy the stereotypes they are banned for supposedly reinforcing. Mark Twain's work comes immediately to mind. It is often banned for using the "N" word, a common noun of the time, while they ignore the fact that Twain mocks the southern stereotypes and excoriates the institutions. My guess is that sadly most have never read these classics before deciding they should be banned.

SC: I don't think Disney will ever allow Song of the South back out on DVD or in the theater. The rolls that blacks portray in it would be so non-PC at this point that they would get crucified.
Wow, talk about really being off topic from strip clubs...

AN, I remember as a little kid listening to the radio in the evenings. It was during WWII and both my parents had brothers in combat, and we'd listen intently and nervously to the war news every evening. I think that's why I was so nervous when I was younger.

Everyone in our area had party telephone lines - if your neighbor was on the phone you couldn't make a call but you could listen in. I also remember that we used to have a big block of ice delivered every Saturday for our ice box. I also remember houses being quarentined when someone had something like chicken pox. I still think that's a great idea to quarantine houses where serious infectious illness is present, why don't we do that anymore? The first movie I ever saw was "Gone With The Wind" in it's original version. I think the second one was "Song of the South." Anyone remember that one? It's not shown much because it isn't very PC. I was in high school when movies began appearing in color. And in college when color TV started to become popular - the first ones were awful. I bought my first car for $135 and sold it a year later after I installed seat belts and turn signals - it had neither when I bought it. But nothing ever went wrong with it. And the back seat was like a big sofa, wow what a great car for the all-night drive-in. But maybe my greatest memory is seeing Chuck Bednarik make that shoe-string game-ending tackle that beat Penn State - I believe it was the first football game I ever saw. Penn - Penn State was a big rivalry in those days. My uncle had just returned from WWII and was a Penn State student. He had been awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for participating in something like 60 bombing missions over Germany. He never talked about it. Another uncle who had been a simple farm boy never recovered mentally from the hand-to-hand combat he experienced on the ground all across Europe and was an alcoholic the rest of his life. I never understood growing up why no one in the family ever criticized him for his drinking. It was years before I understood.

We're blessed with the healthiest, wealthiest and safest country the world has ever known. So why are so many people so unhappy? What ever happened to civility? I find the loss if civility to be the greatest disappointment of my life. And I think the misuse of technology has been the major cause.

They'll wonder how we made do without genetically designed strippers, their DNA modified for perfect skin, large natural breasts, to be immune to all venerial diseases, to never gain weight, have a pleasant disposition, and an enhanced libido.

The crazy and perhaps great thing about it is that 50 years from now, people are going to look back to these times, shake their heads, and wonder how we got by with today's technology. The few of us still around by then will tell everyone that we got along just fine, thank you very much, and that things were better than they seemed.

There are things in research and development now that make the technology in sci-fi entertainment look possible or even quaint and old-fashioned. A cold beer and a warm naked 19 year old blonde with a smile on her face never seems to go out of style though.

Since this topic has turned to the bygone days I'll jump in and admit that I'm a fan of this recent history. I grew up in a very old house that has been in the family for 5 generations now since my great great grandfather built it for his new bride. He was a contractor and spared no expense, it originally had gas lighting, very far ahead of it's time for where it is. It is in the city now, (the city having grown up around it) but we only recently tore down the old garage that was originally the carriage house. People seem to forget just how far we have come in a few years, or even a single lifetime. I had a great aunt who was born before the Gettysburg address and died after the moon landing. Imagine that lifetime. To get back to the point, one of my other hobbies is collecting what I'll call recent history, from oral histories and newspapers among other things. The things we forget or take for granted are amazing. My mother recalls when the house was quarantied because she had scarlet fever (I think, one of those childhood diseases). Just about every small town like ours had several butchers, several tailors, at least one slaughter house, an ice house and several local dairys. Most things were produced locally, only luxuries were shipped in. Luxuries included oranges for Christmas. Things we take for granted are astounding when you look back only 50 years. I can only personally look back 42, but as I said it is an interesting hobby.

FONDL, between this post and your confession about wearing hats as a young man, you are dating yourself. However, I have to admit that even I remember my grandparents, in an isolated part of northwestern Illinois, not having direct dial telephone service until about 1970. Until then, you had to call the gal who had the switchboard in her living room. And it absolutely was true that if you gave the three digit number of the person you wanted to call, she might instead connect you to the number of the house where that person was visiting.

Shadowcat, I was about 8 years old when our next-door neighbor got the first TV set in our neighborhood - it was a B&W set with a round screen about 8 inches in diameter and we thought it was wonderful. We used to go to their house on Saturday nights to watch Milton Berle. I was a teenager when my grandparents first got electricity and indoor plumbing in their house, they were farmers. I vividly remember my grandmother cooking on a wood stove and pumping water by hand from their well in the front yard. And they really did have a Sears catalog in their outhouse. I think people were generally happier then than they are now. The so-called modern conveniences have made life too complicated.

Shadow, I'm not as old as you, but at my mother's house a few years ago we witnessed a display of the same amusing phenomenon. My nephew wanted to call his other grandmother, so my sister (his mother) told him to go use my mother's phone rather than the cell which she had left in the car. A few minutes later I saw him staring at my mother's rotary phone, utterly confused about how the thing worked.

I generally build my own because of special photoshop needs.

Windows XP on a basic off brand desk-top. Gets the paperwork done and that's about all I need.

