Way To Go, Associated Press

This article by your religion writer is so soporifically one-sided towards Christianity, and makes so many subtle implications that the gunman was inspired by "demons" and "the occult" and that his "rejection of religion" may have lead him on his rampage, and that it couldn't possibly have been strict Christian home schooling that made him wacky. Who cares about objectivity?

http://www.abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=3991626

What is up with this quote:

"An armed church security guard, a new Christian believer, cut him down in a spray of bullets before he could carry out even more violence"?

What bearing does it have on the story that the guard was "a new Christian believer"? Did she learn better pistol aiming when she accepted Christ as her savior?

Kudos to the New Life "megachurch" for getting this kid the help he obviously needed when he approached them with his issues and voices in his head. OH WAIT, that's right, they actually just cast him out several times. Way to be all loving of your fellow man, "megachurch".

Losing The New Car Smell

Or in this case, new laptop smell.

I usually carry my laptop in my messenger bag. The other night I checked it at a coat check, and it got stored sideways in a cubby hole on a shelf. When the coat guy went to retrieve it, he yanked the bag by the handle, and the laptop slid out of the top flap of the messenger bag (which does not zip or seal, it only has a velcro strip to attach the top of the bag).

It fell about three feet to the ground, landing on its front edge with a thud audible over the very loud hip hop music.

Everybody froze, I was slackjawed. The check guy gingerly handed it to me, and I instantly found the huge, ugly scuff mark and dent on the front edge and saw that the casing bowed out slightly. I booted it up, tried the camera and all the keyboard controls and mouse pad... everything seemed to be fine. I popped out the battery on the bottom and popped it back in; it seated okay, but didn't marry right where the bent front edge was.

When I got it home, I stared at it for a while. I put the computer through more paces, tested the CD/DVD drive, hooked it up to the external backup drive. It still seems fine, but I'm now considering buying the extended AppleCare warranty to get an extra two years of hardware support in case any issues arise down the road.

I'm also ready to invest in a real laptop case. I'm considering this one, in charcoal.

EDIT: BTW, I realize the laptop case can't charge the laptop, but it would work for my cell, my PDA, and probably my Nintendo DS... and I want to get one of these eventually for the laptop.