Bob's Yr Uncle

And now it can be told. After at least three weeks of keeping it a secret and it can be told. And I'm the one can tell it. Ladies and Grunts, my li'l sis is preggers. I'm gonna be an uncle!

My mom called this afternoon. I'd been asked not to tell anybody until Oct. 7, but for the most part (I told my housemates) I waited until I had the all clear. My sister, through the first trimester, went to her midwife. The midwife couldn't find a heartbeat. One panicked sonogram appointment later, everything's in the clear.

See, that's the kinda thing that would have me on the market for a new midwife...

The mention of midwives and checkups has elicited amazingly different and surprisingly passionate responses from various female friends of mine. Some scoff at the idea of appointments, being of the opinion that a woman's innards are sufficiently self-sustaining as not to need any help from the medical establishment. Others hear midwife and are amazed she isn't seeing a doctor (this, oddly, after accusing me of having three testicles... neither here nor there, but interesting tidbit nonetheless).

And yes, having the ability to plan a pregnancy is a privilege. Me? I'd consider the mere chance at being at risk for instigating an unplanned one a privilege.

Not much else new. The strange noises coming from my computer finally inspired me to crack it open and investigate. My ABIT KT7 motherboard (mobo for those in the know, which I am not so I will continue calling it a motherboard) has a little fan that came attatched to something on it. A bit of research revealed this to be the VIA KT133A Northbridge chipset. I still don't know what that means, but apparently it needs cooling, and the fan was screeching like a banshee.

What I finally ended up doing was just unplugging it and taking a paper towel to it. When your computer is literally a black (or tan, as the case usually be) box, a single monolithic quasi-magical chunk of machinery that spews stuff up on your screen, you don't really think much of all the shit inside it; nor do you really think much how dusty all that stuff gets. I'm talking dust bunnies here, inside the case. Or maybe just dust roaches. But lots of dust.

Dust removed (and for good measure I unplugged the CPU heatsink/fan and gave it a good cleaning too) everything ran nice and quietly... for a while at least... you see, in the middle of my little self-congratulatory spiel here, the damn fan has started whining again.

Fucker.

My backupdating (for those who care or even pretend to) is now done almost through November 2003. Bleh.

Where's that paper towel???

- posted by Bob @ 3:50 AM