Vendredi V - Bill Gates (and Early!) Edition

You're getting your VV love early this week because I'm on a roll (two weeks now!) and I figured it was a shame to end the streak just because we're going away for the weekend.

Off to Fargo for some early May Long-ing for this family. Ohhhhh yeah...the awesome metropolis that is Fargo. I've been getting the strangest looks when I tell people where we're going. But then I tell them I'm meeting some Canucks there, and their consternation clears. Apparently being Canadian explains away the crazy.

[Aside: I totally milk that. "Oh, that's not how we do it in Canada." As in: six-week unpaid maternity leaves, pay-as-you-go healthcare, leaving out the U in words because of laziness, and so on.]

So I got a new computer at work last week. Any of you who have ever done a computer transfer knows what a pain it is, particularly as deadlines don't take "but I had to spend 8 hours trying to get everything set up!" as a valid excuse.

Given my technological disability, these things tend to go beyond annoyance and well into the realm of bringing my life to a bleeding, crashing halt. Although, having spent years dealing with the fact that a mere touch from me will crash the most sturdy of systems, I've gotten used to more IT visits than your average bear. So no surprise that I got the laptop with the loosey-goosey hard drive that gives me the black screen of "Hard Drive Not Found" every time I breathe on it.

Anyway, to add to the nastiness, I've had to switch over to Office 2007. We actually did a trial run of this product at our house, which lasted for about four minutes and ended with "THIS IS TERRIBLE! GET IT OFF NOW! I CAN'T STAND IT!!" Which may or may not have been me.

Of course, ranting about how much I hate change doesn't exactly fly at the office, so I've been trying to grin and bear it. Tough stuff, given that stoopid "ribbon" at the top of Word and how nothing is where it is supposed to be and all the rounded corners and having to download compatability patches and how Adobe doesn't work with it and all sorts of blech.

But speaking of grinning, The Husband tells me that if I don't stop whining and complaining on here, I will lose readers. That may be "reader" singular, so I figure I'd best come up with some Pollyanna around here.

And so, after what must be the longest segue ever:

Top 5 Things I Like About Office 2007

1. The to-do-list/upcoming appointment bar on Outlook 2007. No more flipping over to my calendar to confirm that I have no life!

2. [...]

3. [...]

4. [...]

5. [...]

Aaaaaand, I'm out.

Yes. It really is that bad.