Clearly, things have been slow around here for the past few days, in part because of my computer problems but also because I was in Houston for a wedding Friday through Sunday. We had a great time during the weekend, although I was disappointed yet pleased that we didn't encounter anything stereotypically Texan while there. Instead, we spent Saturday afternoon visiting the more sophisticated side of Houston.

First we hit up the Rothko Chapel (it is what it sounds like), then moved on to the Menil Collection of modern art. The last culture stop was at the Byzantine Fresco Chapel (pictured on the right), which is an incredible modernistic chapel consisting of stolen Byzantine frescos later recovered and reassembled coupled with a plexiglass frame hanging from the ceiling. Neat. The neighborhood around the museum could have been airlifted directly from Cambridge, MA for all I knew -- it had that kind of academic feel.

So Houston isn't all that terrible. But while I was there, I got a call from the Apple Store telling me that they couldn't fix my hard drive because my case had a small dent on it. They figured I had dropped by computer and that's why my hard drive failed (the dent is over a year old) -- and fixing the case would be at least $1000. They also feared they wouldn't be able to close my case once they opened it. My anger from that didn't subside until I finally brought my computer to another authorized Apple dealer in Vegas (Century23) who were much nicer and didn't appear intimidated by the dented case.

While I was at the Apple Store, a mustachioed man approached and asked me if I "played cards." Evidently, he has seen someone who looks like me at the tables around town. Maybe I should start?