Le Sigh...
Monday, June 30th, 2008 04:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
auntbijouI know y'all are all probably wondering what the hell happened on Saturday.
Well, I was lying on the bed with my knee propped up, working on my laptop while the Husbandly One was watching obnoxiously loud YouTube videos on YouTube. I had my iPod on, because it was stuff I wasn't really interested in listening to, but I still managed to hear THO's "Uh-oh," and I looked over to see... The Blue Screen of Death.
Except it wasn't... exactly. For one thing... it was too small. For another, the wording (which I can't remember at the moment) wasn't quite right, either. I do remember it offering several helpful suggestions, which we took... and they didn't work.
It was late, and we were tired, so it really wasn't worth trying to deal with, and besides, both of us are big believers in the "morning is wiser than the night" philosophy of life. Meaning it's a lot easier to face things if you've gotten some sleep, or at least some rest.
First thing we did was open up the tower and give it a good blowing out. I can't tell you how many times we've fixed "failures" of that kind with just a can of compressed air. And you know, for a couple of minutes after THO got everything all hooked up, it worked. The computer booted up, accepted my password, went straight to my desktop. I was so happy!!, and said, "Okay, let's get some disks and start backing this baby up now!"
THO agreed and slid the unit back into place under the desk...
... and everything went bye-bye again.
He managed to get it to boot up again a couple more times, but... it would give up and go back to a BLACK screen, and then quit booting up, period, which tells us it ain't the hard-drive. The hard-drive is fine. It's either the motherboard, or a connector is fried, etc. Problem is, we can't just replace the motherboard. Why?
Well, our system wasn't a brand. THO bought it from a store called "Fry's" and it was a proprietary model sold under their brand name. Five years ago. We have no idea what kind of motherboard they used.
And due to the nature of what I write (shakes head at f-list, knowing most of them understand) we can't just take it to Fry's or anywhere else for help. Fortunately, a friend (sends kisses topanthyr) has offered to do what he can, and I am most hopeful he can help. Even if all he can do is help THO pull the hard-drive and help him install it into a shell so I can retrieve all my kinky, perverted stuff and back it up or stuff it into some USB drives.
In the meantime... you guys should know that though THO is my Dom, and a very good one, too (he certainly keeps Auntie on an even keel, which I know is a challenge, but bless his boots, he's good at it!), he also spoils me shamelessly from time to time. And he did it again.
We needed a new system. Even if we got the Fry's system up and running (and oh, I so, so hope we do!! All my writing! My art! My MUSIC!!!), he says he's learned his lesson. No more bargain basement systems! I mean, we got a great price on it, and we got a lot of software and programs we wouldn't have been able to afford otherwise, but... one of the sucky parts was, the software we had, such as the OS, which was Windows XP, had certain components... missing. As did Outlook, MSWord, Office, etc. They all had parts missing, because though Fry's loaded the software, they didn't do a complete load. It hit us at the most inconvenient times, which really pissed us off because... we paid full price for those damn programs!!
Anyhow, THO said, come on, we've got enough in savings to get a new system, so let's go to Best Buy.
*squee!!!*
So we went. And we looked at systems, and discovered that though we'd get really great prices on some of them (under $600 for some of them, considering what we wanted), they didnt have software loaded. We'd have to buy the software and would have to load it ourselves, which isn't so bad until you realized that once you bought all the software you wanted and considered necessary to whatever you wanted to do (Office, Vista, etc),that six hundred dollar machine now costs closer to $2000. Well, if we're going to spend that much anyway...
It started when we found the Sony Vaio desktop system. It was all in one, and just... incredibly cool. But... again, we'd still have to buy the software we wanted and load it ourselves. When I mentioned that, our lovely salesgirl, along with the Geeksquad member who had just conveniently showed up (and if you believe that, I have a bridge in Austin to sell you, CHEAP!), said, "Well, you know, the Macs are a little bit less than this,but they come fully loaded with everything!! Wanna go look?"
I said nothing, just kept my face politely interested, and when THO said, "Do you want to?" I said nonchalantly, "Sure, why not?"
I bet you all think I was doing that for the salesperson's benefit.
Dearies, Auntie has been wanting a Mac for years, but THO refused to even consider it. I have used every argument in the book, with little effect, so I gave up. This was like... too good to be true, and I was not going to ruin it for all the tea in China!!! If I had shown the least bit of enthusiasm, that would have been IT, so Auntie was being very, very patient and sly and not letting on one bit that she was dying to go look at the Macs!!
I'll just cut to the chase. We are now proud owners of a iMac, which we really couldn't afford, but, we got a really good deal on it, plus two years with no interest, and don't you know we are going to pay it off well before two years are over!! And OOOOOOOO!!!!! I'm so excited!!!
If we can also retrieve my files, even if it's just my Word files, I will be the happiest woman on the planet!!!
What kills me is... the monitor has better picture quality than our television. I watched "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" earlier today, because I'm supposed to stay off my feet (I overdid it yesterday and my knee is swollen), and it was like seeing a whole new movie. Gosh, that scene where Li Mu Bai chases Mei into the bamboo forest... GUH!!!
I might post a picture of it later, I dunno.
Yes, I know, I'm descending into incoherency. It's just... SQUEEEEEEEE!!!
