Atomictumor

Remember this?

Yeah, I was pretty proud of that thing. It was coming at the end of my little geekery splurge, what with the laptop, and the big computers, and so I figured I’d need a computer on my belt.

And its done a good job. At, y’know, being a computer.

It does my texty messages nicely, as that’s the needful very frequently, as I don’t like to talk on the phone. Which is a good thing, because boy, as a phone, this thing sucks. People can’t hear me, and I can’t hear people. I often have to put it on speakerphone and hold it up to my ear for it to work.

I’ve checked the volume. I’ve checked the speaker. I’ve got into the settings and tweaked.

See, I think the problem with the bastard is it just doesn’t like being dropped. Unfortunately, I drop things. From pretty high up. Onto all sorts of surfaces:

• concrete
• tile
• asphalt
• wood floors
• urinals (don’t ask)
• grassy knolls

It just doesn’t dig it. The buttons don’t have that nice click, and the battery takes some jiggling to get out.

But I can deal with that, because man, I’m used to broken things. I’ve frequently taken electronics apart, pulled out stripped or broken pieces of plastic, and ghetto engineered a solution that did the job (I’d say the needful, but I already said that once in this post).

No, my problem with this phone, other than the scratches, other than the poor voice quality, other than the… ug.. urinal debacle, is the fact that Windows Mobile just plain sucks. Its sucks big, and it sucks hard. Its dull, its utilitarian, it has no flash, no pizazz. I installed some little third party apps to get a nice little screen on it, with some little clicky tabs and buttons on the touchscreen, but its still blah. Just plain blah.

Today, in news that makes Bos’s tin foil tingle, Google released whats apparently a very beta version of its Mobile phone OS, based on Linux (which’ll make other things for Bos tingle, after his pretty crappy recent experiences with Ubuntu on his new laptop).

It looks pretty. And despite the claims by some that Google is a dangerous entity, in that a) knows what you’re looking for, b) knows what you’re emailing (gmailing), c)knows whats on your desktop (well, many desktops), and now d) knows what you do with your phone, it’s OK.

Because according to this guy, and evidently the American government:

Your idea of privacy is obsolete anyway.

The search for a laptop has come to a close. I decided to buy a refurbished Dell after I nearly bought a cheap, used Apple. The Apple for sale turned out to be a Craig’s List scam, but fortunately nothing ventured and nothing lost. I’ve come to the conclusion that Craig’s List is not worth the trouble. I hope you have better luck.

The Dell Outlet is a great thing. It’s easy to use and fun. The deals are always changing. Two computers I thought about buying were gone by the time I got through dithering over them. It may be a ploy on Dell’s part to make you, think less, buy quicker and spend more. The wizard is probabably sitting behind Dell’s curtain putting the refurbished units up for sale and pulling them back again. That’d be tricky, indeed.

So the computer I bought is an Inspiron 1501. It’s kind of plain jane as far laptop design goes, but for the money it’s powerful enough. And I need that extra power, right? I was pleased when I ordered it.

Do you remember ordering things when you were a kid? I’ve always loved getting boxes in the mail. I remember saving G.I. Joe coupons so that I could order special figures and vehicles. Hasbro was smart and offered discontinued toys this way to kids like me who wanted what they couldn’t find in the store. I looked for Storm Shadow for months, searching every K-Mart and K-Bee store I came across. Alas I never found an original Storm Shadow. But I was able to order a Cobra infantryman.

I don’t think Vista comes with Storm Shadow. Vista came with my computer, though, and that’s what disappeared as quick as a ninja when I hit the lappy’s power button. Can you believe that? I hit the power button after very gingerly unpacking the box and looking at all the parts. Not much smells better than a new gadget out of the box.

The computer churns. It’s hard drive buzzes. The screen says it can’t install Windows properly and politely asks me to try again. What?

I try again.

Again.

Nothing.

Shit.

I have to say that Dell’s tech support saved the day. Liza_145026 from India was super helpful, although I don’t think the few jokes I cracked helped matters much. I’d give you some of the conversation, but it won’t cut an paste into the text editor very easily. But here’s a little that I remember,

Liza_145026: Please tell me what trouble shooting attempts you have done, Bos.

Bos: Ummm, I tried going into safe mode. Then I stuck the Vista os dvd into the drive. That didn’t work.

Liza_145026: Alright

(Liza typed Alright a lot. She must have it set as a short cut.)

Liza_145026: James, here’s what we are going to do. We are going to have to reinstall Windows.

Bos: Oh Goody!

So that’s what I did. I got to reinstall Vista on our first date.

That’s all said and done now. I’m watching the laptop, though, like a dog that’s bitten me. I wonder why I had go through all that trouble. Vista should have been there out of the box. A newbie must have inspected my refurbished model and not noticed that the damn thing wouldn’t boot up.

I did call Dell today to ask for some compensation ($$) for all my trouble. The gal I talked to offered me a printer, which I think is the equivalent of a bank offering you a toaster, but I said no, thanks. I had them refund me the cost of shipping.

I should have asked for a wireless router, or an MP3 player, or better yet. I should have asked for a Ubuntu disc.

So, I’m out on the porch writing again.

This hasn’t happened in a while, on account of the ol’ battery in the ol’ lappy started going south a few weeks ago, charging up to 100% and then depleting itself (when unplugged) in a good 10 minutes or so.  I did some searching, and it looks like Dell batteries tend to wait until they’re about 14 months old and crap out.

Except mine only waited until it was 11 months old, and still under warranty.  A couple of emails to the friendly Indian guys, and the needful was achieved.  The new battery got here yesterday, and my laptop is back in full on 6 hours on the porch mode.

And what have I learned on the porch?

That its balls cold outside.  Balls cold.

But the needful has been achieved, yet again.

Speaking of the needful, today the ladyfiancee spent about 4 hours working some magic in the moving process back at the ol’ CasaTuma, and when I went in there today for my evening ritual of boxing up crap and bringing it to the new abode, the house was strangely empty.  She did some rocking on over there, lemme tell you.

Moving is a bitch.  I’m happy that we can take it kinda slow, in that theres no need to throw everything down in a weekend and live off boxes and whatnot.

Tomorrow is another throw down and move things day, as the lady and myself both have the days off work, and are prepared to go in there, both barrels blazing, and get some shit out.

Then we go to sleep at 9:30, if it goes like the past week or two has… sheesh.

Halo 3, gaming elite, and suicide bombing.

I, however, have a completely different psychology. I know I’m the underdog; I know I’m probably going to get killed anyway. I am never going to advance up the Halo 3 rankings, because in the political economy of Halo, I’m poor.

Specifically, I’m poor in time…

…I might as well take people down with me.

I haven’t played the ol’ xbox much in the past few weeks, being all busy with other stuff, and I’ve never tried doing it online because I know that the little teenage/college bastards who have nothing better to do but play all day while they get fed through IV tubes are going to make it a miserable experience, but this has me thinking…

So I changed the tumor theme.  The whole “pick your own theme” thing was getting old, so you peoples can either love the rocket or use feedreaders.  Which, I still maintain, are for losers.

Got it from here…

I’ve been told that I should put the brain in the rocket, but I dunno, I think I might be retiring the brain for a little while.  If I had an artistic bone in my body, I’d come up with a new mascot!