"That's the uncanny valley right there," I said. Seriously, the expression on the dummy looked like he was trying to hold back an epic bowel movement and it was just fuckin' scary.
Anyway, after that segment was done Morgan Freeman came back on to close the show, and I made yet another futile attempt to do a Morgan Freeman impression.
I, of course, cannot do Morgan Freeman with any sort of fidelity. Mrs. Fungus is normally an AF booster--she knows my strengths and provides encouragement--but she says quite frankly that my impression of Morgan Freeman is horrible. I do appreciate the fact that she is not trying to give me false hope.
...and then the Emergency Broadcast System did a test, replacing Morgan Freeman with a test pattern and an electronic screech.
We found that hilarious. I said, "Oh, shit! That cretin in Illinois is trying to do Morgan Freeman again! STOP HIM BEFORE WE ALL DIE!" I made a few comments about my Morgan Freeman impression setting off an alarm at NORAD and basically milked the joke for whatever humor I could, which--as it turned out--was quite a lot.
It's not going to stop me from trying to figure out how to do a Morgan Freeman impression, but that's going to be a rather long road. I suppose I should be satisfied with being able to do Sean Connery.
* * *
It's a gloomy autumn day, damp and unpleasant. Mrs. Fungus and I have nothing scheduled, nothing planned--glorious nothing, the kind of nothing where you can laze in bed as long as you like and take your own sweet time about doing whatever it is that you want to do.
The only chore that must be done before Wednesday night is for clothes to get washed, but that will happen in good time.
We don't even need to go get food; Mrs. Fungus bought a 9-lb ham and cooked it last night while I was at work. We have ham a-plenty, and once we've eaten the meat off the bone I'm making a batch of ham and bean soup with it, using the 15-bean soup mix in the cabinet.
I feel sorry for people who can't eat ham.
* * *
Little by little I restore my computer to its former glory. Sunday I managed to install quite a bit of software, so I can play MP3s again, and I found that the backup I did of my Documents folder was 100% intact, so I copied that to the C: drive. (I know that it's current because it's in "New Folder" on the D: drive. Recall please that I could create folders but not name them.)
I got Mail working again. I still need to attach the 320 in order to import the mail databases but at least I can send and receive mail without logging onto a web site. I also need my bookmarks from the 320.
Standard price for a 500 GB drive at work is about $65. I'm leaning towards buying one when it's time for me to move to Win 7, but I won't be doing that before I have another couple of paychecks under my belt and in the bank. First things first; the computer works again and no one ever died (in real life, I mean) because WoW wasn't as fast as it could be.
Because I'm working part time it's going to take me a bit longer to save up for a set of new tires for the Jeep than I had originally anticipated. That must be my first priority (after paying utilities) as I cannot get to work without transportation.
Well, no one said it would be easy. I don't really mind, though, because as long as I'm employed the problems that I face are all solvable. That is to say, I'm not entirely helpless and unable to affect my destiny, the way I was when I was still trying to find a job, because I have some income; and if hours dry up, the fact of my employment neatly avoids the "we won't hire anyone who's not currently working" trap that has become prevalent in the years since we were saddled with Obamanomics.
I'm going to say it again: there are no jobs out there. This is a relative statement; the employment to population ratio is lower than it's been in thirty years and the only reason the unemployment figure is dropping comes from the enormous number of able-bodied people who are simply not in the workforce.
Hiring and firing happens all the time, even when the economy is straining at the limits of full employment; right now the employment statistics are significantly worse than they've been any time since 1939. There are no jobs.
I'm lucky to have one. But to some extent it's the "luck" of having an extensive background in customer service and computer repair, and applying for a job that requires both.
Anyway, the biggest hardship is that my feet hurt...but that's slowly getting better. Yesterday they didn't start hurting until I'd been on them for four hours, which is a new record, and the pain didn't get really bad until I hit the five hour mark. Progress!
* * *
I will admit, however, that I have been contemplating a new cell phone. That won't cost an arm and a leg, and this phone is old enough that its battery is beginning to show signs of unhappiness. Really, it's about five years old and what can I expect? It's served me faithfully but getting a new battery would probably be prohibitively expensive compared to the cost of a new phone, and anyway I have never been very happy with this phone's noise rejection characteristics: if you're not using it in a silent room, you can't hear shit.
But I'm not planning to break the bank on it, either. It won't even cost as much as a new hard drive would.