Things That Just Work (And Things That Don't)

I've spent too much of this Memorial Day wrestling with my husband's ThinkPad in an effort to get it to connect to our wireless network in a way that would ease the minds of our respective law firms' risk management aficionados. I'm about done trying broker accords between XP and OS X. Any insights into the following will be greatly appreciated.

Whither WEP? When WEP's on, the ThinkPad's offline. Period. Only way it will connect is if our packets are lolling out the windows like so many Amsterdam call girls. (This is with an Airport Extreme and v. 3.1.1 of the software.)

Paper Please. Is it too much to expect the ThinkPad to see the fully compatible USB printer attached to the Airport?

Serendipity to the rescue, however. My misery always loves Dr. Weinberger's company, and he offers this splendid account of why he had to take back his daughter's Samsung-Napster MP3 player:

I had a bad feeling about the Napster from the moment I started installing the software. It kept adding layers and layers of cruft, forcing me to upgrade my Windows Media Player, bundling in a CD burner, forcing me to register at Napster.com...window after window of incomprehensible files and DLLs until I wanted to scream that it ought to take its over-educated, over-engineered supercilious ass to the mountains and take up goat herding. And, sure enough, although Windows recognized the Napster device, the Napster software didn't. After four hours of trying, I gave up.

Plus, while moments ago Googling "callgirl" and "call girl" to get the preferred usage, Belle de Jour, Diary of a London Call Girl, popped up in my search results. Would that this could last: she's presently number — you guessed it — 69 in Technorati's Top 100.