Living on dreams and Spaghettios

2003-08-10 - 7:46 p.m.

Big news of the day: my computer is alive again. Yeah, it was like one of those crazy stories where the body is layed out at the wake and everyone's gathered around weeping when all of a sudden the dead guy miraculously comes back to life. While not completely back to its old happy-go-lucky self, it is, at least, breathing.

This morning I took my computer down to the Best Buy service center to have it looked at. The guy flipped the power switch and said, "Yup, it's dead." Gee, thanks for that bit of diagnostic help, I hadn't figured that out yet. He told me the problem was almost definitely with the OS and not the memory and, so sorry, reinstallation of operating systems is not covered on your service plan, please pay us half a million dollars and we'll gladly do that for you. Well, this guy who was looking at my computer definitely lacked a good bedside manner and he didn't inspire me with trust that leaving my computer in his hands would result in a functional computer in a timely manner so I told him no thanks, I'd do it myself. But the good thing that came of taking a trip there was that he told me that I can get my battery replaced for free under the service plan. One should be delivered to my doorstep before I'm back from Japan.

So I took my poor, sick computer home. Minor problem, though, how do I install an operating system on a computer I can't even get to start up properly? I didn't know. I was going to call my brother, but he wasn't home. So instead I ended up calling Zed. I think I've mentioned him before here. Zed is a guy I actually met online and who I find annoying because he's always hitting on me and saying weird stuff. When he's not being annoying, though, he's really nice. He ended up getting my computer back to life without having to reinstall the OS which is great because now all my stuff isn't gone. He somehow got it to start and then had me run some anti-adware and anti-virus programs which seem to have cleaned it up enough to be functional. I've been trying to run scandisk, too, but for some reason that refuses to go.

My grandfather and his sister also came to visit today. My grandfather is mostly deaf and I have a quiet voice, even when I'm trying to be loud, so we really have trouble communicating. His sister, though, is really a neat lady. She reminds me a lot of her mother, my great-grandmother. She's still very spry and very with-it mentally even though she's getting up there in years. Three years ago she had a subdural hematoma causing her to forget everything from her name to how to walk, but now you would never know it. It was fun to visit with them.

And I'm all packed for Japan! I fit everything I'm bringing into one backpack so I'll be relatively unhindered for travelling. I really can't wait! My flight leaves tomorrow morning at 7:30am PST and I arrive in Tokyo at around 2:30pm, Tokyo time. Apparently I'm going to Japan during the "O-bon" festival, which is something like Visit-Your-Dead-Relatives Day, as I understand it. Mostly it just means there's likely to be quite a bit of traffic while I'm there.

And who'd have ever thought that Eminem would ever make his way onto my Song of the Day?