urbandruid

Okay, I know you're all tired of hearing about my virus. I'm tired of hearing about my virus. So until I get it sorted, it'll just have its own section in posts, which you can skip over, like so:

State of the Virus: It's Virtumonde, and I've thrown in the towel and called for backup. The nice people at the spybot.info forums are talking people through removing this and other fun virus-y things, so I added myself to the que there. For some reason they're a bit backed up right now. /State of the Virus

I've been trying to write, anything really, but I'm not getting much done, I've been too stressed out over the computer thing. Mostly I've been reading while I run scans. Or sleeping. I was up half the weekend trying to fix stuff, and it finally caught up with me. Stayed up till 3AM yesterday morning, woke up at 1:45PM today. Strangely I feel better now.

I start back to class in the middle of August, and it's looking like it's going to be another fun fall semester for freshman. By which I mean, the local State U reduced their enrollment again, and we're going to catch their overflow. The only good news there is that I shouldn't have any of them in my classes, I'll just have to run a bunch of 'em over on my way to and from. :)

I got an invite to a 'new and returning student orientation' with my disabled students councelor. Recycled that, but Mom made the comment that I could probably give the orientation if I wanted to. Which led to us starting a list of stuff the freshmen really need to know. I'll have to see if I can reconstruct it, because I have a feeling I'll be adding to it a lot next month.

I'm almost bored enough to want to go back to school, but I know the novelty will wear off sooner rather than later.

Okay, so here's the short version of the story. I'm surfing along the other day, Saturday morning I think it was, and all of a sudden IE is going NUTS (yeah, more then usual) and I'm getting crazy popups everywhere, half of which are for porn sites and viagra, the other half for 'virus' scans, or messages warning me that my system is infected and I'll get in trouble with my boss & my spouse (no lie, one of them told me this.)

Turns out, I have the latest virus sensation that's sweeping the internet, some IE malware bug. Which I've now been trying to get rid of for three days. Most of yesterday was spent trying to get Anna to boot at all- she took this opportunity to have one of her little "haha, I'm trying to make like a Gateway and blow up" moments. I refer to these as Anna's little nervous breakdowns.

Anyway. Went out Sunday and bought the biggest, baddest new version of Norton I could find, which I'd been meaning to do anyway. Took it home, took a long nap, got up and started trying to install it. Turned out my older Norton stuff was SO old I had to uninstall it all before installing the new software.

I could have been smart and uninstalled things a piece at a time, replacing them with the new software before moving onto the next one. I wasn't smart. I downlodaded a huge Norton uninstaller, proceeded to run it, and let it reboot my system.

Cue crashes, fatal system errors, and lots of swearing. I went to bed Sunday night with things still screwed up.

Somehow yesterday I got it from fatal system errors to Anna's usual nervous breakdown crap, which I kind of know how to fix- you leave it alone for a few hours, come back, and keep trying to boot from a disk until it takes instead of crashing.

So now we're back in business, kind of, except that I can't use IE for anything without getting popups and freaking Norton the hell out. Add to this the fact that my connection's making like I'm back on dialup instead of DSL. Put it to you this way- I'm writing this on Mom's laptop, which IS on dialup, and it now seems to be running pretty fast to me.

So. I've run Norton, couple times. Run Adaware, couple times. Downloaded Spybot Search & Destroy today and am now running that. When that's done I figure on upgrading downloading Windows updates, upgrading IE... and downloading Firefox. It's not like I LIKE IE, just that it's all I've got, unless you count the anciet (4.7) version of Netscape I use mostly for my email. ...Yeah. I don't like change sometimes, what can I say?

Anyway. In case anybody's been wondering where I've been- well, there you go.

Oh, and if anybody's got any suggestions- been there, had this and got rid of it?- HELP! Email's about the only thing I can still get to without risking more crap trying to download itself, so I should be okay for reading comments.

And can I just mention how much this is sucking? I don't have that much vacation time left, and this isn't how I planned on using it.

...and sorry, I guess that was the 'not so short' version, but this has kind of been annoying me and I wanted to vent a little.

Okay, I'm at skip=80 on my flist, and I've been skimming, so if you posted something you want me to read, let me know here?

