this just ain't my week...or two.

Let's add to my list of annoyances computer troubles, and call this the month from hell. I like to get months started out on a solid hair-pulling platform of shit happening.

As you know, Jerry gave me his laptop, which I received whilst in San Diego, and was looking forward to getting back, setting up the WiFi, and kicking ass all over the internet on my own desktop. Plus, Manoj gave me Photoshop, and that's installed (I've been playing with it and my webcab obsessively for lack of anything better to do) and raring to go.

So I came home, bought a wireless router, set it up (well, dealt with roommate PMS while he set it up...long, inappropriate story for Buddha Stew), and got ready for the wireless fun to begin. Jerry had already installed a card and it was supposedly ready to go.

Didn't work.

Would try to load the config utility and then fail, miserably, leaving me going "wha happened?" in Margaret Cho's mother's voice. Couldn't get to tech support until today because computer issues never happen on the weekends, apparently. They take a day off, like the mail, and Texas Christians.

Anyway, long story short, the laptop's running Windows 98 and I need the second edition. So I go to Best Buy, thinking, maybe they have a wireless card for us poor people that take what we can get when it comes to computers, and really do, honestly, like the new fast upgraded stuff, but just can't afford it at this stage in our lives.

Nope. 98SE and above, only.

So Windows XP costs $89, which is like a swift arrow to my cardiovascular regions, and the salesman cruelly suggests that maybe I can just download the upgrade to 98SE online.

Yeah, dumbass, I need internet to do that. Have you ever heard of Catch-22? Joseph Heller? War, and weird shit happening? This is like the nerdy, computer geek version.

Oh, he says. And walks away.

Walks away, like I'm fuckin' hopeless. Like Best Buy employees have no time for silly women who can't be bothered to use the latest and greatest of Bill Gates masterpieces.

Well, I'm thinking, hey maybe I can just hook up my laptop to the cable connection, really quick, download what I need, and skip my way humming into the great wide world of Internet Explorer? (that was sarcasm by the way) Until I ditch it completely for the beacon of the internet, Firefox .

Ah, but darling, don't you know, that cable connections in this day and age (oh boundless technology! oh triumph of science!) use ethernet cables, which are wider at the insertion end and much much much faster and sexier than your laptop (98! I laugh in the face of progress!) can even dream of being?

No, but I have another idea! I shall save the upgrade file to disk! Brilliant! Subverting the system! Such a smart lassy, such a problem-solving go-getter! (thanks, Bill) .......................................................................................................fuck.

Bollocks to this, it's fetal position time.