Gonzai Gallery

Just finished an hour with the new compie. My music drive wasn't being read by the computer. Seems it can't read the presence of the drive if it's plugged into a hub or a USB port on the back of the computer, but it's happy to read it if it's plugged into a front USB port. THis makes no sense.

Meanwhile, my finger is killing me, even with - or perhaps because of - the splint. I guess I'm having surgery on it.

Best Buy was very quick and easy on switching, as it turned out. However, I now have the last model of the computer so I sure hope this one works.

Saving it for tomorrow, though, my back is killing me and, pending the incoming ice storm, I may need something to do tomorrow...

Everything Mom tried to do this week was cancelled due to the weather, so I hauled her out with me to a new gaming night, near us on Fridays. She got through the games better than we'd hoped, inc. "The Simpsons: Clue', which isn't exactly standard fare at gaming. The owner of the Simpsons games was tickled to get to play them for a change. Everyone was having a blast and a lot of laughs, and the hosts couldn't have picked better food for Mom if I'd sent them an advance menu. Might be able to get her to go back, fingers crossed.

Then today I finally got back to the gym, did the grocery shopping, renewed prescriptions, picked up some new computer doodads for the new computer, unboxed the new compie and installed said doodads, and did some windup work on the old computer. TV time now, phew.

Started off the weekend with Dave's funeral. Definitely not your usual service: the guess-timated attendance was 600. The church was huge, but still not big enough as the service itself was standing room only, folks squeezed into every corner and the start delayed half an hour so everyone could park and squeeze in. (Arriving early, Bryce and I parked 2 1/2 blocks away and sat in the next to last pew.) Then we had an assortment of music, including bluegrass, Irish, Hawaiian and church traditionals. Then there was a jam session in the church's social hall. We were packed in tight between the high attendance and the truly spectacular spread. Not sure I've ever seen so much food in one place before, but table after table with assortments of repasts plus another 3 tables of desserts. Conversely, one small drink table. They did forget something! We were surprised by both the amazing attendance and how few people there we knew; we were the only people there from Roots Cafe, as far as we could tell, and most of the bands we knew had just one member attending. But still, what a turnout. Dave had quite the following.

Funerals plural, because Sunday I found out my sister-in-law's grandfather, with whom we've shared Thanksgiving the last six years, passed suddenly on Friday. His funeral is tomorrow. Two funerals in 4 days. (I suspect Art's funeral will be a bit smaller than Dave's.)

Football - I think going straight from Dave's service to the Ravens game tempered my mood just enough to keep me merely disappointed by the results, instead of devastated. There's a lot of devastated going around town these days, so in that regard I'm fortunate. The Ravens were also the only game I didn't correctly pick. Perhaps my pick'em touch is back.

Last but not least, computer follies. So the motherboard is dying and with it, the computer. It took much of the weekend but I was finally able to convince Mom that we do have to replace the computer, and she's willing to foot that bill if I pay for all accessories/needed software. (She may be getting the better end of the deal.) I searched about on the net and found what seemed to me to be a good computer at a decent price - ( this Gateway model ). I ran it up the flagpole past the same computer folks who deemed the motherboard failing. Half of them insisted I should get a Mac. Uh, guys, work & netbook computers are PCs, all software is PC, Mom can barely handle the familiar stuff. Not the time to make that big a move. The only opinion offered about the Gateway was negative, and that guy suggested ASUS. My netbook is ASUS and I'm quite fond of it, so I went back to the board. Best I could come up with ( was this ASUS model ), not quite the RAM or rating of the Gateway but comparably priced. So now I'm torn between these two computers, or possibly a door number 3. I definitely want to try to get ahead of the curve for a change, a quad core processor, lots of RAM & hard drive, etc in the hopes I can get 4-5 years out of a computer, but I doubt I can get Mom past $700, if that far. Any suggestions are welcome.

Back to (holiday level) work. That is, nearly none.

Busy, busy days for tired, tired me. I hate shovelling snow. I hate neighbors who shovel their snow at 2am. I've about had it with all these debtors who are convinced they have a consitutional right to not make their car payments, but can still keep the car. I made it to gaming last night, where the professional computer types conferred and concluded that my computer's motherboard is failing. Not surprised but didn't really want to hear that, either. I do want my mother to just let me pay the bills already, as she's a disaster in progress when it comes to her checkbook and the bills (she didn't pay the phone/cable bill for several months; I got that fixed hours before we would have been cut off.)

And now I find I'm not a Sagittarius after all. (Those who have experienced my stubborness will beg to differ with the astrologers on this point.) Evidently I am in fact a Scorpio. Whoopee.

The darn thing is driving me nuts. First the wireless keyboard & mouse stopped working. I've tried every suggestion I found online (changing batteries, reinstalling software, unplugging, rebooting computer, etc) and they just plain won't work. If it were one or the other I'd think it was the gadget, but both?

Then Mom's favorite software died. It just goes into thinking mode and not even Task Manager can shut it off; I have to shut off the computer entirely to stop it. I tried reinstalling that and the same thing happened.

So I spent the last couple hours trying to fix all this (defrag, spyware scan, virus scan, malware scan, empty recycle bin, et al) and neither of them are responding. These are both programs that worked one moment and died the next for no apparent reason. Gag. And in my attempts to fix them, my backup drive and ITunes library both disappeared.

Really aggravated...