Books? Cat? Life is good. Technology? Not so much.

skulker, originally uploaded by cyanideblonde.

I'm still playing with flickr's blogging tool. For the record, this is not my cat. It is my friend Tania's cat, Skulker. It is also her photo, though it's living on my flickr account. (Hi Tania!) She's graciously lent him to me as my cats refuse to be photographed. That might have something to do with their otherworldly nature. Or possibly due to the fact that I don't have a working digital camera.

I DO have a $15 digital keychain camera purchased at Albertsons over the summer the better to document our gock extravaganza. Unfortunately, it refuses to release the pictures it insists it's taking. I've tried to shake 'em loose on three different machines now and am about to throw in the towel. For something that fits in the palm of my hand, the software that comes with it was huge, requiring that I uninstall a number of programs on the dinosaur to make use of it.

Once I installed the software, I gleefully set about uploading the pictures. Unfortunately, though the program had created a file for the new download...there was nothing inside of it. No photos to be found. And repeated attempts insisted there was no camera there, either. Tech support (spotty as it was, it's a $15 camera, after all) suggested I download the camera drivers. Which I did. So the camera software recognizes I now have a camera...but my PC only does about 50% of the time. Control panel periodically gives me the following hardware troubleshooting error: "Code 10: Device Cannot Start." Further investigation of this error reveals: "The device cannot start. It may not be working properly." Yeah...like I hadn't already caught that particular clue. sigh. In other words: "It's dead, Jim."

My flickr account is currently home to photos I've lifted from Tania and other friends or taken with my parents' camera. Yes, it's true--Mom & Dad have spiffier tech than I do. But in my defense, I'm better at using it...

A digital camera is most definitely on my wish list for the future, once the dinosaur has been replaced with a spiffy new laptop. Which will hopefully be purchased no later than...March 10th! Stay tuned...