we're experiencing technical difficulties

Below is how far I got on a post about me fucking up my computer before I realized nobody cares. Anyway, fucked up computer and internet problems are why there's no post today. I'll get a new post up tomorrow and resume weekly Wednesday posting next week. And just to include a quote from dad, "FUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKFUCK." (You have to imagine me jumping up and down like a two year-old screaming that to get the whole effect.)
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I don't know dick about computers. The only thing I know is that armed with enough patience and obsessiveness you can figure out any goddamn thing with google. So of course when AT&T fucked up my phone and internet service last Friday, effectively cutting me off from my only source of knowledge and insight, I took it upon myself to try a complex change to my home desktop.

A few words about my computer. I bought the cheapest new computer I could find about 7 months ago. I doesn't have bad specs to my eyes, 2GHz Pentium Duo processor, 1Gb RAM, but it did come with Vista as the OS. Vista requires GREAT specs to run modestly well. Even after following every tip on the internet for improving the performance of Vista it still sucked up too much processing power to allow me to smoothly use the vector and bitmap imaging editors I like. This pissed me off and I wanted to try going back to XP.

Here's the problem: I knew Lenovo didn't include drivers for XP on my computer. I wasn't sure I wanted to risk dumping Vista in favor of an outdated OS, and I wasn't sure I had the skillset to pull off the change and end up with a functioning machine.

After consulting the hive mind I decided that a dual boot system, while slightly more complex, was probably the safer way to go, because in the end I'd at least have Vista to fall back on. I've been wanting to do this for months, but was always a little scared to try it. I've even had my hard disk partitioned this whole time but was just too scared to pull the trigger.

Well, when AT&T collapsed I decided the thing to do was attempt to set up my dual boot without the benefit of an active internet connection in case things went bad. To quote my dad, "Me fucky uppy."

I successfully loaded XP and it worked, sort of. I couldn't get it to recognize my DSL modem. Not to big a deal since the internet was dead to me anyway. I rebooted hoping to get back into Vista. No dice. Never got the option I was looking for on the boot screen.

I load the Vista recovery disc that came with my computer and reboot. Let's see, the instructions say to select repair system when the disc loads, huh, okay don't see that option. I'll just hit next and
OVERWRITE MY ENTIRE SETUP ELIMINATING ALL THE SOFTWARE I HAD INSTALLED SINCE PURCHASING THIS POS.

Okay, no big deal, I'll just get all that software back when the internet connection is up again.

sorry, no post this week. Will try and resume next week.

I'm living in a stacked deck

Yet another one that's simply a favorite expression of my dad's. I remember often hearing this during Cowboys football games.

Then they just lay there and burn

This is from a story much better told by Ojo. (Why does it seem like I'm always saying that?) At any rate, the short version of this story is that my dad, Ojo, our grandfather, and our younger cousin were out fishing when a nasty storm blew in. (Robo and his dad may have been with them as well, I'm not sure.) Initially my dad thought they could just outrun the stormfront and keep fishing as the storm blew ashore behind them. It didn't take long, however, for him to recognize that this storm was a) bigger than he thought, b) faster than he thought, and c) moving a different direction than he thought.
At this point he decided to just find a spot where the boat was least likely to sustain damage and drop anchor to ride out the storm. Everyone's getting drenched, freezing in the 30+ mph winds, and getting scared of all the lightning tearing through the sky. My younger cousin was hunkered down under the console narrating all the problems that faced them: "The wind's getting stronger. The waves are getting higher. The rain's getting harder."

Those who know Ojo are probably not surprised to hear that he was not a big fan of the strategy of entrusting their fates to the mercy of Mother Nature. So he wanted to come up with a better plan and asked dad, "What happens if that lightning strikes the boat?" To which dad replied, matter-of-factly, "Well, if that happens, we all die." Instant classic, only, of course, because they did not have to put that prediction to the test.

And a little bit nauseating

My dad just said this a lot. Not sure why. I guess he was a big Tarzan fan as a kid. My aunts all talk about him running around saying this whenever they'd have friends over.

Now my head is going to hurt the rest of the day

My dad actually ripped this off from my mom's dad. Legend has it my alcoholic grandfather would sit on the side of the bed rueing whatever his latest transgression was and mutter "I'm a sorry sumbitch."

Life is full of disappointments

This is a recent one detailed on my other blog here.