Sorry I've been so scarce lately, but school and life have been- well, not kicking my ass exactly, but keeping me pretty damn busy. I have a small ton of homework and I'mt rying to do too much around the house. This place is a complete disaster. I really meant to do more last week, which was spring break, but I ended up spending half of last week sleeping, or dealing with migraines and wishing I could sleep. I endd up with one sample of the good drug the doc gave me left, and one of the "OMG this is fucking with all the veins in my head ew make it stop" drugs, which I really didn't want to take. And rather than taking my last of the good drug, I dug into the stash of painkillers left over from the kidney stones of doom. And if you're wondering why I didn't just call the doc's office and ask for a script, since the samples worked, I did, but my NP was on vacation last week and the office was swamped. So I got them to cough up some more samples, and called back yesterday about the script.

( Medical stuff, whee )

I fully expect that when this week is over and my stress level goes down, I'll relax my way into a migraine. That's what happened the weekend before last.

This whole week I feel like I've been going nuts, like I hit the ground running when I got out of bed on Monday morning, and I pretty much haven't stopped since. Too much to do, as usual, and the house is a wreck, like I said, which just contributes to the general feeling of chaos around here. Hence the trying to pick up stuff thing.

Which runs into the "we have too much stuff" thing, and the "we don't have enough places to put all this stuff" thing, and the "we bought new really cheap bookcases at Big Lots but haven't had time to finish putting them together" thing.

I'm telling you, the fun just never stops around here.

In the interest of 1.) cleaning out stuff and 2.) making money, I'm slowly going through all of my action figures, toys, and various other collectibles, and listing the stuff I think will sell on eBay. It's been kind of a pain, and their new fees suck, but so far I seem to be making more of a profit off my stuff than eBay is, so... It'll do for clearing at this stuff.

( eBay listing and assorted rambling; feel free to skip )

I really like this whole spring cleaning thing. Actually I like the part where I can get rid of stuff I don't want (so much of it in the "oy, why did I buy this?" category) and get money for it. The part where I have to figure out the gordian knot that is the US Postal Service mailing rates is a lot less fun. I think I need to see if my uncle the software engineer/math guru can write me some kind of program to decode the rate schedule. Seriously, I think the USPS is the next ENIGMA.

And now for something completely different... Spanish class, and the fun I'm not having at school.

Okay. I like my class, as a class- not the people in it so much, but the prof's okay, the material isn't too incomprehensible, and attendance, participation, and homework count for more of our final grades than the exams, so it doesn't matter what I can't spell right or conjugate appropriatly. I have an A. Keeping it isn't too hard.

But. I swear to Gods some days I want to chuck all of my classmates out the fucking window. Case in point. I'm sitting in the hall before class this morning reading the New York Times, which they hand out for free in the library- and a couple of them ask me, "We didn't have class on Monday, did we?"

Cue me facepalming into my paper. "Yep. Oh yeah, and we had homework."

Actually, I kind of forgot to mention the homework until the class before us had left, and I'd seen our prof out in the hall, because I'm evil like that. Morons.

We have a syllabus. Included in that syllabus is a schedule for every day we have class, that says what we're doing. It also says when we don't have class. And I really thought that everybody knew spring break only runs for a week in college, no matter how much longer the public school kids get off for.

Argh. Just...argh.

And now, off to the pharmacy! whee...

I have the flu.

Well, technically I'm getting over the flu, but whatever. Mom got what we thought was food poisoning last Wednesday, a few days later she was better and I was throwing up instead... now I'm just really freaking tired, and eating lots of little meals of really bland food. And taking lots of naps, which is what I think I'm gonna go do now.

Zzzzz...

I have had the worst day.

Little backstory. We're going into our second year in our house; before it was our house, this was a vacant lot hanging out with a lot of other vacant lots.

Last summer we got ants. The nasty red ants that bite. We fought them off last year, I managed to only get bit a couple of times... It was disgusting, annoying, and scary last year. I'm allergic to them.

Yesterday they were in the kitchen having a great time. So we killed those, and thought everything was good.

I woke up at almost 5AM because something bit me on the leg. A lot of crawly somethings.

The little fuckers were in my bed. I must've been bitten around a dozen times, which if you're me, is Not Good. I have a topical Benadryl pen I use for bug bites, so I slapped some of that on all of the bites I could find. But I was freaked out, creeped out, and kind of not breathing so well. Mom told me to go get a shower and clean up the bites; seemed silly, but I figured, what the hell? If it hadn't worked, I'd have had to go to the hospital, and I'd probably still be there, because we all know what getting out of ER i.e. like.

