Journal mcgrew's Journal: Friday 7
Note: I was going to paste this to the G+ slashdot circle a day before slashdot, but there are still a few kinks. No italics or bold or other HTML niceties. Plus, it appears that anybody can see it, and I only wanted the
I'd planned on buying a new DVD burner and some more memory for the old PC I'd built out of junk (it only has 750 megs of memory and the DVD's about shot), but bought a new netbook/subnotebook/whatever instead. I got another Acer Aspire One, and they just keep getting worse.
I really liked the first one. No crapware, big battery that kept it up for ten hours. The second one had a smaller battery; only four hours, and the bulge from the battery kind of made a handle on the first one.
The new one is better than the previous two in one respect -- it's harder to shut it off by accident. The power button is flush and back a millimeter or so. But the damned thing was slow as molasses, with all sorts of crap I'll never have any use for installed, most of which ran automatically and ate memory.
Guys, I don't need a Bing toolbar. I don't like Bing. And IE's only use AFAIC is to download a better browser. If I wanted a Nook or Kindle reader I'd install it myself. I spent a good two hours uninstalling crapware, mostly Yahoo crap; and Yahoo has the worst programmers on the planet. Nobody else makes apps (and web pages) that do so little and consume so much computer resources. Jesus, if I open three pages of their newspaper at the same time my computer at work is using 100% of the CPU, and it's three gigahertz! That shitty code would have made made a 486 go up in smoke. And I still have to download Winamp and Open Office and FreeAVG; god but McAffee sucks.
I've forgotten how to shut off that stupid "tap to click" bug that was put there on purpose, but it took me a couple of months on the first Acer. I'll probably install kubuntu dual-boot on the thing; it's easy to find in KDE.
Thursday morning Kathy called -- "Jim got your car done!"
I'd been on foot for a week. It turned out he'd finished it Tuesday.
The phone wouldn't stop ringing. Patty called and we talked for fifteen minutes. Then Kathie called. "Good news!" I said, "Kathy called and said my car's done!"
"I know. She called me to get your number." When I got off of work I walked home and watched TV for a few minutes, then walked to Felbers, thinking maybe somebody there could give me a ride; Gaal lives right next door, but he wasn't home. So I drank a beer and kept walking. Halfway to Jim's I realized I'd forgotten my phone.
Kathy had said she and Jim would be home all day, but nobody was answering the door.
Crap. Maybe he left the key under the shade or the floor mat.
They were back by the garage, she drinking and he working on a lawn mower. I drank a beer, chatted a while and left with three computers; none worked and he needed one. I told him surely I could make something that worked, "but it probably won't run Windows."
"Your AC belt was gone, too", he said, "but the heater will work. The serpentine belt was easy but the AC belt will take a couple of hours." He detailed all he'd have to do to change that belt and I decided I'd wait until spring to fix the AC.
I stopped by the house to get the phone, then to get Kathie and go to the Converse street bar where I could cash a check -- Friday was payday and I only had four bucks left in the bank. After we drank a bucket I took her home, went home myself, smoked a doob and opened a beer and cranked the stereo and sat on the porch. Three hours later the music stopped -- I'd burned up another stereo. Oh well, one channel was already gone anyway.
Friday I was working on computers after I went to WalMart and spent five hundred bucks on a computer, two seasons of The Big Bang Theory, the fifth season of South Park, and a Cheech and Chong movie; the computers I was working on were Gaal's and the new netbook. Those damned Dell laptops are hard to get open, but even the desktops are tricky if you're not used to the model. I got a bit more respect for Dell, because the repair manuals are there on the website. I'd never had gotten that laptop apart without it; at least, not breaking or scratching something. I can't even get an owner's manual for my car without shelling out eighteen bucks, so kudos to Dell.
After taking out a bunch of screws and getting the keyboard loose, I saw that the chip I needed to access was on the other side. I put the screws in a shot glass and piled the laptop on a table. I guess the netbook was kind of an impulse buy -- Jim didn't charge me for working on the car, all I had to spend was thirty bucks for the belt. I bought him a case of beer anyway.
I picked Kathie up and we went to Felbers at her insistence. She said both she and her daughter had warned Billy and she wouldn't give me any trouble, so I went reluctantly. Lucky, who hates me for taking away what he thought was his girlfriend, was there. He doesn't give me any trouble; he threatened violence once when he was drunk and I just laughed at him. "You were in a walker last week," I said, "you're not kicking anybody's ass." That fat old bastard couldn't kick anybody's ass sober and well.
I ran across the guy that I'd paid for pot two weeks earlier in the beer garden, and he had it! He gave me a couple of tokes off of his hitter, and the bag, and I walked over to where Kathie and Billie and Lucky and Debbie were sitting. "Well, YOU look high!" Billie said.
"I am".
"Didja bring me some?" The nerve of some people. But I answered "yeah" and handed her the bag. She'd been negative the whole time (the main reason I wandered away) but the pot fixed her right up.
One fellow was incredibly drunk and sat down in one of the lawn chairs; it was really nice out Friday night, and we were all out in the beer garden. He passed out in his lawn chair, and Billie painted his nails and put makeup on his face. I'll post pics at G+.
"Remind me never to pass out at Felbers!" I said.
Maybe the hatchet is buried with Billie; we'll see. Sometimes that "forgiveness" and "turning the other cheek" and "do good to those who harm you" thing works out after all.
.
Don't forget (Score:1)
Open up msconfig, and turn off java's and acrobat's quick start bullcrap... amongst a few other things you probably don't need. That could save a trip to the registry
If the mouse icon's down there near the clock, right clicking on it might lead you to the 'tap to click' thing. That one caught me surprise a couple of times because I keep on forgetting about it until I hit it by accident.
While the weather is still nice and warm, you should keep on walking.
< Alice Bowie > [youtube.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Hmm, I'll look there when I get home. I seem to remember finding it in the mouse controls from the Control Panel before, but knowing Microsoft they probably changed it. The first two Acers didn't have Bing toolbars or Silverlight, and the Control Panel itself seems different somehow.
G+ (Score:1)
A timely reminded to sort my G+, I believe I've now added you.
Tap to click (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
It doesn't know the difference between a tap and a touch or it might be ok.
Re: (Score:2)
LMAO (Score:2)