(no subject)

[ellarien]

I went shopping this afternoon, in defiance of the heat. First stop was Summit Hut, where picking up a pair of hiking shoes was surprisingly quick and easy. Unlike my faithful old pair (bought in 1989), which were plain leather lace-ups with cleated soles, these are not recognizable as shoes in the normal sense, but they seem comfortable and sturdy enough.

Then to Best Buy, where I poked at laptops for a while. I'd been somewhat tempted by the idea of the 14-inch Sony model, but the pink was hideously pink, the white was just boring, and the beast was a bit too bloated for my taste either way. (Super-slim Vaios are ... extra. More extra than seems reasonable for a personal machine; the consumer-grade versions tend to run chunky, like my Behemoth.) After vacillating over a couple of Toshibas, neither of them as powerful for the price as the other offerings in that size class, I was leaning towards a rather ugly brown HP. Then I wandered over a couple of aisles ... and fell in love with the 13-inch HP model. Dark blue, with a gorgeous etched pattern of scrollwork dragons. (It had the other features I wanted, but the cosmetic charm was a nice bonus.) I particularly liked the keyboard; a lot of the current crop of laptops have very flat, spaced-out keys which I don't much care for, but this one had nicely hollowed keys with a pleasant feel.

The were out of stock. Expecting some in on Wednesday. I'm leaving on vacation on Friday, and not planning to travel with a brand-new laptop, thanks, so I suppose I can wait. That design is a Best Buy exclusive, not available anywhere else; the only options on the HP website are black and white. I suppose I could order it on line from Best Buy ...

Then I went over to the mall (checking briefly in OfficeMax and WalMart on the way; no dice): RadioShack had no 13-inch HPs either, and Sears don't do computers at all any more. I rounded off the afternoon by picking up a couple of hats and a purse in Macy's. The purse is ... my first real, grown-up handbag, I suppose. Soft brown leather, lots of pockets. On closer inspection and reflection, I'm not sure about the usefulness of a purse that isn't supposed to be exposed to moisture or direct sunlight. Inexplicably, there was a miniature light bulb nestled in the paper stuffing of one of the outer compartments.

Comments

[ellarien]

My father used to have a key wallet with a little torch built in, which was quite useful,though not so much for finding the keys as for finding the keyhole once the keys were in hand.