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Topic: About My Weeked (Read 333 times) |
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Frank
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Friday I saw a Staples ad for a HP 4400C scanner... super deal $99.99. I headed over to Best Buy to see if they would match the price... turns out the scanner has been $99.99 forever. I got them to knock off $10 then bought the 2 yr. replacement warranty , so that was even better than Staples price. So far so good.
When I got home, I had to explain to the wife why I bought a scanner even though we have one. I explain that it's a Visioneer 5300 and it won't work with Windows XP. She tells me to take it back for a refund (can't... bought it 3 years ago). Well I could put it in the box and tell the store I lost the receipt (can't... no box and they don't sell it anymore).
Saturday morning I decided to do some hard drive cleanup... so I start asking my 10 year-old son about all the stuff he has installed. "You can delete that... it sucks. Delete that too... it's a demo I had before we got the retail version. And delete that one, it sucks too". Cool, I was able reclaim 4GB on the hard drive.
But then my daughter is using the computer and she says it's being weird... can't log on, can't surf, seems like the mouse is messed up. Sure enough... it's doing really strange stuff. Bummer, I'll fix it in the morning.
Sunday morning, fearing that something bad happened yesterday with deleting 4GB of files... by this time it's so bad I'm navigating Windows XP using the keyboard only. I decided to check device manager... everything is working perfectly according to Windows XP.Then I did a restore (went back a week). Still bad. Reinstalled the mouse drivers. Still bad.
OK, time for drastic measures, decided to reinstall Windows XP. Uh, oh... I have two (legal) copies... I wonder which CD Key goes with this computer since I didn't write it down. I picked one... after all I have a 50/50 chance, at worst I might have to reactivate Windows.
Hey! Good guess, I got the right one and re-installed Windows XP... no activation required. But when all was said and done... I still had the same problem. Bummer.
Two hours later... I did what I should have done in the first place... try the mouse from the other PC. Wow! Problem solved... guess I'll go buy a mouse.
On the way out, my son tells me to get an optical mouse (cause they are better). I told him I'll see what they have... but I'm not getting one of the ones that the whole mouse glows red... it's annoying. Next my wife shows me the blue flowers in our livingroom wallpaper and asks me to look for a blue mouse to match the flowers. By this time I am ready for another beer... white mouse, blue mouse, ball mouse, optical mouse WTF does it matter!
I head over to Staples and guess what? They have an IBM wheel optical mouse, you can't see the light under it, and it is BLUE too! Wow... when I get home everybody is going to be happy.
I showed the mouse to my wife. It is blue, but too dark... doesn't match the wallpaper. I asked the wife why she's fucking with my head. She says she is serious... maybe if I go to Fry's they will have a better selection of colors. NO! I am not driving 20 miles to see if Fry's has light blue.
While I am hooking up the mouse, the rest of the family is conspiring to get me to take them to T.G.I.Fridays for dinner. Great, I just spent $99 on a scanner and $25 on a mouse, what's another $90 for dinner? I said sure we will (by this time two Long Island iced teas sounded really good).
Well everybody thinks the mouse is cool. I turned it over to show my son what an optical mouse looks like. My wife tells me not to look at the laser because I can damage my eyes. So I have to explain it is a red LED, not a laser. Then I have to explain how it can "see" where to move the cursor.
While we're getting ready to go out, my son tells me the optical mouse isn't any better than the ball mouse. Well gee kid, it moves the cursor around... what did you expect? You want it to fly too?
Went to T.G.I.Fridays... it was raining too. We got home about 9:30pm and I decided it was time to watch some TV before going to bed. My daughter (in whining voice) "but Dad you promised you were going to install the scanner this weekend. Can't you stay up and do it before you go to bed?". Upon reflecting upon the events of the past two days, I was ready to tell her where she should install the scanner.
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Margi
CH.com Alumnus
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I'll see your weekend, and raise you one...
« Reply #1 on: Mar 18th, 2002, 12:11pm » |
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I think I MAY have you beat, Frank. See, a few weeks ago, Mike went to Ontario to visit his mother. That left me a lot of time to kill, so I thought I'd try to download Messenger on my home computer. Our computer came over on the Arc, with Noah - just so you know.
I was able to download the program, thinking 'Great, now I can yack with my friend Monique and it won't cost us the long distance bills!'
My daughter has moved home with us again, temporarily, and she is using the computer a lot when we're not around. No biggie - she'll be 20 in May - she knows her way around the 'puter.
So, after I d/ld the program, I noticed that the sound events weren't working in Messenger. Hmm, I thought. So I adjusted the volume on the speakers, thinking they had been turned down when my daughter was playing her game. Nope - didn't make a difference.
Then I went to Control Panel, to check the sound function - STILL not working!! I deduced that Messenger must have crashed my sound card, or that somehow maybe the registry files had become corrupted in the process.
I deleted Messenger. I also spent the next FOUR hours reinstalling windows. Twice, in fact, because the first install crashed.
So.......four hours later, I had my computer back. The sound STILL didn't work. I was baffled. I then checked the speaker cords - yep, in tight. It was then that I noticed that the little pushie out thingy on the front of the speaker was actually pushed out, instead of in - meaning the speaker had been turned off the entire time. The sound works fine.
I NEVER push out the pushie out thingy. Neither does Mike - we both just turn DOWN the volume if we don't want to hear sound. Apparently, my daughter has different ideas. Especially about how her mother should be spending FOUR hours trying to fix something that wasn't broken in the first place!
She's moving out at the end of the month. ;D
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kathy copelin, ch.com 8/8/06
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supcomm
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Re: About My Weeked
« Reply #2 on: Apr 5th, 2002, 4:45pm » |
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These are good--sounds about like a typical weekend with a computer. I always say, "Computers are our friends!  " Have you ever noticed that the more time-saving devices we have, the less free time we have?
This reminds me of a couple of years ago when I saw Star Wars-The Phantom Menace.
Right afterwards I had a nearly irresistable urge to go down to CompUSA, find a sales clerk, and tell him,
"I want the most expensive, top-of-the-line, fully-loaded, fastest, most high-tech computer you have, complete with all the bells and whistles, and I don't have any money...but (waving my hand) paperclips will do fine."
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