Tag: MacBook Pro

TGIFuhgedaboudit

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 8 Comments
Santa may not be squeezing his fat ass down my chimney at the moment, but with a sky that blue, who cares?

Some Fridays I send no thanks to God.

The press brays about another delivery of magic beans from the Orange House. My main MacBook Pro develops a bloat I can’t doctor and must be shipped off for emergency surgery. Sue Baroo the Fearsome Furster goes in for a radiator transplant. And WordPress shanghais me into its pain-in-the-ass block editor.

All this being said:

• At least I don’t have to edit any bean-delivery stories for The Daily Disappointment-Fabricator. (“Just who says ‘he tested positive,’ anyway? Same guy who’s been lying about anything and everything since he was whelped?”)

• I have a backup MacBook Pro. Not as powerful, but hey, at least it’s not swelling up like a poisoned Russian dissident.

• The Furster is 15 going on 16. Of course she’s gonna have occasional meltdowns. They’re still cheaper than a monthly payment for the car I don’t want to buy anyway.

But WordPress? Fuck those guys. This block editor eats shit out of a hipster’s thrift-store fedora. It makes me want to run away from the news, my second-best MacBook, and my credit-card statement, and go for a nice long bike ride.

See ya.

’13 means shit and bad luck.’

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 4 Comments

I see the Donks running the House Judiciary Committee decided to postpone voting on sending two articles of impeachment to the full House until today … which would be Friday the 13th.

Shit. Good luck with that.

Charlie Pierce had his bad luck early. Dude got hit by a car, which explains why you haven’t been seeing him over at the shebeen. I’m a little irritated with management for not giving us the word. Not everyone spends their days glued to Twitter, y’know.

Shit. Good luck with that.

Speaking of being glued to things, I’ve gotten two of three modern MacBooks updated to High Sierra without incident. Still haven’t dealt with the main box or the iPhone, and given the circumstances I think I might wait until tomorrow. I don’t need any shit or bad luck.

Climb every mountain

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 24 Comments
Operations at El Rancho Pendejo are sketchy, as always.

It’s only Dec. 11, but it seems my work for 2019 is pretty much done.

I wrapped the “Quick Spin” video on the Cannondale Topstone 105 for Adventure Cyclist on Monday, and yesterday I actually got a jump on 2020, scribbling a “Shop Talk” cartoon for Bicycle Retailer and Industry News.

Today I’m contemplating some overdue computer maintenance — backups, updates, the poking with sharp sticks of things better left unmolested.

It struck me the other day that I’m a few iterations of operating systems off the back. The MacBooks are all running Sierra, but the kool kidz have long since moved on to macOS Catalina. So I thought I’d tiptoe up to High Sierra, see what the weather’s like up there. After all, I have the installers on all three ’Books.

Ho, ho. Pull off those hiking boots, Sir Edmund. The installers are all damaged, which is to say their certificates are probably expired. ’Cause, like, y’know, dude, sir, everyone else has, like, moved on to Catalina, an’ shit.

So I’m downloading a fresh installer as we speak. Shouldn’t take more than a couple-three days at Duke City DSL speeds. Then if I feel like getting the “two” in the ol’ one-two I can think about setting up the “new” iPhone 5.

Sunrise, sunset

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 23 Comments
We had quite the sunset the other night. And tonight brings a micro-moon, in which Luna is at apogee and will appear to be the smallest full moon of 2014, according to National Geographic.
We had quite the sunset the other night. And tonight brings a micro-moon, in which Luna is at apogee and will appear to be the smallest full moon of 2014, according to National Geographic.

With cyclo-cross nats over and a couple of deadlines beaten into submission, I finally have a bit of downtime, and as nature abhors a vacuum, the to-do list is filling up like an open bar at a press conference.

First and foremost, of course, is cycling. The weatherperson says we have an extended stretch of fitty-sumpin’ ahead of us, so, yeah, time to sweat a little gravy. I have a review of the Cinelli Bootleg Hobo due in a couple weeks, and just got hold of a Kona Sutra, which is next up in the Adventure Cyclist pipeline.

Then there’s grocery shopping — seems some fat bastard has eaten everything in the house — and last but not least, I should perform a spot of computer maintenance.

Anyone out there upgraded their Macs to Mavericks yet? I’m thinking of making The Great Leap Forward with the two Macs that can handle it, the iMac and MacBook Air, but the tales of technological horror I read online give me pause.

Herself has successfully updated her MacBook Pro, but she is beloved of the gods. Me, not so much.

Cops ‘n’ robbers

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 27 Comments

Yesterday a neighbor came home from visiting a friend to find a surprised burglar in his house, pointing his own .38 Special at him. I’d call that a Monday times, oh, ’bout a thousand.

So we had cops out the wazoo for a spell, in cars, astride motorcycles, on foot, with dogs. Bupkis. The scumbag got away, as scumbags often do.

I went through our house, checking to make sure that all our various smokepoles were unloaded and the bullets stashed elsewhere, so that I can surprise anyone who points one at me by clocking him with a skillet.

Which once again raises the question: “Why the fuck do I have all these goddamn things in my house if I’m gonna draw down on a baddie with a skillet instead?”

Good question. One of these days I intend to answer it.

Meanwhile, Herself celebrated her (mumble-mumble)th birthday today. I sang her “Happy Birthday” twice and got her a new MacBook Pro to replace the abacus she had been using. She says I can live here for another year if I don’t get shot accidentally on purpose with one of my own guns.