Garbage Paper

Today I had planned to revise a paper from several years ago to submit for a scholarship. The topic is to be anything related to Florida history. When I opened my paper about Disney, nostalgia, and Celebration, this is what I found (this is the truncated version - the document that opened was 25 pages long!):

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Award winning!

This means that I have to find the hard copy (which I thankfully still have) and re-type the entire thing!

MacBook strangeness

I've had my MacBook for about 9 months; I've had some problems, but I'm sure not as many as others have.

About one month after I got it, the computer froze and the hard drive stopped spinning. I held down the power button, and after it shut down I couldn't restart it. Turns out it was a bad motherboard and processor. I got it back in the mail about three weeks later, as good as new.

All was going fine until about two months ago when it started randomly shutting down. After doing a little research, I found out that this was not an isolated problem. The first step recommended was to do a firmware update, which luckily solved the problem without having to send it away for a new logic board (late spring with three research papers looming is not the time to send away your computer).

Other strange things have been happening with my internet browsers. One day I opened Firefox to find that my default font had been changed from whatever Ariel family I had to an obnoxiously illegible font. After deleting and reinstalling Firefox, I finally realized that I would have to go through Font Book to find and remove the offending family (Linkin). I thought that solved the problem, but last week, I shut down my computer because it was running slow, and when I restarted, there was another horrible font in my browser (this time it was Jungle Life). I went through the same search and destroy in Font Book, and it seemed okay.

Two days ago I downloaded necessary software updates, rebooted my computer, and it happened again - Linkin was back even though I removed the font and emptied the trash. I found it, removed it, refreshed the browser, and it switched to Jungle Life again. Found that one, removed it, refreshed the browser, and so far so good. I thought perhaps it was just a Firefox issue, but during the most recent incident, I checked Camino and Safari and both of them were running the bad fonts too.

Statement of Purpose

I decided to start this blog because I feel like I need to write more. Class writing assignments, while challenging, are not enough. I felt the need to write on topics of my choosing: book reviews, short essays, etc....things that will help me when it's thesis-writing time. Perhaps this will fall by the wayside once classes start again, or perhaps I can use this as a place to store all of my thoughts about the topics I'll be researching. The latter would be my preference. Finding like-minded people to discuss ideas is always a plus as well.

Books

Books I picked up at the library today:

Game Cultures: Computer Games as New Media by Jon Dovey and Helen W. Kennedy
Sensorium: Embodied Experience, Technology, and Contemporary Art edited by Caroline A. Jones
The Laws of Cool: Knowledge Work and the Culture of Information by Alan Liu
Immersed in Technology: Art and Virtual Environments edited by Mary Anne Moser with Douglas MacLeod
Video Games & Interactive Media: A Glimpse at New Digital Entertainment by Stéphane Natkin (trans. Eric Novak)
Connected or What it Means to Live in the Network Society by Steven Shaviro
The Video Game Theory Reader edited by Mark J.P. Wolf & Bernard Perron

They're due back on September 5 - I hope to get them all read by then.