If the best things in life are free, so are some of the worst. I’m thinking viruses, natural disasters, door-to-door salespeople, hair loss, discarded gum on the sidewalk and drivers who have no clue what a signal light is for. I’m big on giving thanks for my blessings but think I should feel free to grumble about my curses too.

The first rule of writing is “write what you know.” If I restricted myself to that, I’d be out of work in no time, so I’ve expanded it to include “and like and dislike.” Luckily, my list of both is quite long and unlikely to ever be depleted.

Genuine eccentrics appeal to me; people who are passionate about something outside the mainstream but manage to keep themselves mostly tethered to the “here and now.” The risk, of course, is that what they are eccentric about could be really boring. No one wants to be trapped at a party with a guy whose sole interest in life is collecting ceramic Disney characters. But, as a general rule, I’ve found that folks who live at least a little “outside the box" are more at peace with themselves and tolerant of others.

Which reminds me. Love of money is not the root of all evil, intolerance is. And people who don’t share my opinion are just plain wrong. And I don’t have to listen to them or respect them and they’ll never go to heaven when they die.

Yes, that was just an example.

I came late to the world of computers. This has made me the object of ridicule for some, and the envy of others. I try to ignore the first group. I was 48 when I first sat down to a keyboard 5 years ago. (Hands up all you who just did some math.) Having a virtual world at your fingertips is daunting and exhilarating. On the plus side, I’ve chatted with, and made friends with people around the world, visited virtual museums, watched obscure movies and listened to wonderful music. It’s exciting to have an endless stream of constantly-expanding education and amusement a mouse click away.

The downside is that things go wrong. Things that either I can’t control, like my internet provider crashing, or things I just plain have no clue about, like javascript errors and fatal exceptions and missing mouse pointers.

Luckily I have sons and Salthecomputerguy. My sons are like kids everywhere today. They learn by doing and can sometimes fix by doing. When they can’t, Salthecomputerguy is only a phone call away. I bought my computer from him because he treated me fairly and his store was nearby. He hardly ever yells at me when I bring it in and, get this, actually honours the warranty!

I think he’s eccentric.