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-Brother's project quote: "The cover should be visually appealing."-

Not much in the way of dreams last night either. I think I had it all together in my mind, but moved and lost it. Hmph.

Computers are funny things. They're supposed to be all virtual and advanced and whatever, but it's really quite charming when you stop to consider how many of their interfaces are lifted right off of physical "meatspace". I mean: buttons! Most tiny electronic devices nowadays try to minimize those simple little switches, but the screens computers are littered with "buttons" which still operate almost exactly like normal instrument-panel buttons. You merely press them with a deformed arrow-shaped object instead of your finger (and that could be debated, since ultimately you press the very real button on the mouse with your finger to do this).

Also: menus. Unfortunately, though these "menus" are much more solicitous than tangible menus -- popping up before you at the twitch of a finger -- they do have the disadvantage that you can rarely order food with them. Instead, you get a "window". Excuse me? Waiter? I would like the Creme de Plateglass, please...

It gets even weirder inside programs (note: how did computer programs get their name? From concert programs?? What does that have to do with commanding a computer to do something???). The top of the screen contains a "toolbar" which presumably in real life would hold hammers, screwdrivers, and the like, but instead holds "menus". Why then is it not called a "menu rack" or "that counter in the waiting area of a restaurant that patrons steal culinary literature from as they are waiting for the party of 50 before them to finish chit-chatting"? Further, the "program" often contains the ability to "copy" and "paste" (moving inexplicably now from the toolshed into the office), which I suppose is theoretically possible of a concert program as well, though probably frowned upon.

And then comes the pure romance when you have finished your work: you are given the opportunity to "save" the distressed, damsel-document. From WHAT is unclear, though the ominously whimsical "trash can" in the corner of the screen can be up to no good. Once the document is safely saved, she can then be retrieved at any time by selecting "open" (or more poetically "restore") from the "file" "menu", hinting, perhaps, that the mode of opening involves chains and/or prison bars which must be slowly and carefully weakened with a metal file so that the lady can be freed from the vile dungeon in which she hath most wofully been held.

But wait. I thought you just "saved" her, you good-for-nothing "hero" cad!!

Reality check. And by the way, why is it that in a computer, "open" has nothing to do with "close"?