Right after I posted the previous drivel, my inner drill sargent was screaming, “Yeeewww maggot! At least you got computers to play with! At least you can go to the friggin’ movies! Just get off yer whiny tailfeathers and fix ’em! And quit yer bellyachin’!”
Of course, as with all my inner shouting matches, it devolved into calling myself a “vacuous, toffee-nosed, malodorous pervert”.
(I got even though. I called myself a big, blue meanie under my breath. I hope I didn’t hear that!)
What a freaking disaster!
It all started out so well. I got up bright and early on a sunny Saturday morning to go to the computer show with Grump, Cableman, JustAGirl and Son-of-JustAGirl. My PC monitor is pretty shaky. (I have to smack it 4 or 5 times before the color works properly.) And I thought I’d see if I could pick up a cheap older model GeForce video card, so I can run the awesome new Call of Duty game when it comes out. I came home with a new GeForce FX 5200 and a cheap CD burner.
Before I even got home, the troubles started.
Pepperkat called me and said her PC was constantly rebooting itself. Oh great…virus…here we go… So, I tried fixing her PC. It was a mess. The registry was corrupted. Rebooting with XP setup diskettes to get into Recovery Console kept hanging up right at the point of pressing the “R” key. Disaster.
Meanwhile, I thought I’d be smart and install my new hardware. More bad news. The monitor kept going off like it was in power-save mode after a couple of minutes. So, I’d have to blindly power the machine down. Of course, I trashed XP. Grrrr.
For a break, Saturday night we went out to the movies. Saw Secondhand Lions (with the incredible ROTK trailer). The trailer was jaw-droppingly awesome. And the movie was pretty darned good, too. I especially liked the cartoonist who drew the pics for the grown up Walter (Haley Joel Osment’s character). You’ll know who it is without even waiting for his name in the credits…which is at the very end, by the way.
Before the movie, we had supper in the mall, and Whiny and I perused the used software at EB. We found used, half-priced versions of Neverwinter Nights and Freelancer. Of course, with the luck I had this weekend, NWN had a bad CD, and his hand-me-down monitor won’t run at a high enough resolution for Freelancer! Augh!!
So, I finally trundled off to bed at 1am with my PC barely back on its feet, Pepperkat’s PC dead, and a frustrated Whiny the Elder.
Thank God it’s Monday.
I’m ashamed of myself. I completely missed No Thumb Day!
Drat. Now, I’ll just have to be content with the upcoming “No Spleen Day”.
Geez, I go to work and when I come up for air I find out:
Robert Palmer AND George Plimpton died.
Augh! Make it stop!!
On a lighter note:
There’s a new trailer for Return of the King that will be shown before Secondhand Lions (which I’m determined to see this weekend), and there’s a new Matrix trailer, too.
And Mister Gnomedex survived the hurricane.
Happy 5764!!
If it weren’t for that stupid Orlando Sentinel article I got left out of last November, I might never have found Kat (the bitter one). That would be a bad thing. Not only is she incredibly hot and brilliant, she was a spotlight assistant operator for The Wiz! I mean, come on people, is it any wonder I’m one of her biggest stalkers?
Solonor’s Aortal Site of the Week is Blissfully Bitter.
I find this baseball site called The Dead Ball Era strangely fascinating. It’s dedicated to dead baseball players. But it’s not just a list of them, or a look at their careers, it’s focused on their deaths. They are categorized by cause of death (accident, murder, suicide) and “necrology by location”. There are special tributes to Thurman Munson and to the ’27 Yankees and a detailed look at the Ray Chapman beaning (Major League Baseball’s only on-field death). And you can find a scan of just about everyone’s newspaper obit.
The kicker is its collection of grave site photos. There are hundreds of pictures of the grave sites of players, managers, owners, umpires and their families.
Somehow, this is all pulled off as a loving tribute, not a sick obsession or a cold history. Which is good, because where else are people like Dusty Boggess (a National League umpire for 18 years) or John “Pa” Harkins (of the “famous battery of Harkins and Bushong” for Cleveland in 1884) going to be remembered?
[ via Sgt. Grump ]
I love this story from Kenya: Archbishop Says Ban Book From Schools
Catholic Archbiship Ndingi Mwana’a Nzeki has advised that a book by Nigerian author Chinua Achebe. A Man of the People is a 40-year-old book that deals with politics and corruption. It foreshadowed the 1966 Nigerian coups. That, of course, is something young people in Kenya should not be told about.
According to the Archbishop, Kenyan schools should only allow books that set good examples, not those that may have a “negative influence” on young readers.
…the most important aspect in educating children is “character formation” first, followed by discipline and, lastly, education.
Especially if by educating them you put nasty thoughts in their heads. You know, social justice…free thinking…that sort of rubbish. And, you know, people have to be protected from this knowledge crap. It’s upsetting to society.
“Vietnam was the first war ever fought without any censorship. Without censorship, things can get terribly confused in the public mind.” –Gen. William C. Westmoreland, 1982
[ As seen at the Banned Books Project ]
I know! Let’s have the frickin’ car towed!!
Grrrr. Just got back from church. Yes, choir practice ends at 9pm. Unfortunately, my car decided it was tired and wasn’t going anywhere. “Carry me,” it whined. So, I had to call a tow truck to cart it’s dead-batteried arse away.
I spoil that thing rotten.
Whiny’s Thoughts
“All monkey’s are created equal, except for the ones with wings which can fly and are therefore better.”
