Except I was pretty sure I’d missed it again, since I did manage to enter in my CVC code for my credit card, and hit the confirmation button, but then the page timed out, so I was dejected.

Except about 15 minutes later I saw that a bag of crap had appeared in my “Order summary”.  Woo!

Here, without further ado, is the unboxing.  Starting with the box…

Since it was only 5 lbs, and about 12″ along the largest side, I was pretty sure that it didn’t have a 60″ plasma display inside.

As expected, none of those items are large plasma televisions.  Instead, they’re

1.  A 10 function remote with a display.  Apparently I need a Windows machine to set it up.2.

2. A Disney “Pirates of the Caribbean” phone / game holder, with a carabiner on the back side.

3. A wired “Netbook” mouse, with a cord in a little retractable holder.

4. A wireless mouse, in some kind of OEM packaging, so it might be Bluetooth or something else.

Overall, not a bad haul for $8.

Which, assuming that I’m actually remembering the quote somewhat accurately, and given that it’s been years since I read it, an that I’m really remembering the first time I read it, back when I was probably about 14, so that it made more of an impression on me than it would not ( although, again, if I’m remembering it at all correctly ) is still one heck of a line.

And, the reason it came to me, while heading to what was to be a somewhat boring afternoon, is that coming on about the 1,000th page of a long, intricate adventure where stuff has happened and ( worse ) where lots of stuff hasn’t happened in between all of the stuff occasionally happening, was that at the time it surprised me because, up till then, the elves had been pretty kick ass. Sure, there was too much poetry and “Go here and tell random Elf-name-starting-with-the-letter-G this.”, and back and forth, but you wouldn’t want to fuck with the elves because they had power and abilities beyond those of the average folk. Among other things, they were pretty much immortal, so they could take their time before screwing you over completely.

And yet, it was the end. Sure, they didn’t really know it. Not yet; at least for lots of them. The upper level ones knew, and the rest were slowly coming to the realization that the world had moved on past them, and what awaited each of them was a trip on a boat to the lands over the sea to the east — to their deaths, essentially.

So, why do I mention this? Suddenly it occurred to me that maybe this is exactly where the USA is today — on top of the world, don’t fuck with us for a long time, and then… well, its over, save for the cleaning up and packing of the bags. It’s someone else’s turn.

And, if the age of the Elves is past, whose age is it now?

f*cking spammers and hackers. You’re giving the internet a bad name.

I mention this because that was the start of a really wierd day.  I went into Apple around 8:30am, and all day we had the TVs tuned to CNN ( well, not TVs, but usually Quadra 630s with the TV tuner card ), and no work got done.  I recall being almost incapable of concentrating.