We friends again?

As so often happens, I found a way through my frustrating dilemma just as my weapons were loaded and unsheathed.

It's fixed, and I feel better. I need to find something easier to do that doesn't involve stupid electric boxes...

Laptop down

My laptop is seriously troubled, possibly boned. It spent about 5 hours running a hard drive scan, dispatching bad sector after bad sector. It seems to be working now, but my faith in the thing is shot.

Even worse, I don't seem to have the Dell/WinXP disks I thought I had, with which to mop up this impending mess. This surprising lack of media strikes at my very core, and I had to take a deep breath, step back, and crack a beer before I put something through the nearest wall. The rest of the day has been salvaged, but only as a result of fastidious control of nearly uncontrollable rage.

So, that's how it's going... I am so disheartened.