Thanks to everyone - all one of you* - who suggested possible titles. I actually sought out assistance in the Comments over at Slacktivist and went with one of the suggestions from someone there: Blood Drift.
Even after switching to the different wireless adapter, Munin continued to exhibit the problems it had been having under Windows 7.
I decided that the thing to do was to restore it to factory condition, download a BIOS update that I didn't think to download before upgrading - and which wouldn't run under Windows 7 - and some firmware updates for the hard drive and DVD drive, then try a clean install of Windows 7.
During one of the brief periods in which I had Internet connectivity I found a newer driver for the built-in wireless adapter, but installing that didn't fix the problem.
That didn't really surprise me, as it was clear that the problem was bigger than just that one driver, as no USB device connected to the computer would work properly.
Attempting to copy files to an external hard drive, for example, would result in the transfer eventually stalling out and the hard drive light actually turning off. The drive would still appear to be accessible - I could explore it, but not actually open any files on it - but clearly wasn't working.
This was actually a major fly in the ointment, as I needed to back up my internal hard drive before doing the factory restore, which reformats the drive and erases everything on it.
After several vain attempts to get the files copied over to my external drive I finally hit upon an idea: download an .iso of some Linux distro, burn a CD, boot from that, and copy the files over to the external drive.
So I found some random distro, burned it to CD, booted...and found that it didn't have drivers for my display, so once it actually loaded up I couldn't see anything.
Undaunted (well, somewhat daunted), I found a distro of Ubuntu Linux, burned the .iso, booted from that, and success!
With that accomplished, I dug out my recovery CDs, booted up...and realized that I didn't actually need the CDs, as the recovery files are stored in a partition on the hard drive and I could have just hit F11 during bootup to run the recovery from there.
Worse, I completely forgot that the restore process actually gives you an opportunity to run a back-up before proceeding, so it's possible I could have skipped the whole Linux process (though I'm not 100% sure on that; choosing to "Backup Now" might have just booted me back into Windows, where the backing up wouldn't have worked, given the USB communications issues.)
After doing the factory restore I found that my BIOS was actually up to date anyway.
*Sigh*
It was very late by this time, though, so I waited until this morning to reinstall Windows 7.
This time around the problem with the wireless adapter appeared right away.
I didn't even bother trying to download the new driver.
Instead I opted to disable the adapter and pick up one of those power line networking kits.
It actually works pretty well. You hook one adapter up to the router, then plug it into the wall outlet. Then you take the other adapter, hook it up to the computer you want to add to the network, plug it into the wall outlet, and voila, the network signal is traveling through the electrical wiring in the house. So far with that method I'm able to network Munin without the problems I was having with the wireless adapter(s).
I may buy another adapter so that I can hook my Blu-ray player and media extender up to the network (it's faster than the wireless connection my media extender currently has, and the Blu-ray player doesn't have wireless).
So it took more than a week, but it seems that - knock on wood - I finally have Windows 7 running properly and can now actually enjoy some of the new features.
Apart from messing around with Windows 7 and doing the usual comic book and grocery shopping, in the late afternoon/early evening I decided to bail on any trick-or-treaters and see a movie. Unlike last year, when I bailed on them but left candy - which some little bastard promptly stole, apparently - this year I said, "Screw you, kids!' and left nothing.
The movie in question was Zombieland, which was freakin' hilarious.
I'm not sure how much posting I'll be doing for the next month, as I'll be working on the novel trying to churn out 50,000 words in 30 days.
This time around will be more of a challenge than the other two times, as I don't have as much free time as I did back then, what with the four days off (and having time to actually write while I was at work), and I really want to write something that's at least halfway decent this time around. Of course, that's what I wanted to do the other two times, and that really didn't work out, so I'm not terribly confident that this year will be different.
In any case, I'm not going to blog my chapters as I write them like I did the first time around, though, unless it turns out to be complete garbage (there's a better than average chance of that), I will probably share it in some fashion once I'm finished.
*I'm honestly not bitter about the lack of comments in the Comments. I'm a realist; I know how little traffic this blog gets and how little there is to actually comment on. Seriously, I'm not bitter. Well, not terribly bitter, at any rate. I mean, it does bother me a little when I explicitly ask for comments and don't get any (other than from Scott), but it's not like I expected any, so I guess it all works out.
Showing posts with label punking out on halloween. Show all posts
Showing posts with label punking out on halloween. Show all posts
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Saturday, November 01, 2008
There Is No Escape
My plans for yesterday all revolved around not having to deal with children going around begging for candy.
In this regard, my plans were an utter failure.
At 3:00 employees brought their kids in to work and went around from floor to floor hitting up people for candy.
I had no idea that this was going to happen, so I had no candy to give out.
