As promised yesterday... Update! ^_^

[tcepsa]

(My internet connection died yesterday shortly after my meme post and stayed down for the rest of the day. It was horrible, I tell you, just horrible! But it's back now, and in celebration I present to you this update ;)

My intentions are to keep this fairly short and to the point, but it will probably end up rambling and wandering all over the place. This post is about as convoluted as the Mississippi river. (note that this post isn't all that chronological; things that I wrote in the first paragraph didn't all necessarily happen before everything in the second paragraph) [caution, inconsistent tense]

First off, this weekend in general was very blah. I loved the weather, but everything else was a little off. I had a cold, which has been going on for about a week now and hasn't really helped. There's also been some low-level depression in there--probably just beceause that sort of thing happens to me every now and then, especially when there are a lot of subtle stressors adding up. That's what the last week or so has been. Things generally going well, but little things going wrong. Like I bought a fan for a videocard but it didn't fit the video card. I finally got my other system back from a friend and it worked well the first time I used it, but when I tried to turn it on this weekend it refused to even post the initial screen from the bios. Diagnosis: need a new motherboard. That sort of thing, chipping away at me.

fortryll is awesome. She went to get my car's oil changed back at the very end of December, and they mentioned at the time that I had a cracked CV boot and it would leak out the grease and that would be bad. She told me this right away as soon as she gave me the car back, but I didn't get around to bringing it back to them until last Friday night (Feb 3). They fixed it up for me and gave it back, and I went to drive to the MicroCenter out in Fairfax to try to find a new motherboard to replace the burned out one. As I was driving, I noticed some suspicious sounds coming from what seemed to be the left-front axle of the car (the one they'd just replaced the CV boot on). There was some clanking and grinding and once or twice a little jolt up through the gas pedal that didn't feel right at all, and all-in-all just general things that make me really nervous to hear.

But whatever. I keep going and make it to MicroCenter and go in to see whether they've got any Socket A motherboards on discounted sale. The answer? Yes! They've got a couple of them, actually, but they're not really labeled all that well (i.e. the box doesn't actually say what all components are on the motherboard or what kind of socket it has). So I pick one that's got a pricetag I like and take it to a sales manager and ask whether it supports Socket A chips like the Athlon XP (which is what is in the dead motherboard). He says no, it's for the newer stuff. I take it back, look at the boxes some more, and find one that says "For Athlon XP, Athlon, and Duron processors." I figure that's pretty obviously what I want, since I have an Athlon XP processor (I know I'm not an English major, but I did pass my logic course with flying colors.) It's a little pricier than I was hoping for, but at that point I really wanted something to work on and take my mind off of the other stuff that was going on (e.g. the car noises; not a whole lot that I could do since it was past closing time and I don't know of any repair places that are open on Sunday so going to have to wait until Monday to take it back--just the sort of thing I tend to obsess over). So I take it (and a new fan for the videocard that I've double-checked to ensure that it should fit) and head to the register. The guy rings me up and it turns out that the motherboard was actually on sale for about 2/3 of what was on the sticker, which makes me a much happier camper.

I leave the store eager to get home and looking forward to an evening of playing with my new toy while spending time with my sweetheart fortryll. She calls me as I'm driving towards her place, which is a good thing because my car's making a new noise that it hadn't been making before (kind of a squeaking sound) and I ask her to basically be a phantom escort for me (she's taking a similar route home as I am, but she's about 10-15 minutes behind me, so if I get into trouble she can stop when she gets to where I am). She agrees, which does a lot for my state of mind. Thankfully, the car behaves (in the sense that it doesn't completely break down) until I get to her place.

We proceed inside with my new toys and get ourselves settled in the living room. She starts working on knitting, and I start preparing to remove the old motherboard and replace it with the new one. I open the box for the new motherboard, wanting to just bask in the glow of knowing that my computer will once again be up and running with this fantastic new piece of equipment only to discover, to my surprise, that the thing in the box that is clearly marked "for Athlon XP processors" is a Socket 939 motherboard. I have just bought a motherboard for one for the new 64-bit Athlon chips.

