Okay, so I did get Mandriva 2011 installed and working and then it started stopping. Sometimes it wouldn’t load the wallpaper. Sometimes it wouldn’t load a program until I rebooted. Sometimes Firefox would crash its brains out. Then, yesterday, the GUI wouldn’t load. For any non-geeks who have read this far, that means I was stuck at the command line. Remember command lines? No? Well, never mind.

Nothing would bring back the pretty pictures. I had to reinstall. It’s probably all for the best.

WHAT I’M READING: I’m currently nearing the end of MOCKINGJAY, the third book of the Hunger Games trilogy. Sometimes, everybody talks about a book because everybody is talking about the book. Sometimes, everybody talks about a book because it’s compelling. IMO, the Harry Potter series was like that. The publisher wasted a bundle of money hyping the series, because it would have been a phenomenon on its own. Same with The Hunger Games.

Our next-door grandson, who recommended the book, invited us to his house for a party last night. He and his Mom made fruit smoothies to order (I had lime and coconut, of course, with vanilla ice cream and pineapple juice), and we listened to an episode of the old radio show Lights Out. Great smoothie, stinky episode. But fun.

So far, the new installation of Mandriva is working. Pray for me to St. Nikola Tesla, patron saint of hopeless geeks.

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: When you were eleven, what was your favorite book? Why? How would you imagine recommending it to your adult self? My favorite books were the Freddy the Pig book. Recommendation: “A talking pig. As a detective. In disguises. And a wise-ass cat sidekick. Need I say more?”

MA