Birth Announcement

No, it isn't what you think. I haven't suddenly, by some quirk of disaster found myself in a family way. The new addition to the family is of the electronic variety: the new laptop has arrived, and in spite of my misgivings and grumbling about Chinese politics and human rights violations, I've decided to keep it. The new laptop has been christened Lirael after the titular heroine of the Garth Nix novel; unlike her namesake, however, she will not be sailing down rivers or swinging swords or becoming a Remembrancer. I'm reeling at the speed and fluidity with which she performs her tasks and have completely fallen in love with Windows Vista; my only gripe is that she makes it a little hard to connect to the I-net and that her graphics card isn't of a slightly higher caliber... but I can do without the last two Sims 2 expansions if it means having a good computer that actually works and turns on. My computer needs are relatively modest, I think: an Internet connection, a bit of gaming, storage space, and a functional word processor. I can do without a webcam, DVD burner, and sundry other bits of nincompoopery added by the manufacturer... but these are simply my gripes as a truly quarter-hearted Luddite.
No, there will be no engravers sending out vellum notecards bearing the date, time, and weight of the new arrival, though I find it slightly amusing that yesterday, according to the Fed Hex tracking site, Lirael departed Shanghai at approximately 4:15 PM, arrived in Ankorage, Alaska at 2:15 PM, and arrived at the door at around 12:30 this afternoon. The International Dateline works in most mysterious ways: It allows one to arrive at a destination before one has left one's point of origin. :P I'm sleepy... can you tell?