I Heart Craig’s List
So, here I am, total dork, reveling in my newfound wirelessness by snapping pictures of Chopper at the Ugly Mug Coffeehouse while he reads the sports page and we drink our double espressos. Yes kids, this is me, blogging our very first trip to a coffee shop with a laptop that actually CONNECTS TO THE INTERNET!
(And with that technologically antediluvian confession, we’ve completely lost all of our geek cred.)
In truth, I wasn’t expecting to luck out like this, but two days with mouse poised to refresh and browser open to Craig’s List really can pay off.
Seriously, this little baby’s processor is faster than the one in my desktop. And it’s got a DVD player that I swear plays DVDs better than the gizmo that’s hooked up to our TV. Crazy, huh? I’m like a kid in a candy shop and I’ve just discovered this newfangled thing called the gummy bear. What’s next? Phones that take pictures? How cool is that?
Now for the fun part: No, not formatting, uploading, organizing, watching Platelicker and The Cat fight over who gets to be on my wallpaper… Not that tedium. No, the fun part is naming my new lappy!
Whaddya mean you don’t name your computers? Doesn’t everyone name their computers? Hell, I even name my hard drives within my computers. My desktop? He’s Aziraphale, after the angel in Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman’s Good Omens. (There, that should restore some of that geek cred.) My three internal drives? Horrabin (after the terrifying clown-on-stilts in Tim Powers’ Anubis Gates), Jivecow (after, er, nothing at all – I’m certain Chopper made that one up), and Seraphim (yeah, I know, it’s plural. Get over it.)
So now I’ve my new lappy, and lappy needs a name!
In fact, oh what the heck.
It’s MizD’s Name My Lappy Contest!
Submit your suggestions here.
The winner, selected either by MizD, Chopper, or The Cat as she walks across the keyboard and votes with her claws, will receive the fabulous prize of:
The Undying Gratitude of MizD’s New Laptop, Which, by the way, is an Inanimate Object and Completely Incapable of Expressing Undying Gratitude!

(Ahem. Bonus geek cred restoration, courtesy of Chopper’s t-shirt logo.)




September 21st, 2006 at 3:07 pm
Hmmm… how about Jinx? Like Hex, but smaller.
Pterry name, so that’ll get you even more geekpoints.
September 21st, 2006 at 5:42 pm
Ahem, no you’re not the only one that names their computers. We have a history of calling ours after Terry Pratchett characters, although we’ve recently changed themes and started naming them after vegetables - not entirely sure why.
My laptop is called greebo . . . it’s not a strange thing to do at all.
September 22nd, 2006 at 7:39 am
Miz D,
You have to give your machines some kind of unique name in order to distinguish them apart on your home network. My four computers (one man, four computers — how’s that for geek cred?) all have a name from Lewis Carrol’s works.
I’ll give some thought to a name for your new box.
September 22nd, 2006 at 9:12 am
It’s not Lappy?
September 22nd, 2006 at 10:03 am
But tunaranch, wouldn’t Jinx, erm, jinx it?
Kathryn & Kevin, you’d be surprised at how many people I know who just name their computers “home,” “home2,” “office,” and “laptop.” Seriously. No imagination at all. They don’t name their cars or their kitchen appliances either. How sad is that?
CC: Lappy is the breed nickname, y’know, like “sheltie” or “zuke.”
September 22nd, 2006 at 2:39 pm
Oh, crappy.
Well, then, how about Clappy? Because it makes you happy.
September 22nd, 2006 at 3:23 pm
I have a few idears.
Pork Love
Crispy B. (Crispy Bacon)
Butter
Biscuit
Yeah, you get the idea.
xo
September 23rd, 2006 at 8:57 am
Mine’s boring…Green Machine….but I just read a book where the kitchen appliances were named…Sylvia for the oven and Smilla for the frig. Hey, how about Hal?
September 24th, 2006 at 12:04 pm
CC: Nah, that would be sappy.
Biggles: I’m liking it so far. Or should I just be blunt on that theme and name it “Lard?”
Kathy: Hal would scare me. Otoh, Smilla is an absolutely brilliant name for a fridge.
Of course, right now, I should probably name it Oasis or Nirvana (no, not after the bands, sillies) because the connection where we’re staying has gone completely kaput (long story) and I can only get on line away from home.
September 25th, 2006 at 6:01 am
How about Ludwig - because he’s a genius with a keyboard?? Hahahaha (Note - all my appliances and cars have ALWAYS been men. I had a VCR called Spike, a turntable called Yog and three cars called Morten, Edward and Gomez respectively….) And yes, calling a computer HAL is a bit like buying a hotel in the mountains and calling it The Overlook!! ;-)
September 29th, 2006 at 1:54 pm
OK - have to chime in here. All the following have a connection - I leave it to you to find out what
Chainsaw
Capsitrano
Nomad
Orca
The Movable Feast
Amuse Bouche
Lyre
Babette
Pimpernel
Sake
September 30th, 2006 at 9:05 pm
Jeanne, everyone should have at least one thing named Yog, but definitely no hotels named Overlook!
Woah. Owen, I’m going to have to ponder that list a long while. I may need to beg you for clues.
October 4th, 2006 at 3:02 pm
I’m not very good at naming things. I have a green Dell laptop I named Apple :)
October 4th, 2006 at 5:44 pm
I think you should name it “Snake Pliskin,” for no really good reason except that I just watched “Escape from New York” again and Snake’s name is said about a thousand times in the script, so it’s stuck in my head. Plus, that movie rules.
Either that, or “Takoyaki,” the best Japanese street food known to mankind!
October 5th, 2006 at 8:43 am
Rene: I like Apple. It’s a nice back to basics name, like Spot, or Whiskers. :-)
Hey Shannon, if I named my Lappy Snake, would I have to get it an eye patch? Y’know, Pliskin is one of the all time great unlikely sounding last names for a hero. Hmm… maybe Jack Burton?
I haven’t yet experienced the glories of Takoyaki, but I’ll make note for future reference.