Delusional

Ok! 2 words -- American Idol! It is now season 7 but there are still so many delusional people that audition to be the next American Idol. There are so many deaf Americans or maybe star struck or something -- OMG, have you heard yourself singing? That's not singing -- it's screaming! Some can't even hold a tune!!! And the number 1 excuse this year seems to be "But people stop when they hear me sing!" -- yeah, from shock, you moron! Reality check, people! Just becuase your family is being supportive does not mean that the rest of the world will be. Admittedly, a couple of people that auditioned did sing well but are not right for the show. For those people, I say keep singing and hopefully things will work out for you one day!

COLD!

I guess I really can't complain -- I did choose to live in Chicago -- but, can you really blame me? It is probably one of the coldest weekend in Chicago for a really, really long time. Woke up in the morning on 1/19/2008 to 2 degrees Fahrenheit temperature and it just got colder from there. I think the lowest temperature during the day was at about -6 degrees or something like that. I started the car in the morning and heard and un-godly sound coming from the engine. It was like the car was tell me, "Are you frigging out of your mind? It is so g*d da*n cold, you should just go back to bed and don't even bother to try and start me up! You crazy moron!"

Don't sprain anything . . .

I had to give myself a pat on the back -- while trying not to sprain anything in the process. My laptop bombed -- don't really know what it was but got the blue screen of death from Windows. So, I wiped the hard drive clean and attempted to reload Windows. Attempt failed. I thought maybe my disc was scratched or something so a friend provided me with an extra copy of Windows that he had (it is all legal! I am not a software pirate!). Anyway, I wiped the hard drive again and loaded the OS. Everything loaded fine and I was happy. Getting the latest Windows update, etc. and then . . . . . . it boomed again! So, I am thinking -- this cannot be a software problem. Did some research, asked around and determined that I maybe need a new hard drive. Was going to take the laptop to Best Buy or Microcenter and have them fix it for me but before I did that, I thought I would take a peek "under the hood" so to speak. Lots of unscrewing and careful manipulation later -- I figured, I could probably do it myself. I went to Circuit City to try to get a hard drive from them but they only had the REALLY big ones -- 160GB! Bear in mind, the current hard disk on my laptop only had 60GB and it is no where hear full. So I went to Microcenter to try to find a smaller one. Found a 80GB from Seagate that said Ultra ATA on it -- who knew that Ultra ATA is the same as IDE? Well, I know now. LOL! Got the hard drive home and read the packaging -- Recommend installation by the professional -- oh oh! Will I be able to do this myself? Maybe I should take it back to Microcenter. Oh well, let me give it a try -- doesn't really look that difficult! Besides, I've installed hard drives and even second hard drives on desktops before! Ok, deep breaths!!!!! Opened the case again, remove the WiFi card, remove the old hard drive, slip in the new one -- making sure to stay grounded and not pick up any static electricity. Put back the WiFi card, close the cover -- put only one screw back and power on the laptop. Deep Breaths!!!!! Viola! It worked. Recognized the hard drive, installed the OS, updated the patches, installed all the drives and I am back in business. I have to say that I am kinda impress with myself but I think that fear was the biggest obstacle in this whole process. One thing that I do have to say though -- no STATIC ELECTRICITY! You don't want to fry your components before you install them! Now, I am thinking of maybe replacing my DVD/CD RW drive with a DVD R/W drive. We'll see. LOL!