I do several double-takes and shake my head a lot, trying to see whether it's just that my vision is misaligned or something, making "A" look like "939" and "agp" like "pci-e," but they stubbornly refuse to resolve (when vision once again clears) to their proper labels.

Looks like I am upgrading a little sooner than I had planned...

So I'm both happy to have acquired this new board, and also very very disappointed because it means that I won't actually be able to play with the computer this evening since I need a new processor to go with it. Le sigh.

Sunday finds me in much the same mood. Just can't seem to find the motivation to do anything. Fortunately fortryll and I had planned ahead of time to go to this big Superbowl Sunday fiber-crack yarn sale down in Alexandria. So we go down there and I find some really awesome stuff: nice fluffy yarn for a scarf for someone, and a skein of blue and a skein of green that are just gorgeous and which will probably end up getting made into something for my wonderful sweetheart just as soon as I figure out what I'd like to make for her with them ^_^ a spool of what I think is 4mm hemp--need to double check that--several spools of some natural cord that is kind of like wicker only not really (I have aspirations of making it into some sort of furniture) and a few other little bits and pieces. We also get to hang out with reedrover there for a little bit, but unfortunately I am still fairly anti-social at that point so don't end up chatting with her much.

We head home with our new goodies and I end up sitting on the couch with fortryll and doing lots of knitting on a project that I had started a few days prior (working on a knitting bag that I can keep all of my stuff in. We'll see how it goes ^_^) Watched the last half or so of Miss Congeniality and the first half or so of The Breakfast Club on TBS. Then we decided to go up and have a nap and see whether we felt more social after that. Slept for about two hours, which was great, but still didn't feel all that social and it was after 7. Up until that point I had figured that we would be going down to dwarfrage's (and housemates') Superbowl party, but my motivation was still nowhere to be found, even to drive down and just drop by for a little bit and say "hi". If anything, I felt kind of better to have slept, but my body was still adamantly opposed to doing anything more complicated or involved then going back downstairs to the couch (my sinuses were mostly in control at that point ;) So, sadly we missed the festivities down there, but it was probably better that we did (if nothing else because that way they weren't exposed to my cold ;)

fortryll seemed to be in much the same state, so she and xilet and I hung out downstairs together and watched the first four or so episodes of Red Dwarf. Very fun British sci-fi comedy. I recommend it for folks who tend to like things like Monty Python. ^_^ I made some great progress on the bag--finished the bottom and got almost all the way around the first row of what will become the side (which involves a somewhat tedious integration of the bottom of the bag with the sides of the bag) before realizing that I had made a horrible mistake and started on the wrong corner for said integration and would not be able to join them up when I finished, because to do so would be a violation of several basic laws of physics (while I consider myself a decent engineer, I'm not that good). Fortunately, I only have to rip back to the beginning of where I started the integration. I manage to get done with the first edge again, but decide that I've had enough after that. We head up to sleep fairly shortly after that, since it's getting somewhat late and we're both still pretty tired. Thus ended the weekend.

Comments

[blushing-grace.livejournal.com]

About all I remember is "They're dead Dave - they're all dead" and the 'cat'

[fortryll.livejournal.com]

Your bag is going to be *so* awesome when you finish it! I can't wait to see it :)

[tcepsa.livejournal.com]

I love the Cat! I think they do a really great job of capturing cat idiosyncracies with his character ^_^

[reedrover]

Hi there. Thanks for the friending.

watched the first four or so episodes of Red Dwarf. Very fun British sci-fi comedy. I recommend it for folks who tend to like things like Monty Python.

Ah, yes, well, I don't particularly enjoy Monty Python in more than very small doses, and the same goes for Red Dwarf, Black Adder, etc. If you are missing any of the RD episodes, you may be able to convince achaosofkittens to loan his VHS copies to you.