She dumped my bed stuff in the wash and went on the attack with the vacuum cleaner and the bug spray, and cleaned them all up. We couldn't find a trail, or anything else they might have been after in the room besides- you know, me.

Last summer they bit holes in some clothes I'd thrown on my floor (which I then was unfortunate enough to put on again, while the ants were still crawling around) and all I can think of is that for some crazy reason, my sweat tastes good.

Yeech. I hate ants.

I popped a Benadryl capsule and went back to bed- in Mom's room after she left for work, because I knew I'd freak out too much sleeping in my room, even though I knew the creepy little things were all gone. So, I crashed for a few hours, and woke up dizzy and really nauseated. So nauseated I was afraid to cough in case I- well, you get the idea.

I went back to bed, and called Mom's cell when I got up, just to let her know I was still alive and feeling better, except for some residual nausea.

We both forgot that Benadryl can mess with your stomach unless you've eaten recently, which I hadn't. So I had some Sprite and crackers, and watched X3. Including the deleted scenes, which contain some weird shit. (Magneto with kind of a shaggy beard? Uh... no.) And some 'extended' and 'original' scenes that I swear were in the movie when I saw it in the theater. Why do they do strange things like this?

Anyway... We're going out tonight to buy some more of the outdoor bug spray that nuked these little bastards last summer, and some more ant stakes, and possibly a flamethrower.

I just really don't have the words for how creeped out and disgusted I was this morning. Oh, and scared, because I've seen a bad reaction to red ants, and it scared the crap out of me. Now I'm paranoid, looking for them everywhere, feeling every little itch and a bunch more that are probably all in my head.

Someone take note. When we take over the world, red ants have got to go. We can keep the black ones, which are just icky and annoying, but don't bite me, or cause nasty allergic reactions.

Okay, I think I need some more food, then maybe another nap, sans Benadryl.

I'm still trying to put all my stuff away and catch up on sleep- by which I mean I've been home since late Monday afternoon, and I'm still spending most of my time sleeping, or very very out of it. And I'm discovering that while I was gone, LJ had another freakout.

I'm used to them doing stupid things, but this really takes the cake. I guess I missed most of the excitement, but I'm still staring around in total bemusement going, "What? No, really, WTF?" I seriously have to wonder where they come up with this stuff.

Anyway, still alive over here, just really really tired. I'm still not 100% sure what my name is, and I think I've been volunteered to help the relatives pack up some more stuff for their move. Though if I'm passed out asleep when Mom gets home, maybe I'll get to skip that. Ugh... I love my family, but they're like, "Oh, good, you're back. You just got home from LA 10 minutes ago? Oh, okay- c'mon over, we still need lots of help!"

*facepalms*

So. Am joining fandom_counts with all the journals I can remember I own, and then I'm going to take a nap.

They're putting in a Wallgreens drug store and a little strip mall up at the main cross streets about a block from my house. Well and good, we need more shops out here, because there's not a lot.

But. Every time they go to work on the lights for the parking lot, or, I don't know, whatever the hell they think they're doing out there, #1, it cuts out the traffic light for the four-way stop. It's not a fun street crossing even when the light is working, and it's been out all week, except for Wednesday, when it was, miraculously, working.

#2, and it's #2 that's annoying me most lately, something they're doing up there is messing with our telephone lines. For 'messing with', read 'phones sort of don't work'. Last time the light was out, the main telephone line to the house was out.

This time, it's just my line, the one we paid to have the phone company wire in for us. It's been out since Thursday morning, and it's starting to piss me off. I've got my laptop plugged into the main line in Mom's room, but this isn't gonna work forever, obviously. And you guys know how much of a night owl I am. Mom goes to bed a lot earlier than I do on the weekends.

Plus, we kind of need the main line. Not a lot of people call, sure, but it's the principal of the thing. Actually the only people who've called lately have been my grandparents, and they're having their own phone problems at the moment. Theirs isn't working either. It did this once before a few months ago, and they thought they'd fixed it. Apparently not.

I wonder about the wiring in their house sometimes. We went over last weekend and brought them some of the light fixtures we took out of our place when we installed the ceiling fans, to see if they could use them. They have one fixture in their office/computer room that's just a pair of bare bulbs, so we thought we'd put up one of the nicer ones instead. It took us a while to get that done, because we didn't bring Mom's tools, and the grandparents' are a little scattered. But we got it hooked up, and were admiring our handiwork when we decided before we put the cover on, we'd pop a light bulb into the fixture and see if it worked. Expecting, as one does, that it will work.

