I spent several hours on Friday unsuccessfully trying to install Parallels and then Windows XP on my Macbook Pro. I was able to get it up and running over the weekend through some inelegant workarounds, and today I found myself fully in the Office Space world that is Windows.

10 minutes before the departure of the last #5 bus from the downtown depot, I shut down my computer. Well, I asked it to shut down. Windows chose this inopportune moment to notify me that it needed to install 81(!) updates. It warned me not to shut down, or face dire consequences.

15 minutes later, updates installed, I was allowed to leave.

But I had to find an alternate route home.

Today on my way home from work, walking a couple of blocks in a bad part of town, I craned to see whether my bus was approaching. A SFPD cruiser pulled over to creep along beside me, and the officer rolled down the window.

“What are you looking for?” he asked me.

“What?”

“What are you looking for?”

Reflexively defensive, “Er… I was looking to see whether my bus… uh… I’m just transferring busses, and I was checking to see whether my bus was coming, to see if I need to hurry to the stop…”

“The 19 bus?”

“Yes.”

“Your stop is…”

And that’s where I turned away and just made for my bus stop. I think he was just trying to help, but I’m naturally on my guard in that part of town, and I assumed the officer was targeting me somehow.

In retrospect, I think he was just trying to help a guy who probably looked a bit out of place, and I feel a little bad for turning away from him while he was still talking.