There’s a passage in Exile In Guyville where Dave White ends up, unexpectedly and suddenly, in some vastly reduced estate. I don’t remember specifically, but he writes about how he always knew he was destined to live in squalor. I’ve been fighting a rear-guard action against the same sort of fatalism over this last week. It’s exhausting, primarily because at every point where it would be easy to just give up and learn to deal with it, some hope is dangled. That Pandora was really a grade-A douchenozzle.

Also, I’m dreaming in prose again. All the stories are absurdist and cold and alienating. Snappy dialogue, though.

Downgrading hubby’s laptop from Ubuntu to XP. Knew it was inevitable, but still. Sad. Sadder still, I kept getting the dreaded “Setup did not find any hard disk drives installed in your computer” error, as apparently even in SP3 XP install CD’s don’t comprendo SATA drives¹. There’s a fix for that, using a program called nLite to create a custom install disk with drivers specific to your hardware… if the manufacturer has made available XP drivers for your hardware. Naturally, no such drivers exist for this hardware. Twats. Fortunately the motherboard manufacturer is not quite so stupid², and you can set it to emulate IDE to the operating system. Not sure what sort of issues I’m going to run into down the road on that one, but at least I can, bare minimum, get an OS onto the hardware. Well, something not totally dissimilar to an OS, anyway.

¹ I fucking hate Windows.
² And Acer.

• Calmly perusing a dead tree while my dog does her best to stand on top of my head. It’s true: pet owners are all slightly insane. 1:49 pm

• Fuck pollen, and fuck my hyperactive immune system. Upload me into a robot already, it’s 200-fucking-8. 12:48 pm

• Clichéd as it may be, realizing you are no longer invincible is the single most horrifying thing that can happen to a person in their mi … 12:08 am

• Trying to organize over 4,000 photos. Apparently, 2001 is pre-history. There are no survivors and no written records. 1:03 am

• Managed to bork Ubuntu so bad I’m reinstalling. Massive loss of geek points. 7:21 pm

• Acer 22″ LCD Monitor AL2216W in Xorg.conf: So I don’t lose this again.
  » AL2216W acer hardware linux x xorg

• A phone with wifi + google reader is my perfect drug. I find myself reading feeds instead of books; in bed, in the bath, on the toilet… 12:58 pm

• “Downloading package files.” *sigh* 4:09 pm
• Assembling. Whoever invented drive rails deserves a Nobel. 9:26 am
• Expect unboxing and assembly photo-spam on flickr tomorrow. And he still needs a name. He looks like this: http://tinyurl.com/2ydwep 10:28 pm
• Super-sexy new PC was delivered… to the leasing office of my complex… which doesn’t open until 9 AM. Angst. 10:24 pm

• “Downloading package files.” *sigh* 4:09 pm

• Assembling. Whoever invented drive rails deserves a Nobel. 9:26 am
• Expect unboxing and assembly photo-spam on flickr tomorrow. And he still needs a name. He looks like this: http://tinyurl.com/2ydwep 10:28 pm
• Super-sexy new PC was delivered… to the leasing office of my complex… which doesn’t open until 9 AM. Angst. 10:24 pm

• Turning twitter off for the duration of SXSW. Not to be mean, but for crissakes STFU. ;) 7:43 pm

• Um.. I mean to say, I am very disappointed that Danny Noriega will not be continuing in the American Idol competition. 10:50 pm

• Son of a WHORE! 10:30 pm

• Having my first impressions confirmed yet again. Sadly. 10:04 pm

• Went ahead and bought it. Challenge now will be waiting for it to arrive so I can put it together. <geekgasm> 6:48 pm

• Shopping. Athlon 64 X2 with 8 gigs of RAM — overkill for running Ubuntu? (Keeping in mind how hoggish firefox is for memory.) 1:26 am

• Wow, I sent those last tweets like two days ago. Wonder who’s minding the store while the *entire westen hemisphere* is at TED? 7:04 pm

• This kind of thing would be why I am replacing my headlight at 2 am instead of, say, sleeping. 6:23 pm
• On way home from store, got pulled over and written a warning regarding the previously mentioned headlight. 6:23 pm
• Buying a $30 bit set just for one metric bit, so I can replace my headlight. Hating on the metric system. 6:23 pm

• WikiAnswers - How do you change 98 Ford Taurus headlights: I love the internet.
  » automotive ford headlamp headlight howto taurus

• Honestly, the only reason I’m still watching Sarah Connor Chronicles is b/c Lena Headey is srsly hawt. And I’m gay. That’s how hot. 11:38 pm

• Carly got 4 votes. Tattooed Scottish rocker chick? It’s like she was created in an American Idol laboratory solely to get my vote. 7:36 pm