So I go over and hit the light switch- and all the power in the room goes out. The lamp we'd plugged in to see with, and the computer, which they on for some reason... Our first thought was, "is it a power outage?" No dice. So we go to check the circuit breaker box. Sure enough, we flipped the breaker when we turned on the light switch.

So. Turn the breaker back on, and try again. With the same result. We figure we got some wire twisted or kinked or something when we swapped out the fixtures, but I don't know... The electrical in that place has worried me for a while now. It's forty years old, and I don't care what we did to the wiring in the office, there's no way changing a freaking light fixture should have flipped the circuit breaker.

And between the electircal issues and the phone thing, I keep thinking, How in the hell are we going to sell this place? Because the place is getting to be too much for them to keep up, and they want to sell it. None of us want to sell a place to people where the wires might burst into flames and stuff, obviously, but, it's a pain for us, anyway. Don't know what they're gonna do about the light in that room, either- we all decided to leave it last weekend.

It's Revenge of the Wiring this week, or something like that.

I'm still here, but school is kicking my ass. Not in the sense of being overwhelmed, just in the sense of being totally buried under all of the crap I have to do, half of it by next week. I have to register for fall, and summer if I'm doing anything over the summer, on the 14th. I vaguelly had this figured out- and then I decided to shake things up, and transfer to UC instead of a CSU. I want to go to Berkley. Have always wanted to go to Berkley, actually, but now I think I'm going to try to do it.

So I thought, okay, transfer reques are different between the two types of schools, let's go see the guidance councelor type person to make sure I have all my ducks in a row.

Not only did she only tell me a bunch of stuff I already knew, we seem to have a little bit of a disagreement (or, you know, a major one) as to what in fact constitutes a duck.

Plus I know some of the stuff she told me was flat-out wrong.

And because apparently she only works afternoons, I hung around after my 10:00-11:00AM class, to see her at 3:00PM. Figured on getting done with her at 3:30, and decided I'd just wait for Mom to get off work around 4:30ish.

The only part of yesterday's plan that worked out the way it was supposed to was Mom picking me up on her way home from work.

My councelor is an idiot. Not as much of an idiot as the one she replaced, but really not that bright, either. I know I need 2 semesters of a foreign language for UC, which I don't exactly have. I have one semester of French I scraped through, and I will not be taking French 2. And they have to be the same language, naturally. So I told her I want Russian, and by the way, does she know if the local Christian college still lets city college people into their summer schools, because they're the only local people who have the Russian classes.

What I got was "Russian is a VERY hard language to learn," and a strong hint that I couldn't do it. Anyone who knows me- she obviously doesn't- knows that telling me I can't do something is a very good way to make me want to stick a pen in your eye, and do it anyway. With bells on if possible.

That's one. Then she tells me, when I ask a question I already know the appropriate answer to, that there's no need for me to retake the math class last semester's meltdown caused me to fail, because I don't need it for the psychology major, and "you would just be wasting time." For additional support, she cited the argument that "Your GPA will come up after this semester to at least 3.0, and that's a perfectly fine GPA."

I don't know how she failed to notice my jaw hitting the floor. First of all, I want to go to UC, and not everyone who applies gets in, disabled or not. Second of all, I'm an honors student with my eye on a future spot in a very competative government internship program. A B avarage ain't gonna cut it. I also think my honor society advisors might have something to say about the B avarage...

Do I want to retake the math class from hell? Not really. Am I going to retake it? Not really seeing a lot of options that I find acceptable.

This idiot also takes a look at the general education requirements, which are different for UC vs CSU, and tells me that I do indeed still need a Speech class. Goes to the trouble to write out a slip for me to register for Speech in summer school. Not a bad idea, I guess, except that it says in all CAPS on the GE checklist "Oral communication - CSU only."

*headdesk*

And they pay her for this.

Thank Gods I'm me, I read everything, question everyone, and have heard eight ways from Sunday from friends and my mother that sometimes your councelor is the last person you want to be listening to, about anything. I used to think I was just spectacularly unlucky to have been stuck with a councelor used to dealing with, uh, not to be as horrid as this sounds, but people with other, uh, less physical disabilities. But one of my old gaming buddies, who was going to the local CSU at the time told me he wasn't having much better luck with his personal guidance idiot.

