Pencil Shavings

Wednesday, September 06, 2006

Little Miss Geek

little miss perfect

This is why I think I may be a geek. When I am writing with a marker pen on fancy paper and mis-spell "Happy birtday" because I'm thinking too fast, I think, "Ctrl-Z".

Why can't we have a Ctrl-Z for our normal everyday lives? (For the non-geeks, Ctrl-Z is the keyboard shortcut for the `undo' function in Windows.) Countless times I've longed for that nifty shortcut: when there is coffee all over the carpet because I toppled the cup while reaching for the phone, when my phone gets pickpocketed beccause I didn't zip up my bag, when I said something really stupid and hurt someone's feelings.

At those times, I just want to hit "Ctrl-Z" repeatedly until I get back to a more favourable state of being.

But life is not like that. If life were like that, I'll probably still be in 18-year-old mis_nomer beta version. I would have spilled no coffee, have no ex-es, broken no hearts, and done nothing mortally embarrassing, like forgetting to bring certain vital wardrobe functions. It just wouldn't happen because I would be Little Miss Perfect (and Little Miss Obsessive-Compulsive, too, but hey, who cares). (Did I spell Obesessive correctly? Ctrl-Z ctrl-Z ctrl-Z...)

(If anyone wants to know, I hit Ctrl-Z 29 times to create the graphic you see above.)

4 comments:

colinrt said...

lol... a Ctrl-Z is good but what would be better is a Quick Save/Quick Restore like in some games... tired with work? Quick Save and resume later when you're feeling more up to it... made a gaffe or faux pas and wanna re-do the situation again? Quick Restore from your last save point... woohoo!!

taking this even further... how about a walk-through for life's biggest problems? or a "tips, tricks, cheats and hints" section, and F1 for instant help??...

Julie said...

When I'm working on a drawing or painting, I seem to have lost the nervousness of days past because I'm so used to doing computer art that I foolishly think, "Oh. Spilled the paint across the paper. I'll just Ctrl-Z..."

...and then reality hits.

Oh, how I wish I could Ctrl-Z. I've thought this so many times. It's such a habit.

Anonymous said...

I needed Ctrl-Z yesterday, after being interviewed by a local paper, supposedly about women working in the oilfield. I even begged "will you read back what I said?"...to no avail.

He did promise he would make me sound good.

I'm trusting God on this one.

mis_nomer said...

Eric, heh. We'll probably Ctrl-Z and Easy button ourselves back to primordial matter. ;) Thanks for the link, btw.

TOT, ooh. System restore would be mind-blowing. Would it mean we would never die? What a preposterous idea!

Julie, I know exactly what you mean. It will be interesting to study how our computer habits affect our psychology (and our art). ;)

Janie, thanks for coming by. Do you really work in an oilfield? Cool. Are you afraid of coming across as too much of a feminist, or? Reporters will say what they want anyway, so don't worry too much about it.. :)