That 70s show

Computers have been my nemesis for the past six days. As I mentioned in my last entry, I was laying out the paper. My editor told me above all, don't panic--I panicked. I felt overwhelmed on several occassions but I stuck with it. I logged about 24 hours over the weekend. I packed things in around 3 a.m. on Monday morning and was back by 8:30.
I got the paper finished with an hour to spare and breathed a sigh of relief. Felt good.
Today, I spent most of the day waiting for my computer to be fixed--it can't be. It's toasted. I tried to work on the my editor's--it was running really slow. I got little done today. But I got a free lunch from the good people at Alcan, the aluminum king of the world.
Tonight, I made an attempt to pay some bills and again I was told to wait. I was getting frustrated yet it was all for not as it turned out the server was down and I was able to get my hard-earned dollars into the hands of my money-grubbing creditors.
Can't wait for tomorrow to be done.

Kept thinking about the 70s, and the days before computers were a household item, the days when you had to go to a movie theatre to watch a movie, pong was the only game available on an overpriced home video system and you could get an entire meal at McDonald's for less than a buck.
Although my music collection was small (Kiss, Boston, Billy Joel, various K-Tel compilations and Saturday Night Fever) playing it on my friend Jeff's hundred dollar Sears stereo system with the glowing blue lights is etched into my mind like summer sleepovers and the first time I had sloppy joe hamburgers.

A touch of cynicism - the result of time's erosion on my otptimism - makes me appreciate the simple, unfetterred things of that time, where the biggest worries were whether the girl I liked, liked me back and if I had money to head to the groceteria near the elementary school.