Upsetdate

Okay, Lord only know how many hours later, but it seems-- seems, Madam, I know not seems-- I have finally won my battle against the stubbornly evil Windows monster. Almost a dozen reinstallations later, after hours & hours & hours of consulting Microflaccid's endlessly unhelpful "support pages," and just as many trudging through various internet fora trying to fix the problem, it seems everything is finally working again. What ultimately made the difference? This neat little gizmo which, among other things, did a complete check on potentially corrupted or out-of-date files (which, naturally, worked days ago), figured out the update gobbledygook, and reset all the ridiculous permissions that Windows arbitrarily and inexplicably imposes when it gets bitchy. Takes forever for it to plod through everything, but eventually it does work--- which is faaaaaar more than I can say for any of the official tips from the Gates gang of profligate bafflegabbers. Something to remember if any of you wind up in the unfortunate position of having to reinstall pre-Vista Windblows.

I'm now exhausted. Passionate-shag-in-a-tornado exhausted. And yet I feel I accomplished nothing. All that just to get back to where I was before, and not a spot better-off. Reminds me of grad school.... (And every bit as rewarding.)

Today's Mantra

I will not rant about Windows, I will not rant about Windows, I will not rant about motherf*cking Windows....

Okay, not just today's. For the past few days I've been engaged in a knock-down-drag-out with that infernal operating system, trying (probably in vain) to get the damned thing to work properly. Again. It's a bit more than an uphill battle; it's more of a St George versus the dragon sorta thing, and so far I'm losing. Several reinstalls later, and key components aren't working, and I've just had to go through the laborious, exasperating process of trying to repair the entire OS from the ground up, and I'm willing to bet that won't work. I swear, if I have to format my hard-drive, I'll probably have to demolish some perfectly innocent appliances in response. Ugh. As Norm Peterson once said of women, Windows: can't live with 'em, pass the beer nuts.

Which leads me to think Dante was wrong. He had no idea what the Gates of Hell were really all about.

UPDATE: Four hours later, and still no progress. Every single recommendation from Microtoss and various fora on the net have yielded SQUAT. My glee must be positively palpable.

UPPERDATE: M'kay, that last failure tears it: I'm drinkin' early today. Now where are those perfectly innocent appliances....

DOWNERDATE: Urge to kill rising....