Stuck in the real world

My real-life house is getting decorated at the moment, one consequence of which is that my desktop computer, with its fancy graphics card, is packed away in a box under the dust sheets. I can access the internet on my old laptop, but I’ll be exiled from the grid until the paint is dry.

My trusty old Toshiba Satellite is a bit slow, even with a stripped-down linux distro (DSL) installed. Its original Pentium processer ticks over at a steady 166MHz, but it really doesn’t have enough memory to run Firefox, which means that web pages can take an age to appear, even over broadband. It’s reminiscent of the old dial-up days in a strangely comforting way though.

Being unable to get into Second Life may be a blessing in disguise, since just wandering around on the grid isn’t really the best way of finding out what is going on anyway. Instead I’ve been reading other SL blogs, which is rather more illuminating, not so much about Second Life itself, but more about the interests and preoccupations of residents, or at least that subset of the population who blog their experiences. I should probably start leaving comments on some of the more interesting blogs, but to be honest getting into any sort of dialogue seems like a bit too much hard work at the moment.

Anyway I’m still a bit distracted by the the Democratic primaries. Opinion seems to be divided about the significance of Clinton’s good showing in the supposedly meaningless Florida vote, though bouncing back after the South Carolina result has to give her some extra momentum ahead of next Tuesday. It’s not clear which way Edwards’ supporters will shift now he’s out of the running, or what effect McCain’s performance in the Republican race will have. I think the latter development may swing people towards Hillary, since she seems better equipped to take McCain on than Obama does. I’m still fairly confident that Hillary will win, both the nomination, and the vote in November.