16 october 1998		bells and whistles it's a regular marching band 'round here.
Running news: 5.3 miles. Not my speediest, but I did my best Energizer bunny imitation.		I have discovered, much to my surprise, that I really like the bells and whistles that come with System 8.5. The literal bells and whistles, I mean: every time you select a window or use the scrollbar or open an application, an appropriate sound plays. I thought I'd turn it off after a day or so, but I like the feedback. One reader was confused when I mentioned that I had System 8.5 and thought that I had had trouble installing it. I don't think it's humanly possible to mess up an Apple system software installation--no, really. You push two buttons, and then you go get some coffee or watch HBO or something, and when you come back, you have a new system on your machine. Pretty cool, eh? My reference to "it's not what you know, but who you know" had to do with how I got System 8.5, which is not available to the Great Unwashed as of yet. Another journaler--can't remember who, sorry--complained about how Kellie Martin's character on ER is never referred to as "Doctor." Now, I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure her character is a second-year or third-year medical student, in which case...she ain't a doctor yet. Becoming a doctor is a big deal--when Tiffany finally became an MD, I was very careful to address all my further letters to her as "Dr.", not as "Ms." (Looking at the above paragraph, I am reminded of my last dream last night, in which someone criticized me for using too many dashes, semi-colons, and parentheses in my writing. All of this punctuation evidently rendered my writing unreadable. I found myself wondering why I was giving myself this kind of negative feedback in my dreams.) That said, Kellie Martin's character is driving me nuts. Enough with the hangdog expression, girlie! She is apparently going for tortured and caring, but she just looks constipated all the time. Get some new facial expressions! Homicide hath returned! Hosanna! Darin and I watched Buddy Faro this week. I tried to describe it to him as this sort-of kitsch detective show that's more than a little odd. He saw the name of the Executive Producer--Mark Frost--and said, "Hey?" and I said, "Yup," and Darin said, "Okay, this is like a Twin Peaks detective show." Which is absolutely, totally right. Stuff happens that doesn't make any sense, characters say completely on-the-nose dialogue absolutely deadpan, and the camera angles are constantly weird. So now that Maximum Bob is on hiatus (or whatever), my weekly dose of weirdness is Buddy Faro.
		Copyright 1998 Diane Patterson Send comments and questions to diane@spies.com