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September 13, 2006

Visual Aids

I broke a brand new laser pointer today.

--> :'(

See, we got some new 23" Apple Cinema Displays a few months ago. And they are beautiful. Just ever so joyful to work with. We installed some swing arms to attach them to our desks at the same time, to complete the floating monitor effect. If I want to push it back, it glides on back. If I want it nice & close, it glides on in. Wanna show everybody in the room something? Just loft it ever so gently upward. Smooooth as silk. If I didn't have such a cataclysm of paper, folders, cd-roms and beverage receptacles all over my desk, it might even be sublime.

So where does the laser pointer come in? Well, see, some of the folk I work with like to point at things on the screen. With ball point pens. Move this here --dink-- move that there --sponk-- is that a double-space there --spooge-- etc. It's a hard habit to break people of. And yeah, as devastated as my general surroundings are, I still want absolutely _zero_ ink marks on my big, silky monitor. Because as long as I can just tunnel-vision in on that beauty, I can completely tune out the pillaged trauma I'm surrounded with. So I was remarking in front of some cohorts one day, that I needed to locate a laser pointer that I could hand to the pen-wielding monitor-gougers. Then they could just paint the screen with precise, non-staining, non-scratching beams of light. Well, lo & behold (I'm supposed to put an apostrophe somewhere on lo aren't I), well 'lo / lo' / l'o & be'hold, the next week, one of my well-connected, industrious cohorts ordered and supplied each of us with an inexpensive laser pointer! Safe screens from here on out.

Then I dropped mine on the floor today. Fatally.

No more red, caressing light. Stupid fingers.

I plan to dissect it and see if it's just a broken contact somewhere. In the meantime, I just have to get all wax-on/wax-off with people when their pen-fingers attempt an incursion over my shoulders. If you're a pen pointer: stop. Just stop.

Get some Q-Tips maybe. They're handy in oh so many ways.

Posted by Jeremy at September 13, 2006 6:29 PM