Needless to say I'm not really pleased about having wasted an afternoon at school that I could have used at home to sleep, or to do my own research into transfering to UC. But I've learned a lesson from this. I now know better than to go out of my way to waste time with that woman.

It just pisses me off, because I thought she was better than the old one. Scary thing is, she IS. The old one would have fainted if I said I wanted to go to Berkley. At least this one just nodded, said "good school," and told me their disabled students program rocks.

...Maybe I should look into said program before I take her word for it.

*sigh* I think I have a lot more work to do.

Too much about computers and their issues lately, not enough about me.

I'm pretty tired- school has been running me a little ragged lately, but doesnt it always? Im losing more keys, randomly now, seems like- the far end of the numbers, obviously the apostrophe is on the fritz again, and earlier today, the shift keys took a powder. Pretend the previous bit was in parentheses, those are screwed up too.

I have my first Abnormal Psych exam tomorrow, so I need to study a bit tonight. I'm not really too worried about it, though- I know this stuff. At least most of it. I think my first Geology exam may be next week. That one could be tricky- there's a hell of a lot of info in the first couple chapters.

Speaking of Geo, it amazes me how things can be so interesting in lecture- fascinating, actually... and then I go to do the reading. And I immediately feel like nodding off. Or like I'm about to nod off. For those insomniacs on my flist, I highly recommend this one: Earth, by Edward Tarbuck and Frederick Lutgens. No, I am not making up those names. I swear. This book is stupefyingly boring. I think when we get there, these two will have somehow managed to make even volcanoes boring. And I love volcanoes. In the sense of neat really destructive stuff I wouldnt really want to live near... Yeah. You know what I mean.

My book for Abnormal Psych is only a little bit less dull, but I expect it to get better with the next chapters; tomorrow's exam covers the boring chapter on the history of psychology, the chapter on the medical & psychodynamic models of psychology, and the one that's been putting me to sleep most recently- diagnostic tools & research methods. More specifically, the research crap. Maybe if they had examples of real studies that were a little less lame... Oh well.

Mentally, I'm hanging in there. Not doing too badly at all, actually. School is stressing me a bit, but I think its more in the range of normal stress than... well, than what happens when I'm not coping so well. The thing with Anna and her keyboard has really been throwing me lately, especally as it's so sporadic, and now the problem seems to be spreading. I can never count on everything working when I boot her up- I can't count on anything working. That's frustrating, and annoying, and on days when I'm coping less than brilliantly, it can be enough to have me bursting into tears. Stupid depression.

I'm not writing as much as I usually do, because of Anna's issues, and I think thats a big part of my stress and general feeling of crappiness. I do the bulk of my writing at the keyboard, for a number of reasons. One is convenience- most of it gets posted somewhere online, so already having it on the computer is a good idea.

Also, my handwriting is awful- no, I mean really really bad. It's a hand/eye coordination thing, and for some reason I'm not so fabulous at those. Every time I see the handwriting analysis guys on CSI, I chuckle, because I'm pretty sure they'd read mine wrong. I don't think it's changed much since, oh, junior high... Half the time I end up not capitalizing things, not because I'm going the e.e. cummings route, but because of the way I learned to write so that I could see it. Probably started in grade school, when they had us dropping the tails of letters down from the line... well, I wanted the space they were taking up for the next line. I drove my teachers crazy.

And this is my printing. My cursive- do they still even call it that? is atrociously bad. Like the printing, I can make it neater if I try, but that takes a lot of time, and mostly I don't bother. When I have to sign receipts and stuff, well... you can probably make out the C at the start. Other than that...

I guess the other thing is kind of related to the handwriting, which is that even when I'm not taking the time to make it really neat, it still takes me longer than most people to write stuff down. This is only mildly annoying for things like lecture notes- I usually just let those get really sloppy, and if need be will copy them out again later. But for stuff like writing, a keyboard has always been the only thing that could ever keep up with the speed of the thoughts in my head, exactly as I want to put them down. By the time I finish writing a sentance longhand, I'm five lines beyond it in my head, and struggling to catch up.

All of which makes writing a more frustrating experience than an- You know, its weird. It really isnt a leisure activity- I don't write like I read, or watch TV or movies- not just because I enjoy it. I write because I have to. Even if it's just a couple lines every day, maybe even every couple days if I'm really busy, even if it's just a couple lines scribbled in a notebook bitching about stupid crap like the vending machines at school- evil, money eating things that they are, and apparently some of their soda is really old and nasty, according to my honor society buddies.

