I feel I must confess...

I am not a girly girl. Most of you who know me should be aware of this fact. I like my video games and action movies, and my preferred genre of book is science fiction. Though I am a feminist, I am a feminist in the "we are all the same so why differentiate ourselves" manner. I regularly open doors for men, carry my own propane tanks out to the car, and generally conform to few of the expectations we have of women in society today. 

But, I confess, there is one glaring exception. 

I love costume dramas, especially those set in Regency- or Victorian-era England. I love North and South and Pride and Prejudice. If I'm feeling down, I can watch Wives and Daughters or Jane Eyre. They are girly in all of the ways that I usually hate, and I love them nonetheless. 

Of course, they are usually done incredibly well, especially if the BBC had a role in their production. The acting and casting are usually phenomenal, the scores are simple enough not to detract from the acting but still beautiful, and the behind-the-scenes set and costume people do a marvelous job. They are, in fact, usually among the best-produced shows on television, HBO's massive-budget affairs aside. 

And really, I can't help but love the scripts. "I think God has forsaken this place. I believe I have seen hell, and it is white, snow white." People don't really speak like that any more. A few might write like that, but it's certainly not the norm, and hasn't been for some time. I speak and write more formally than some, and I still don't even begin to approach that level of eloquence. Though of course, it's sometimes the shortest lines that have the most impact. "Look back at me... Look back at me." One of the best scenes in all of North and South.  

If you can't tell, I've just gotten through rewatching that particular miniseries. It truly is one of the best costume dramas around. I can't find fault with the acting, for even the most ridiculous characters are like that on purpose. It's also one of the few I've seen that deals with laborers in that time period, and the only one that wasn't written by Charles Dickens; though to be fair, he was Elizabeth Gaskell's editor. Either way, it is both a wonderful defense and a condemnation of unionization, which is a theme rarely explored. 

I suppose, in the end, it's all because I'm a bit of a romantic. Not necessarily in the most modern sense, because I truly can't stand romance novels or supposed "romantic comedies", but in a sense that is perhaps a bit older. I believe in the triumph of love over initial prejudices, in second chances, in imperfect people, and that "nice guys/girls finish last" is a load of bologna. Some of us just take longer than others. 

Texas Spring

I drove home from College Station earlier this afternoon. The drive lasts an hour and a half, and is usually not a pleasant trip. Cars go too fast, other cars go too slow, and farm machinery occasionally clogs up the narrower roads along my way. I usually just have to bear it with the help of some good music and, so long as I'm in range, KUHF, Houston's NPR station. As I drive through Magnolia, I am forced repeatedly to see the destruction wrought by last summer's wildfire, blackened trees, skeletal and bare. I am reminded of the horrors that Texas' fickle weather can cause, and just what can happen when there is no rain. 

 But then there are days like today, gorgeous spring afternoons without a cloud in sight. The fields have returned once again to green, and they are dotted with wildflowers in vibrant yellows and reds and purples. The bluebonnets are starting to bloom, and the land is starting to recover from last year's drought, though the burnt forests are as desolate as ever. Their time will come again. 

 Today's drive was actually rather pleasant. Highway speeds are too fast to enjoy rolling my windows down, but it was nice to see the sunshine and the flowers and the thankfully green grass. Sometimes, it's good to be in Texas.

Windows 8 Consumer Preview

I was honestly a little excited when I got to installing the new preview of Windows 8. It's like that with any piece of software I install though, I become like a child getting a new toy, I want to play with it and discover all of its functions. An operating system is on a whole other level though, because it just does so much more than any other piece of software. It's rare that I'm honestly disappointed when I first start messing around with a new operating system.

This was one of those instances, at least at first glance.

Windows 8 seems like it'll be brilliant on tablets and tablet PCs, but it's optimized for those at the expense of those of us on a regular computer, and more so for those of us who are either on a desktop or use a regular mouse with a laptop.

The system is set up like I've come to expect from an operating system that's used on touch-based devices. The old Windows start menu is completely gone, replaced with a brand-new start screen that seems to want nothing more than to make you use nothing but Windows products (though at least the Mail program supports Gmail, I'm not sure about others). Of course, this may be due at least in part to the fact that the Metro apps bundled with the preview are all Windows-owned, and hopefully this will change in the future. It is, thankfully, somewhat customizable, so anything you don't use can be moved to the side and more frequently-used programs can be placed in prominent positions.

Presumably, you can swipe to the side on a tablet or possibly on a laptop with mouse gestures in order to display more programs. On a desktop, this can be controlled with the scroll wheel on your mouse, as well as by dragging the scrollbar. The setup seems like a good idea in theory, until I realized that I have forty-two different program folders under my Win 7 start menu, and many of these contain multiple programs. The start screen is going to get clunky and crowded, fast.

It probably doesn't help that I find it one of the ugliest operating systems I've yet seen, and I'm accounting for Linux distros in that. The colors just seem strange, don't coordinate well, and are frankly just unattractive. There are a few other things that are a bit off-putting. There is a desktop, but I can't quite divine its purpose. I know that non-metro apps will exist, but you'll still have to go to the start screen to get to them. The desktop should be familiar to anyone who's used Windows 7, with one glaring difference: there is no start button. At all. It's gone. Instead, to get to the start menu, you have to click the bottom left-hand pixel.

Settings are also in a strange place. The Control Panel of old is gone, and the settings are now in a hidden menu revealed by moving your mouse to the screen's top or bottom right. It sometimes took me a couple of tries to get to items on that menu without the menu inexplicably disappearing on me. It's not a system that's intuitive and easy to use, at least not for someone who's grown accustomed to the "old" Windows.

On the other hand, is it fast? Yes. I was immensely pleased by the start-up time on my computer. In technical aspects, Windows 8 excels. It used less memory than 7, and supposedly uses less processor power, though Task Manager so rarely shows mine going over 0% that it's hard to tell. For all its aesthetic flaws, Windows 8 is a bit of a technical marvel.

The changes will be difficult to get accustomed to. I'm sure that updated drivers will help immensely when the full release arrives, since I couldn't get my video card to work properly due to lacking one. Will I probably buy 8 when it's released? Yes.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go boot back into my Windows 7 partition.