No one actually hit me up for any, but as one group went past my cube, I heard this little girl say, in a voice dripping with contempt, “No candy here.”
Snot-nosed little – I wanted to respond with, “Well how the hell was I supposed to know? This is a place of business, not a damn candy store!”
Admittedly, a candy store is also a place of business, but that’s not the line of business I work in, and is hardly the point.
Of course I didn’t say that, but I did clear the hell out of there as soon as my boss said I could take off early if I wanted, and given the child infestation, I very much did.
After I got home I sat around for a while doing the usual. I had decided to see Zack and Miri Make a Porno (more on that in a separate post) as my means of avoiding the candy-seeking horde that, unlike the one at work, I knew was coming. Not taking any chances, I left before it started to get dark, even though the movie wouldn’t start for another two hours.
Despite the fact that I had zero interest in looking into the precious little faces of the ravening horde, I had no intention of screwing them out of their full sugar fix, so I set out a bowl of candy before I left (more on that in a bit).
After 36 years spent doing so quite frequently, I’m accustomed to being wrong about things, and in fact I usually anticipate that such will be the case, but I wasn’t prepared for being wrong about so many things.
In the first place, I thought that it would take me anywhere from 15 to 20 minutes to get to the Brambleton Town Center, where the theater is located. It took me 10 minutes.
I had intended to kill the time – not counting the time I saved in getting there – by first going to the AT&T store and seeing if they were selling the Fuze, which is the AT&T-branded version of the HTC Touch Pro, the sexy new cell phone that I intend to buy, and then getting something to eat.
The only problem with this plan was that there is no AT&T store there.
This was infuriating for multiple reasons, not the least of which is that I know there used to be one there. Evidently it has since closed. Stupid economy.
I know that there was one there because I distinctly recall commenting to Scott one time when we went to see a movie there that it was funny that I could barely get service on my AT&T phone there, given the presence of an AT&T store.
And of course, my timing was such that I was there for the peak of activity in the trick-or-treating that was going on in the Town Center, so I found myself once again failing to avoid kids in costumes going around looking for candy.
I wandered around for a while, dodging miniature Spider-Men, Hulks, pirates, genies, princesses, and so forth, then decided to try out the Thai place for dinner. I figured it would be busy and that it would take a fair amount of time.
Wrong again.
For a while I was the only patron, and the whole affair took about 20 minutes from start to finish.
As an aside, I had the “Drunken Noodle,” which, despite sounding like a less risqué term for “Whiskey Dick,” was actually very good (and very spicy).
After that I wandered around aimlessly some more – at least the kids were gone by this point – and, as it was surprisingly warm out, considering how cool the day had started out, I decided I’d drop my jacket off in my car.
This was, of course, a mistake, as it began to cool rapidly. At least walking back to my car to get my jacket ate up some time.
Eventually it was time for the movie, and finally, for the first time of the evening, I was right about something: the theater wasn’t terribly busy. I had assumed it wouldn’t be, given that most people were probably out at parties or taking their kids from door to door in a quest for sugar.
So score one for Jon.
When I got home I found that all of the candy was gone…along with the bowl.
I had assumed that someone would come along and take it, which is why I bought a cheap bowl specifically for that purpose rather than using one of my good bowls, but this was something that I had hoped I’d be wrong about. I can only hope that it happened late in the evening, and that some less greedy kids actually got to have some of the candy.
I noticed later that the empty bowl was actually left on one of the big rocks in the cul-de-sac, so I was at least wrong about someone keeping the bowl.
And that was my Halloween.
I did kinda-sorta dress up for the day. I went in to work wearing jeans, a black T-shirt, and my biker jacket, and if anyone had asked – though no one did – I would have said that I was in costume as “Myself, ten years ago.”
Of course, the costume was slightly inaccurate, in that I wasn’t wearing glasses and I wasn’t hungover.
In this regard, my plans were an utter failure.
At 3:00 employees brought their kids in to work and went around from floor to floor hitting up people for candy.
I had no idea that this was going to happen, so I had no candy to give out.
No one actually hit me up for any, but as one group went past my cube, I heard this little girl say, in a voice dripping with contempt, “No candy here.”
Snot-nosed little – I wanted to respond with, “Well how the hell was I supposed to know? This is a place of business, not a damn candy store!”
Admittedly, a candy store is also a place of business, but that’s not the line of business I work in, and is hardly the point.
Of course I didn’t say that, but I did clear the hell out of there as soon as my boss said I could take off early if I wanted, and given the child infestation, I very much did.
After I got home I sat around for a while doing the usual. I had decided to see Zack and Miri Make a Porno (more on that in a separate post) as my means of avoiding the candy-seeking horde that, unlike the one at work, I knew was coming. Not taking any chances, I left before it started to get dark, even though the movie wouldn’t start for another two hours.
