Drastic Measures Required

 (The Great Computer Crash of 2011, part 1 of 3)

Chapter 45

Every human's nightmare scenario came to pass the other day. My computer is comatose. A dastardly piece of malware infiltrated my firewall, and despite the valiant efforts of the little blue-glowing men in the TRONworld inside my computer, this time Sark and his red-glowing henchmen won. The registry files were run through a blender.

End of line.

So, whilst the old difference engine sits in the shop awaiting brain surgery, and with it all the pictures, files, and articles associated with the burgeoning TT&S empire, I'm inputting this week's installment on...(drum roll)...an Amazon Kindle3.

Which, as it turns out, is only slightly more aggravating than programming a VAX using punch cards. So, the next few weeks will be shorter than usual, and to a greater or lesser extent, off topic. The Island of Misfit Clothes will have to go on a short break...as will all the other neat stuff I had planned. Just until my computer comes to its senses, which will probably be after Christmas some time.

I was sitting in a conference room a few days ago with about 30 other people. All the people there were there by invitation, all had plenty of notice to prepare, and the meeting was in a professional building during business hours. I was sitting toward the back, and as I was a bit bored, I started counting hats. One older gentleman came in wearing a black fedora, which he (correctly) took off soon after entering before he sat down. One man wore a black toboggan throughout. Three --THREE, mind you-- wore hoodies. With the hoods up. For the entire hour. In a 73 degree conference room. What surprised me, though, were the number of baseball caps.

Off hand, I would have said there were three or four. A specific head count, though, revealed TEN capwearers. A third of the attendees -- one in three -- thirty three point three bar percent -- think a baseball cap was completely acceptable headwear for the occasion.

More puzzling to me, though -- why there were so many 'invisible capwearers' that didn't make themselves apparent to me until a specific count? Have we, I, us, become so desensitized to the hoards of caps, their presence so ubiquitous that our brains no longer register them, while a glimpse of a single fedora immediately arrests our attention?

Caps or hats or toboggans or touques or hoods; for crying out loud, people, learn the rules of courtesy and take them off in private spaces!

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