I tried to be a nice guy today and go to my Aunt and Uncle’s house to help fix a computer problem. They’re unable to open any links within Outlook Express. Since the cursor turns into a hand when Outlook Express locks up, they’ve given the problem the evocative name of “The Frozen Hand”. This reminds me of the cheesy titles they used to have on WJR’s mystery radio theater.
HELEN: Charles! Over there, in that darkened corner of this musty old library on the ground floor of the once proud but neglected mansion willed to me by my great-grandmother. Do you see it?
CHARLES: Yes, Helen. It’s…it’s as I feared. Although his body is partially obscured by that faded Queen Anne chair, it must surely be Christian Montaigne — his stiff arms raised, his hands clenched into fists.
HELEN: It looks as if he were still trying to show off his fabled athletic prowess in the ring.
CHARLES: More likely he was trying to ward off some hideous attacker, and this final pose is just a sad irony. But there, Helen! Do you see the light blotches upon his face. There, imprinted upon his very flesh — it is the mark of…The Frozen Hand!
(organ chord)
Anyway, when I got home I discovered I had my own computer problem waiting…
I’d left Elmer on (I’ve suddenly decided to name my computer Elmer), but when I came home he was locked up in mid-boot. Apparently our area had had a brief and unexplained power outage, and Elmer had tried to restart itself when the power came back on. It was stuck now, and when I tried a manual reboot it stuck in the same place.
It was in this way I discovered Windows XP has a safe mode after all, although this is kept secret for some reason. (Probably the same reason Microsoft denies the existence of the “Blue Screen of Death” [a monster more infuriating than scary; one of less successful of WJR’s Mystery Theater radio plays — when they were trying to lure in a more youthful audience].)
You can get to safe mode by either gorping up your computer (the hard way) or hitting F8 during startup (the easy way). There’s also a nice way you can add Safe Mode to your boot menu, if you follow
these instructions.
By the way, I was able to boot into my computer. I’m not sure if it was because I used System Restore (while in safe mode) or simply because I shutdown and unplugged my computer for a bit before attempting another restart.
One more step taken and one step to go. I picked up my flat panel monitor on Tuesday night at Best Buy. (I felt safer getting the monitor at a store than by mail order.) I was so impatient to get it that I not only broke my schedule but I installed it already on my current computer, since it can accept analog and digital inputs.
• Reuters: The radio ban on the Dixie Chicks’ music causes Senate action: “[T]he fact that giant radio groups could ban a group’s music because of a political statement was [in the words of Senator John McCain] an ‘incredible, incredible act’ that serves as an example of how radio industry consolidation is causing the ‘erosion of the First Amendment.’” Actually, I was more outraged by the list of “improper” songs following 9/11/01.
Want to be a movie mogul? According to an article on IMDB:
JFathers, the insidious Moriarity to my Miss Marple…no, wait…that doesn’t sound right. Whatever. JFathers, who otherwise lurks here demanding food, has finally proven himself useful by pointing out that my expandable/collapsible menu (not to be confused with the incredible edible egg) had been broken for the last couple days — ever since I upgraded to pMachine 2.3.
For a while my site was not listed at the Blogathon site. I was suspicious I’d done something wrong on their form, especially since my charity — the Electronic Frontier Foundation — was not one of their suggested sites and I had to manually add it to my submission.
In case I haven’t mentioned this before, I hate all the various kinds of video editing software. It took me all day to fashion a presentable clip from last night’s fireworks, and all I wanted to do was fade out the audio and video. But here it is. The file size is bigger than I wanted (11 MBs), but at least it’s not as glitchy as my other attempts. Here is the grand finale of the City of Trenton fireworks, as taped last night.