I haven't built any pc's from scratch or components but I have installed hard drives and formatted them along with sound cards, extra ram and I once replaced the main chip with an upgrade chip. Now I'm just trying to stay ahead of all the hackers and identity thieves trying to steal personal information and just messing with everyone in general. Some of my first experiences with hackers online came in a chat area and my screen kept going dark and then coming back on every few minutes. I said "some hacker must be messing with me" and then my screen went immediately dark. It came back on after a few seconds and then didn't happen anymore. I've tried to increase my security settings and be more alert after that. Although one time I had some settings on my pc screwed up and wasn't sure how to fix them. They mysteriously got fixed after surfing the internet one day. I guess not all hackers are bad. Now I sometimes wonder if my pc has developed a mind of it's own because some programs seem to act intelligently when playing against them. It's very strange especially since they are old programs that I don't understand why the pc ai would be using new moves against me as if it's learning from me. (I wasn't online either.) Oh well, I'm getting used to seeing strange things happen.

I have a very old laptop that's been threatening to die for years and I won't much care when it does. I still use Windows95 and have a dial-up connection that costs $9.95 month, and that's about all I know about it. And all I want to know. Computers should be like cars, you turn them on and away you go. I have no more interest in what goes on inside my computer than I do about what goes on under the hood of my car. I pay all my bills by hand and I've never bought anything online. I neither own nor want an iPod or digital camera or flat-screen TV. On the rare occasion that I visit a store like CircuitCity, I don't even know what half the stuff in there is. Nor care. I'd rather read a book than watch the junk that passes for entertainment on TV. Although I kinda enjoyed seeing Elvis and the Beetles on the Ed Sullivan show. What can I say, I'm an old guy.

Shadow, when I said I violated my own rules I meant I was dissing Windows, hence starting the Mac v. PC wars I wanted to avoid. Lopaw, pretty sad when the geeks reject you. Just kidding. I didn't build any computers, but I've at least taken them apart to add disk drives, memory, a DVD writer, etc. My geek cred comes from way back. I'm an OP (original programmer, old programmer). I learned programming on cards when I was in high school. We had to move bits by hand, uphill, both ways, in the snow.

You want to sit at the geek table? Eww.

I write code on my Celeron too. I don't need a high-powered machine to write or test code, only to run it in production scenarios -- which of course I would never do on my home PC.

I have a 2.4 Ghz Celeron system that I built myself. What kind of a geek engineer would I be if I went out & bought a computer?? All of the other geek engineers woulda laughed at me, and then they wouldn't let me sit with them at their geek table in the cafeteria at work. They can be so cruel.

I still have an older pc which I haven't even turned on except once in a blue moon and it has a usable version of dos on it I save for some old favorite Dos based games. It's a Pentium and I have considered recently playing the old X-com strategy game on it but haven't gone through all the trouble yet of finding the software and making sure it still works ok. The old dos based games don't seem to work on newer computers unless you do a lot of tinkering around and then they may still throw fits. I'm not a fan of Microsoft. They actually made a good game called Freelancer and then dropped all sequels to it by focusing on the Xbox instead. I haven't bought any microsoft stuff since then. Microsoft abandoned the pc user and gamer in my opinion. My older brother still plays the old Wing Commander, Privateer, and the newer Freelancer games. no sequels are coming out now. It's all Xbox and playstation at 50 to $60 a pop a game and with microsoft that is a fixed price.

I am using firefox for most of my browsing except a very rare occasion when I find it easier to use windows or necessary. Firefox is the second most used browser after windows and it automatically blocks popups I believe. mozilla.com

My pc is old even by my standards since I used to do a lot of pc gaming. It's a Pentium III. My favorite games used to be Axis and Allies, Total Annihilation, Warcraft, Age of Empires II (I think) and RTS (real time strategy) in general. I haven't bought an Xbox or playstation since I don't believe you can get the thinking sort of strategy game I enjoy. I don't really enjoy the click, click, click or pressing buttons as fast as possible to try to beat an opponent. I think that is not strategic thinking but a press the button competition. I seem to be busy with relatives now and reading and surfing the internet especially at abovetopsecret.com which seems to have taken all my time away from playing pc games much anymore. I have to work time in to go to strip clubs sometime. :)

Since my time seems limited, I have tons of now older pc games to play and finish and this pc I have is just fine for that and surfing the net.

Shadow, it's because they operate as a virtual monopoly and do everything in their power to make sure that you need Windows to do buisness because everyone else uses Windows. I've violated my rule twice now, but I will say this. In the science community we have never used Windows. We have always used UNIX. Lately, we have loosened up a bit, and some of us use Apple OSX.

Indeed I do.

I'm not really not completely divorced from modern technology. I just know that there is no way I could keep up with most of the people on this board.

Almost forgot, JC, for the most part you are right. Most people get a lot more machine than they need to run MS office and net surf. However there are those of us who do some actual number crunching science and programming on our computers. Of course I'm so old I still write Fortran and cross compile. I know some C, but I just haven't bothered to take the time to really learn it.

You still get popups because you use Windows! Doh. Violated my own rule.

Chitown, I'm guessing you have some sort of Windows machine on your desk.

I use a cheap eMachines PC running Windows XP. As far as I can tell, the only reason to buy an expensive PC these days is if you like playing computer games, but you could buy a PlayStation 2 or Xbox 360 and get a much better deal on a gaming rig.

I don't have the slightest idea what you are talking about.

In deference to Ricardo's Law of Comparative Advantage, I outsource all my IT stuff.

I could give your inquiry to my IT guy, but he is already having enough culture shock in reference to his upbringing in Singapore that he doesn't also need to be exposed to this board. It might kill him, or at least make him paddle himself.