*needs to take a cold shower and calm down*
Well, I was lying on the bed with my knee propped up, working on my laptop while the Husbandly One was watching obnoxiously loud YouTube videos on YouTube. I had my iPod on, because it was stuff I wasn't really interested in listening to, but I still managed to hear THO's "Uh-oh," and I looked over to see... The Blue Screen of Death.
Except it wasn't... exactly. For one thing... it was too small. For another, the wording (which I can't remember at the moment) wasn't quite right, either. I do remember it offering several helpful suggestions, which we took... and they didn't work.
It was late, and we were tired, so it really wasn't worth trying to deal with, and besides, both of us are big believers in the "morning is wiser than the night" philosophy of life. Meaning it's a lot easier to face things if you've gotten some sleep, or at least some rest.
First thing we did was open up the tower and give it a good blowing out. I can't tell you how many times we've fixed "failures" of that kind with just a can of compressed air. And you know, for a couple of minutes after THO got everything all hooked up, it worked. The computer booted up, accepted my password, went straight to my desktop. I was so happy!!, and said, "Okay, let's get some disks and start backing this baby up now!"
THO agreed and slid the unit back into place under the desk...
... and everything went bye-bye again.
He managed to get it to boot up again a couple more times, but... it would give up and go back to a BLACK screen, and then quit booting up, period, which tells us it ain't the hard-drive. The hard-drive is fine. It's either the motherboard, or a connector is fried, etc. Problem is, we can't just replace the motherboard. Why?
Well, our system wasn't a brand. THO bought it from a store called "Fry's" and it was a proprietary model sold under their brand name. Five years ago. We have no idea what kind of motherboard they used.
And due to the nature of what I write (shakes head at f-list, knowing most of them understand) we can't just take it to Fry's or anywhere else for help. Fortunately, a friend (sends kisses to
panthyr) has offered to do what he can, and I am most hopeful he can help. Even if all he can do is help THO pull the hard-drive and help him install it into a shell so I can retrieve all my kinky, perverted stuff and back it up or stuff it into some USB drives.In the meantime... you guys should know that though THO is my Dom, and a very good one, too (he certainly keeps Auntie on an even keel, which I know is a challenge, but bless his boots, he's good at it!), he also spoils me shamelessly from time to time. And he did it again.
We needed a new system. Even if we got the Fry's system up and running (and oh, I so, so hope we do!! All my writing! My art! My MUSIC!!!), he says he's learned his lesson. No more bargain basement systems! I mean, we got a great price on it, and we got a lot of software and programs we wouldn't have been able to afford otherwise, but... one of the sucky parts was, the software we had, such as the OS, which was Windows XP, had certain components... missing. As did Outlook, MSWord, Office, etc. They all had parts missing, because though Fry's loaded the software, they didn't do a complete load. It hit us at the most inconvenient times, which really pissed us off because... we paid full price for those damn programs!!
Anyhow, THO said, come on, we've got enough in savings to get a new system, so let's go to Best Buy.
*squee!!!*
So we went. And we looked at systems, and discovered that though we'd get really great prices on some of them (under $600 for some of them, considering what we wanted), they didnt have software loaded. We'd have to buy the software and would have to load it ourselves, which isn't so bad until you realized that once you bought all the software you wanted and considered necessary to whatever you wanted to do (Office, Vista, etc),that six hundred dollar machine now costs closer to $2000. Well, if we're going to spend that much anyway...
It started when we found the Sony Vaio desktop system. It was all in one, and just... incredibly cool. But... again, we'd still have to buy the software we wanted and load it ourselves. When I mentioned that, our lovely salesgirl, along with the Geeksquad member who had just conveniently showed up (and if you believe that, I have a bridge in Austin to sell you, CHEAP!), said, "Well, you know, the Macs are a little bit less than this,but they come fully loaded with everything!! Wanna go look?"
I said nothing, just kept my face politely interested, and when THO said, "Do you want to?" I said nonchalantly, "Sure, why not?"
I bet you all think I was doing that for the salesperson's benefit.
Dearies, Auntie has been wanting a Mac for years, but THO refused to even consider it. I have used every argument in the book, with little effect, so I gave up. This was like... too good to be true, and I was not going to ruin it for all the tea in China!!! If I had shown the least bit of enthusiasm, that would have been IT, so Auntie was being very, very patient and sly and not letting on one bit that she was dying to go look at the Macs!!
I'll just cut to the chase. We are now proud owners of a iMac, which we really couldn't afford, but, we got a really good deal on it, plus two years with no interest, and don't you know we are going to pay it off well before two years are over!! And OOOOOOOO!!!!! I'm so excited!!!
If we can also retrieve my files, even if it's just my Word files, I will be the happiest woman on the planet!!!
What kills me is... the monitor has better picture quality than our television. I watched "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" earlier today, because I'm supposed to stay off my feet (I overdid it yesterday and my knee is swollen), and it was like seeing a whole new movie. Gosh, that scene where Li Mu Bai chases Mei into the bamboo forest... GUH!!!
I might post a picture of it later, I dunno.
Yes, I know, I'm descending into incoherency. It's just... SQUEEEEEEEE!!!
*needs to take a cold shower and calm down*
