text | un: vaquero

[quinientos]

how do you switch this thing to spanish?

[Nothing should be said about the embarrassing amount of time it's taken him to type up that message, but suffice to say, meals could be had (with dessert), flowers might wilt, and mayflys inched stoically to death. Maybe it's an exaggeration, but it doesn't really feel that much of one to him]

Comments

[quinientos]

Anyone ever told you that you use too many big words?

[inshallah]

Not really.

[quinientos]

Then I can be the first. Maybe for men like me, you go slower?

[inshallah]

I'll try to.

[quinientos]

How about starting with explaining why the computer can do what it does?

[inshallah]

Well, it's like a machine. It's a very smart machine.

[quinientos]

How can a machine be very smart?
How can a machine think at all?

[inshallah]

Well, intelligent people create it and the processes that keep it running.

I suppose it is a little hard to explain. It really is less important how it happens for the average person. Knowing does not really make it easier to use.

[quinientos]

That's promising to hear that there are some intelligent people here.

Okay, maybe a different question. Why does everyone get one?

[inshallah]

I imagine there have to be quite a few in a place like this.

It's convenient? There's a lot of things made easier and faster, like communicating.
Originally, the idea was to help make math more efficient and it grew from there to now people use it for everything. Entertainment, communication, research and the like.

[quinientos]

What kind of entertainment do these little things give you?

Can it give alcohol? Cigarettes?

[inshallah]

No, not physical things but things like movies and tv shows... you can read books on them?

[quinientos]

Not much of a reader. Don't know what movies and tv shows are.

But this thing, this phone, it can show them too?

[inshallah]

Movies and TV shows, they tell stories but in moving pictures and sound.

[ Wow it is a lot harder to explain that than she'd have thought. ]

Yes, it can. It can show you just about anything.

[quinientos]

Books, then. They're flashy books.

What do you like seeing best, then? Where do I start?

[inshallah]

Many people who do not like books like movies and TV shows though.

That's a difficult question. What are your interests in general? That helps.

[quinientos]

The only interest I've had lately is staying alive. I'm not sure what that would actually mean I enjoy in these shows of yours.

[inshallah]

Well, there are some that are about survival and the like but maybe something lighter would be more appropriate.

[quinientos]

Which one do you like best? Maybe I will start there.

[inshallah]

I love Lucy is one of my favorites.

[quinientos]

Who is this Lucy?

[inshallah]

Well, she's the main character of the show.

[quinientos]

And what does this Lucy do?

[inshallah]

Well, she's a housewife but she's always getting herself and her husband into trouble. She's really funny.

[quinientos]

Plenty of housewives I know back in Mexico who do the same, but it's not usually so funny for the husband.

What makes her different?