Of iMacs and Mexican Chocolate...

I fired up my iMac today for the first time since I got it back from having brain surgery a few months ago. It had an aneurysm last year before Christmas. I'm not sure if foul monkey play was involved but the autopsy was inconclusive. But there it was, the blinking "?" of doom that implies "What's your name again?".

I've got a bit of computer knowledge so I thought maybe I could mess with the innards. I found a very useful article that had some hardcore fixes for loosening up the drive parts that included giving the drive a whack with your hand, putting it in the freezer for a while or if you are really brave, put it in the oven at 350 degrees (use pot holders!). But all this required that I get the drive out of it's shell. Upon inspection it reminded me of alien spaceship technology. So off to the repair shop it went.

The good: They installed the new drive with the most recent operating system including programs I didn't have before (Garageband here I come!).
The bad: My old drive was irrecoverable and I had to buy a new drive.
The ugly: I never backed it up so about three years worth of art, music, and money stuff has permanently vanished.

I moved it to work, since my home is currently a slightly depressing hovel with mold growing in places I'm afraid to venture into. It had an insane amount of updates to make when I connected to the internet. Plus I only have dial up at home which I share with the rest of the family.

I didn't realize how much I missed it until I started it up and the bright electric blue LCD display greeted me with a remarkably empty desktop and made me smile. Certainly a computer is just a computer, and I have more speedy and powerful machines at work. I've used Macs all my life more out of habit rather than some kind of ridiculous "alliance" with an operating system. When I bought this one, I also got a Wacom tablet and started experimenting with drawing right into the computer. It's the best tool I've ever bought. I used to be such a purist about keeping art away from the digital realm. My, how things change. Computers don't have to be a replacement but merely another mark making device in my creative arsenal.

On a completely unrelated topic, since I've now sufficiently established my geek wanna-be status...

My favorite place to eat at around here is a muy delicioso Mexican restaurant called Casa Tina. Almost everything on the menu is available in a vegetarian version. It's full of colorful, mismatched chairs and tables and you can bring your own hot sauce to add to their collection in exchange for a drink. Observe:

Rule No.1: You can drink the water. (You may get sick, but you can drink it!)
Rule No.2: Shout for service. (It sometimes gets noisy and only the strong-voiced survive!)
Rule No.3: If you drink the water then shout for service, it may be too late.

Molé Poblano (Say it "Moe-lay", like a naked subterranean rodent with a sombrero) is a type of Mexican chocolate sauce cooked with roasted peppers and chili. If regular chocolate is sweet for the soul, this stuff is on the verge of pornographic. It's yummy.

I recently discovered the Lärabar. They are unprocessed, vegan, non-gmo, all that healthy crap that makes me feel good to eat. The ingredients list never exceeds more than 5 or 6 items I think. Besides loving that, I was psyched that they have a Cocoa Molé flavor (so new it's absent from their site), that's as sabroso as the Molé Poblano. Now I can have my fix for Mexican Chocolate and eat it too. :)

Peace,
Simon