Shamrocketship

Cha-cha-cha-changes

I finally decided a cell phone was enough, and I cut the landline loose.  I would have done it ages ago but there was the issue of the number, which I've written about before, somewhere.  Basically, I've always liked the landline number and hated the cell number, so I wanted to move one to the other.  I avoided doing that for a long time because I expected it to be a major headache with snafus left and right. 

It wasn't.  All accomplished easily with one call to Verizon and took just a few days to occur.  So if you have my numbers, now you only need one.   

Question for you . . .

Oh, Great Wise Audience of Four . . . is anyone using Vista and what do you think of it?  I've heard there are "issues." 

I'm in dire need of a new laptop:  I'm reluctant to buy one with Vista yet it's getting very difficult to find anything still with XP.

MAC fans need not point out the error of my basic OS choice.  Or you can try, but I will stick my fingers in my ears - again - and be all "lah lah lah lah I can't hear you." 

Great Geeky Goodness

I don't know quite how, but I did manage to get my laptop resurrected last night before I saw all your helpful comments but thanks very much for the tips - I followed them pretty much without knowing I was doing so and it was great to see, afterwards, that I had indeed done what I was supposed to.  Yeah, I know a Mac is the way to go and maybe I will get one as soon as I sell the gottdumbed Honda.  That story is just getting funnier and funnier, by the way. 

I put a new ad up on cars.com and in the local paper about 5 days ago.  I immediately started to get calls WAY too late at night (would you believe 11:00 PM) and WAY too early in the morning (like, gee, that looks like 6 o'freakin' clock AYEM to me - why the hell are you calling at this hour?) and almost all of them were foreign accents with Brooklyn area codes.

Erica, please explain that to me, if you can? 

I finally got so annoyed I changed the on-line ad to include this right up front:  "IF YOU ARE NOT CALLING FROM A NJ AREA CODE AND IF I CANNOT UNDERSTAND YOUR MESSAGE YOUR CALL WILL NOT BE RETURNED."

It didn't help so I turned off the phone for a few days. 

I'm trying to think of a creative way to sell it now that e-Bay, print ad (2x) and on-line ad (2x) and sign in the window (2 months) haven't worked.

In totally unrelated other news, some consultant got temporarily housed next to me at work recently.  He's going to be around for a few months.  Which might cause me to pass out and drool on my desk because he sounds exactly like Ben Stein.   

Calling all Geeks

Even though I got a coveted "She Geek" t-shirt from this shop (bonus points if you know who the proprietor is!), I'm at a loss with most geek stuff that doesn't involve huge project teams and servers and data conversion and interfaces, etc.  When it comes right down to my own laptop, I'm a loser.

I wasn't paying enough attention a few weeks ago when daughter mentioned she was getting warnings on it about the virus protection expiring.  Might have helped if she'd told me more than once, but that's in the past, right?

The Brave-Sentry virus on the thing is NOT in the past, though.  It's very present and very, very bad. 

I have an XP OS disc and ideally, I'd like to wipe out the hard drive and start over.  I have no backup disc (nor was anything on the laptop in need of saving).  Control Panel is "gone," as is Task Manager. No, wait.  Task Manager is in there somewhere, but when I try to get to it I get the message "Task manager has been disabled by the system administrator."  I guess the sys admin is Brave-Sentry, eh?  Anyway, the thing cost about $650 a year or so ago and is not worth spending the $200 Best Buy wants to de-infest it.  And if I'd been successful selling the Honda, I'd have enough disposable income to just go get a new one (with two years' worth of virus protection up front).

What's the easiest, least frustrating path with this, ja think?  Sledgehammer?

That's Me: "Other"

Got a note from Emma Liar last night telling me the following message appeared on her laptop when she tried to access this site using Panera Bread's wi-fi: 

The SonicWALL Content Filter Has Blocked this site.
If you feel this site has been blocked in error,
Please submit a URL Rating Review at:
http://cfssupport.sonicwall.com

URL: http://www.shamrocketship.com/ 

Reason for restriction: Forbidden Category "Other"

I'm no doctor, but . . .

Someone from Luxembourg has found their way to my website by Googling "appendix burst moan pain."

Twice.  In two days.

Hmmmm.  In the event you are still searching for an answer to that and end up here again?

Go to the doctor. 

Crunchy Frogs! And more!

If you're already a daily BoingBoing addict (link in the Great Places to Visit on the right), you saw this today.  If not, it's worth a visit. Photoshop contest merging animals with food. 

MMmmmmmm.

I can't decide on my favorite.  Pickled newts?  Marshmallow gull?  Strawberry frog?  Spider chocolate chips?  Sounds like Harry Potter snacks, but it's just eye candy. 

What's your favorite?

Pipe Dream

A friend of mine sent me a link to a very cool video on YouTube today.  It's purported in the text to be a real machine, made out of old farm machine parts and destined for the Smithsonian one day.

Snopes says it ain't so, but they do have a link to the original video.  OK, so maybe it's not made from old tractors, but it's still pure genius.

Enjoy!

I'm Qualified

Well, it took me three hours and 56 minutes of the four hours allotted, but I passed that damned test.  I didn't think I had it, but there must be some recessive geek gene in me.  Enough that I managed to slip some messages into my pop-up boxes telling the instructor grading my exam "Hey - look at my icons - I deserve to pass, don't I?"  I guess it worked.  I built the damned bamboozler and it bamboozled. 

I don't know why that makes me happy, but it does.

In celebration, I shall be ordering myself a Christmas Present from Ye Olde She-Geek Shoppe. 

Brought to you by none other than the Crazy Neighbor Lady. 

Gotta go hex to the decimal now.  Have a great weekend!

Skidboot

Go watch this incredible video.

Warning:  If you have a heart, you're going to need a box of tissues.