Whatever, however little it is, I have to write stuff down. And lately the mediums for doing this have turned into a whole mess of frustration on their own. But I need to write. When I can't, when I haven't at all for ages, weeks, months, I can turn into a pretty horrid person. Not as bad as I am when Im in pain and without drugs, but just all tense and stressed and... I don't know. Its kind of hard to explain. Sometimes it'll feel like there are too many words stuck in my head, like I need to open a valve and let some of them out.

I suspect I'm going to end up using a lot more paper before the computer thing resolves. I'll just have to get used to going slower.

In other news, Sam is still being Sam, cute and occasionally very annoying. Last month she got into Moms closet- which, okay, no problem, though Mom would rather she didn't stay there forever. But we have one of those big plastic things you put rolls of wrapping paper in, right? And it has a lid, with a compartment where you can put your ribbons and your gift tags and whatnot. And Sam, clever little thing that she is, knocked over the container, and the ribbon thing must've fallen open, because the next time Mom went into her closet, she found... ribbon.

Ribbon everywhere, those spools of it that come like yarn, just wrapped around themselves. Well, they weren't wrapped around much except each other when we found them, and I discovered that however they put those together at the ribbon factory, it can't easily be duplicated by humans. I think the cat had a blast, though.

She's grown tons since the last pictures I posted of her. I have newer ones, and sometime (hahaha, right, in my *cough* spare time) I'll post them. She's gotten bigger, really just filling in. And that disgusting kitty-tuna canned food the vet suggested we put her on, has made her fur all sleek and shiny and OMGSoSoft!

She sheds like mad. White fur for all your dark clothing shedding needs, grey fur for all your light colors. :)

Hey, guys. I'm writing this in-between bouts of swearing. I'm using Mom's laptop, Morden, which isn't exactly my favorite computer. Most of the swearing, though, is being directed at the Gateway site.

I've been home since noon, and I've spent most of that time, excepting the couple of minutes it took me to haul Morden out of Mom's room, move Anna, and plug Morden into my phone line- I've spent most of that time poking at Google and Gateway, trying to figure out my keyboard issue.

It took a little over an hour of searching, swearing, and prodding the Gateway site's crappy search features, before I learned that the keyboard for my model is replaceable. They have some (kinda scary) step by step instructions, with pictures, in PDF, for how to replace the keyboard. They start with "This package contains your replacement keyboard..." or some such. So I know that they do make them, or that they exist somewhere.

What I suspect it's going to take me another hour to figure out, is if they have one in stock, and how much it would cost me. I don't know for sure yet that the keyboard needs to be replaced, but I suspect there's a strong possibility of that.

Mom offered to call the grandparents about the tech guy they have on call these days- and they need one. I love my grandmother, but she has no common sense at all where things like computers are concerned- she opens all those attachments they tell you not to, forwards them to half the family... Mom and I always say half the reason we have anti-virus software isn't because we're worried about hackers and worms, it's because we're worried about Grandma.

Anyway. This guy fixed a hardware problem they'd been having with the CD drive in their new computer, so Mom suggested calling the grandparents and getting this guy's number from them. I'm not sure how much he'd charge to look at Anna's keyboard, or to fix it if it's fixable, but his rates can't be too outrageous, or the grandparents wouldn't give him their business.

So, I'm thinking, call him- I offered to call Grandma myself this morning, but Mom said she'd do it, and I, uh, didn't argue too hard about that- and see if he can take a look at Anna over the weekend. Apparently he does house calls, but he may have a shop we could take the laptop to, too. (I suspect half the reason he makes house calls to Grandma's is that they've got one of those bigass tower CPU things, and nobody wants to haul one of those all around town.) '

But while I'm waiting for Mom to get off work and tell me where we are with this, I thought I'd do some research. I was kind of afraid that the keyboard would end up not being replaceable at all, so that I'd be looking at replacing the whole fucking laptop if the keyboard wasn't fixable. And after having Anna II's predecessor, Anna I, blow up one morning when I turned it on to check my mail before school... I wanted some warning this time, if my baby's days were numbered.

2:58 PM
( I've pretty much given up on Gateway for now )

None of this is really important, mind, I just felt like whining a bit about it. Anyway. I think I'll shut up now and go do something real. I don't have any idea what, but something.