Yes, well, I've calmed down, thanks. I also got some sleep, which was a big factor in the calming down. And I'm writing this on my new computer, because I've found a way to transfer files. The only working drives the two computers have in common are 3.5" floppy drives. Alas, I still have no way to upload an entry on the new machine, so I'll have to recopy this when I'm finished and copy it back to the old one. That's a small price to pay for this cool new soft-touch keyboard, though.

Besides switching the monitor cable back and forth all day long, I keep having to remember to switch the mouse and keyboard. It's a little confusing to have two of each cluttering my desk. It helps that they don't look anything alike, but it's still a little confusing.

At least once (and probably more than once, but I can only focus on one thing at a time, if I know what's good for me), I've pressed the Enter key on the keyboard hooked up to the computer I wasn't using. It's pretty exciting to switch the monitor cable back and find out I've reformatted the hard drive. (That isn't what happened, but if you could do that with one keystroke I probably would have done it by now.)

After all the DSL frustration yesterday, I figured out how to connect using my dial-up account on the new computer. Sadly, MSN insists that I use its hideous MSN Explorer interface, which seems to have co-opted all the email settings I put into Outlook. So I'm still using the old computer for email, for now. I'm not surfing with that awful MSN Explorer, though. I have to use it to sign in, but then I can switch to Internet Explorer.

Microsoft has this wonderful browser. Why do they force their internet access customers to look at something that's frightfully reminiscent of AOL, and who needs that? Besides, I specifically responded "no" when the Connection Wizard asked if I wanted to use MSN Explorer to connect to the internet.

And now I don't know how to go back without uninstalling everything and starting over. I think I've done enough of that sort of thing the last couple of days. I can't even count how many times I've had to restart one computer or the other while trying to make something happen. It would have been worth it if whatever I was trying to do had actually come to pass, but often I ended up in the same place I started, only more discouraged. That's a bad place to be.

I will say this for having 512 glorious megabytes of RAM, though: Everything runs faster, and pages load way quicker even when I'm using the same 56K modem style I have on the old machine. When I do get DSL, one of these days in the palpable future, watch out! I'll be all over the Web like a flash of electronic lightning.

I've never given a computer a name before, but when I booted up this baby for the first time it insisted that since it had network capabilities, it needed a real name. So I'm writing this entry on Fidelina. That's the name of a character on one of my favorite telenovelas, La Usurpadora. And when I actually do connect the two computers, I'll try to come up with a name equally musical and memorable for the old one. I'm thinking Kelsey or Alyssa, but maybe that's just because I've been watching the Little League Softball World Series.