I am, pardon the phrase, a squirrel nut. Love 'em beyond reason.

Before I had to have a rotten old oak tree in the front yard cut down, we had scads of squirrels. They'd taunt the chows and play chicken with them all the time. All my windows reach almost to the floor, so the chows could easily see outside, and sometimes a squirrel, knowing he was safe, would run up and down the porch rail, chattering and challenging all of us to a fight. The dogs would have fits. Shamefully, I'd enter into the game a little now and then by making squirrel noises back at the little devil. That really made him mad, to be sassed by a human! But we had fun. Eventually the chows would get into such a frenzy that they'd nearly break the door down, so I had to let them out. The squirrel would wait until the last second to turn tail and run.

Enjoyed everyone's replies to a great OP.

I'd also enjoy seeing any old photos you'd care to share. Odds are many others would too.

There used to be a great website called My Parents Were Hot! or something like that. A guy started posting flattering pictures of his parents in their salad years, and others followed suit. I don't know if it's still up.

It's also been said, accurately from what I can tell, that everyone suffers from some degree of

one mental disease or other. As you point out, frequently it's depression. There were two instances in my own life where I really preferred to die, the sooner the better. Had no concious intent to make it happen, but if a Mack truck had been barreling down on me at the time, I don't think I would've stepped aside either. While I didn't care much for most of the staff, I felt I learned a lot from the clients at the crash ward where I worked. Got along fine with them, partly because if a naggy rule could be ignored, I would. One big guy declared himself my protector because when I made rounds at night, I'd slip peanut butter crackers in his bedside table drawer because he hated to get up for breakfast, and they wouldn't allow anything else for him to eat until lunch. He'd hide the wrapper and dispose of it discreetly so I never got in trouble. We had each other's back.

One thing I detested about the staff was their culture of warfare against their charges. If I said anything good or praised a client's improvement, they'd pitch fits about it. And of course they chewed on each other something awful.

The weirdest thing I saw was when a female tech chewed out the male charge nurse for a medical decision he made, and the big strapping guy backed down like a little mouse. She later threw a chair at me. I always considered her by far the most dangerous person in the place. In fact, she had the administrators cowed. When I reported the chair throwing incident, they held a big meeting and told me point blank it was my fault for upsetting her!

One time a female charge nurse told me to take a new guy's duffel bag to the locker room because the techs weren't handy just then; I said fine, let me check it first. Nothing was supposed to be stored w/o careful inspection, of course, and I'd have to sign for it. She argued no, it's already been checked - just lock it away. I stood there anyway, unzipped it, and pulled out a huge butcher knife! Wondered aloud how in the world the tech had missed that.

As you might guess, it probably came from our own kitchen and she'd put it there so that later someone could check it in the locker room and get me fired for dereliction. That was the same charge nurse who'd let her license lapse when her father died, and she even told me about it; I knew she'd get around to renewing it as soon as she recovered, so I never turned her in. But she had no problem trying to roll over on me!

No mystery why I preferred the clients! If any ever had hurt me at all, it would've been more a result of their illness rather than ill intent. Although none of them ever did bother me at all, even in the worst depths of a psychotic episode. I guess they could've but no one ever did.

It's been my personal experience

that people usually don't change all that much, absent overwhelming impetus. As Maya Angelou reminds us, "When someone shows you who they are, believe them."

Yes, I've been very fortunate with this MSI computer. For a consumer class item,

it's been fantastic. Who knows how long I can keep this one going? Only had to do 2 reinstallations. When I put the 2 other browsers on, though, I did get carried away by the eye candy add-ons. Then while searching for an even more effective registry cleaner, I snapped up a couple other programs, and before you know it I'd dug myself such a deep hole that it was hard to climb out. Good object lesson, though. And you never know, I might wind up on Linux next time. It sounds good.

Glad I'm taking a brief respite from my usual no-tech Christmas celebration so I can wave hi to everyone this morning. I appreciate the DU posse.

Right back atcha, and the family, Rug

Obviously I'm breaking my previous ritual of a tech-free Christmas Day. But then sometimes change is good! It will be back to (tada!) "tradition!" shortly, though.

7 Home Premium. Nobody could give me 8 because at least I hear it's buggy.

7 suits me fine. I've had this MSI computer on for almost 8 years, though, and push the envelope with it too much, so I'm totally amazed it's still wheezing along. It's supposed to be easy enough to open according to a You-Tube video, but never having done so, the thought makes me a little nervous.

If I were rich I'd buy an I-Max with a huge screen. A certain amount of electronics is a practical necessity these days, especially for anyone otherwise marooned in RedNeckLand. The internet and DU in particular do me more good than any amount of pills or therapy.

The internet bottle, you mean???

What I got myself for Christmas

A vain, vapid topic that's sure to sink like a stone by tomorrow morning. Still, I spent too much of the day working on this not to record it for posterity.

Having decided to tune up this creaky old laptop as well as I could to stave off its imminent passing, I jumped in with all four feet. Added Opera to the other two browsers, Chrome and FireFox which I updated. Then I got snookered into an unreasonable number of delightful extensions and add-ons. In fact I even succumbed to a couple new freeware programs from CNET, the most trustworthy provider along with MajorGeeks.

Well, somewhere along the way I noticed that I couldn't turn on Windows Defender anymore, so I resumed sincere cleaning efforts. Usually around this time of year my favorite all purpose suite, Advanced System Care, puts the Pro version on sale so I bought that for very little. It helped with the registry but still not enough. Eventually I stumbled upon Glary Utility Systems 4 which also had Pro on sale, so I bought that. Between the two I got most of the computer problems worked out and the sneaky junk dumped. During all this I ordered a Coby 7" tv/dvd/radio/mp3 player on sale and decided it could use more antenna power. After hours sifting through those options, I found what seemed to be the most bang for the buck and bought that because it focuses mainly on UHF and I miss my PBS shows. I also looked at a lot of wireless wi fi repeaters, but I think I might wait for next month and buy the one at a local computer store that just opened up. It costs more than the stuff on eBay but I need to ask the local store owner if his was made in America, because that's how I'd rather go when possible. Last month I bought a dishwasher in anticipation of Christmas. Won't have to pay for it until January anyway. And I've made some of the online catalog stores very happy lately. Enough of that for a long time now, however.

You wouldn't believe how hard it is to find people who can tell me the db gain of their antenna. I blame it on the marketing department, which should know that some customers won't be wowed with meaningless ad copy such as "powerful". Powerful as compared to what???? I want the db gain or at least the average range in miles.

Well, I couldn't buy myself a pony, so I had to make do. Did you know they make special spaghetti forks? And I needed more long iced tea spoons. No more cookware, though. I've sworn that off.

Abraham Lincoln suffered crushing bouts of depression.

Were he alive today, he'd probably have spent time in a mental ward too instead of getting to be the greatest president ever. I once worked in a psych crash ward, and I can't begin to tell you how much I preferred most of the clients over most of the staff.