Despite the fact that I had zero interest in looking into the precious little faces of the ravening horde, I had no intention of screwing them out of their full sugar fix, so I set out a bowl of candy before I left (more on that in a bit).
After 36 years spent doing so quite frequently, I’m accustomed to being wrong about things, and in fact I usually anticipate that such will be the case, but I wasn’t prepared for being wrong about so many things.
In the first place, I thought that it would take me anywhere from 15 to 20 minutes to get to the Brambleton Town Center, where the theater is located. It took me 10 minutes.
I had intended to kill the time – not counting the time I saved in getting there – by first going to the AT&T store and seeing if they were selling the Fuze, which is the AT&T-branded version of the HTC Touch Pro, the sexy new cell phone that I intend to buy, and then getting something to eat.
The only problem with this plan was that there is no AT&T store there.
This was infuriating for multiple reasons, not the least of which is that I know there used to be one there. Evidently it has since closed. Stupid economy.
I know that there was one there because I distinctly recall commenting to Scott one time when we went to see a movie there that it was funny that I could barely get service on my AT&T phone there, given the presence of an AT&T store.
And of course, my timing was such that I was there for the peak of activity in the trick-or-treating that was going on in the Town Center, so I found myself once again failing to avoid kids in costumes going around looking for candy.
I wandered around for a while, dodging miniature Spider-Men, Hulks, pirates, genies, princesses, and so forth, then decided to try out the Thai place for dinner. I figured it would be busy and that it would take a fair amount of time.
Wrong again.
For a while I was the only patron, and the whole affair took about 20 minutes from start to finish.
As an aside, I had the “Drunken Noodle,” which, despite sounding like a less risqué term for “Whiskey Dick,” was actually very good (and very spicy).
After that I wandered around aimlessly some more – at least the kids were gone by this point – and, as it was surprisingly warm out, considering how cool the day had started out, I decided I’d drop my jacket off in my car.
This was, of course, a mistake, as it began to cool rapidly. At least walking back to my car to get my jacket ate up some time.
Eventually it was time for the movie, and finally, for the first time of the evening, I was right about something: the theater wasn’t terribly busy. I had assumed it wouldn’t be, given that most people were probably out at parties or taking their kids from door to door in a quest for sugar.
So score one for Jon.
When I got home I found that all of the candy was gone…along with the bowl.
I had assumed that someone would come along and take it, which is why I bought a cheap bowl specifically for that purpose rather than using one of my good bowls, but this was something that I had hoped I’d be wrong about. I can only hope that it happened late in the evening, and that some less greedy kids actually got to have some of the candy.
I noticed later that the empty bowl was actually left on one of the big rocks in the cul-de-sac, so I was at least wrong about someone keeping the bowl.
And that was my Halloween.
I did kinda-sorta dress up for the day. I went in to work wearing jeans, a black T-shirt, and my biker jacket, and if anyone had asked – though no one did – I would have said that I was in costume as “Myself, ten years ago.”
Of course, the costume was slightly inaccurate, in that I wasn’t wearing glasses and I wasn’t hungover.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Actual Birthday
Though we had the party on Sunday, today is my mom's actual birthday, so I demand that encourage all Threshold readers to join me in wishing her a happy 70th.
I'm back in the salt mines today after taking a post-trip recuperation day yesterday.
Only 37 pieces of mail in my inbox, and no voicemails, so that wasn't too bad, and I'm already back in the familiar routine.
Tonight is Riff Trax night, so I most likely won't be posting anything. Tomorrow I have my eye appointment and then a solid night of TV watching, so don't hold your breath waiting for a post.
Honestly, why would you hold your breath anyway?
I may post something Friday. I'm planning to punk out on the candy-giving by going to see a movie or something (either The Changeling or Zack and Miri Make a Porno). The neighborhood kids will still get candy from me - I'll either leave a bowl outside the house or give candy to my neighbors to hand out on my behalf - but I just don't feel up to the bother of answering the door and keeping the littlebastards scamps from wriggling their way into my house to check out my TV like they kept trying to last year.
I'm back in the salt mines today after taking a post-trip recuperation day yesterday.
Only 37 pieces of mail in my inbox, and no voicemails, so that wasn't too bad, and I'm already back in the familiar routine.
Tonight is Riff Trax night, so I most likely won't be posting anything. Tomorrow I have my eye appointment and then a solid night of TV watching, so don't hold your breath waiting for a post.
Honestly, why would you hold your breath anyway?
I may post something Friday. I'm planning to punk out on the candy-giving by going to see a movie or something (either The Changeling or Zack and Miri Make a Porno). The neighborhood kids will still get candy from me - I'll either leave a bowl outside the house or give candy to my neighbors to hand out on my behalf - but I just don't feel up to the bother of answering the door and keeping the little
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