11 May 2006

Chamber Music

Super evening with fellow Aussie and dynamo concert organiser VP, with whose planned concerts in Butrint I hope to be involved.

We are invited around for drinks during which I ask to see V's state-of-the-art puter set-up, crafted by the impossibly suave and savvy Alex, about whom more anon.

V is the mistressmind behind Chamber Music Holidays of which no music lover should be unaware.

Anyone heading this way, email info avail here.

V has heard mum's medical tales and at one point delivers what I would reckon to be the killer abbreviator of,

"Yes, wonderful, isn't that where you ...."

It is and was but it doesn't halt maternal repeating. V and I exchange glances of fond understanding.

Savvy Alex: young tall taut of abs puissant of pecs, designer shades at precise angle on noble brow. Massively qualified in puter sciences from Cardiff and some north England town.

Whilst zapping to Command prompt to run checks on why my laptop wasn't recognising mum's printer, he asked me what I "did", to which I mumbled that I had once been on the payroll of the saintèd Jeffrey of Bezosia.

Instant recognition.

In fact, Amazon.com had been one of his class's core study subjects - GUI, how many clicks to this or that; the whole deal.

We discussed when and how Amazon finally hit a profit and he explained why it took us so long to reach a plus sign: Amazon's purchase of "multiple stock departments" were of *existing* warehouses, unsuited to the demands of e-trade and swift distribution.

The numbers only took a turn for the better when we "got it" and latched onto the Tesco business model, after which the moolah flowed.

Knows his stuff, does our A: according to him, my crony-Aroni bro had talked to him about a brand-name desktop for mama. No, I said, you build her one - she ain't a gamer, not into heavy CD burning - just a basic middle of the garden patch puter.

Wish I'd had my buddy Erik Prohibida here to do his casual balls busting thang.

All I could burble was,

  • Installed memory (RAM) 512MB to 1GB
  • Processor, along lines of my old 2.8-GHz Pentium 4 2.6-GHz
  • Monitor 17-inch LCD
  • Hard drive: 40GB to 80GB
  • DVD-ROM/CD-RW combo drive
  • One or two USB ports
  • 102-key PS/2 keyboard and USB mouse

    Still time for me to get Erik's advice, but he's rewriting the kama sutra with his lady down somewhere in Silicon Valley - or am I thinking of her chest?

  • No comments :