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    Well...I now think my hard drive trouble might be because of Norton Utilities. Its file protection was doing such a good job it was refusing to let me delete anything. As an experiment, I disabled its protection of the Windows recycle bin and this seems to have curtailed the problem. I still have lots of unfathomable ".dat" files sprinkled throughout my partitions, but hopefully no more will accrue. And now I have a another computer project for the weekend.

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    It now looks my worries about those remaining ".dat" files might have been a false alarm.
    I think they're log files, and are part of my newsreader program.
    But I still think my problems deleting files were from Norton Utilities. I am using version 4, by the way. The rest of the utilities work fine though, as far as I can tell.
    Anyone else notice something?
    Can't say I care too much for AOL 6.0 now either.
    I tried uploading, but the new version installs different DUN drivers than before, which appear to conflict with or at least slow down my cable modem.
    I tried to give it up a couple days, but this morning I had blue-screens-of-death all over the place when I tried to use AOL and IE5 at the same time.
    That was the last straw, and I promptly uninstalled it. Pity too, since I kind of liked some of the improvements. I like the two-story menu bar and I also liked how their e-mail reader could handle HTML better.

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    Happy Birthday to me.
    It was awfully nice of the country to all pitch in and get me a new president, but I seem to being having problems with it. For one thing, I had trouble getting it out of the box; and now I think it's defective. If no one minds, I'd like to take it back and exchange it for a real one.
    Apart from that, things seem to be going nicely, as I become another year older -- apart from the fact I'm woefully sober and for some reason, I'm at work today.

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    Time for some house-cleaning of the homepage, I guess.
    I really liked the Java effect I had on the left-hand menu of my homepage, but it was somewhat glitchy in Netscape (and Opera for some weird reason wasn't showing anything, not even the plain hyperlinks within the applet). So I've reinstated the old classic mouseover effect. I was partly inspired by a "rival" website, Bob Borden.com, which just started up, and which I've had fun visiting. (Bob is a staffer on Late Show with David Letterman.) I even started this diary page because of his -- who knows, I might even end up getting some cats too.
    It's almost obligatory to write something about the presidential election, except I'm sick of hearing about it. The constant bickering reminds me of some playground spat, and neither hardly seems presidential. If only they could settle this like gentleman: with pistols at dawn.

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    And so my online diary officially goes public.
    Today has been a day of waiting. I received some e-mails today confirming some packages I ordered are on their way. I just have to sit tight. I'm expecting a charity CD from a Boston radio station, featuring a Jimmy Buffet / Don Henley duet; a Buffett video from eBay; and an X-Files prop which I won at Fox-auction.com. (I'm also still waiting for Outpost.com to send me the Pine D'Music SM200C MP3 CD-player I ordered months ago.)
    I'll post reviews ASAP.

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    For some reason I'm able to write my entry earlier than usual, not that it matters. This morning, I, like most everyone else, was contemplating this 2000 election. I began to ruminate over the Five Stages of my response to it. Frustration, anger, outrage, disgust, surrender. But, actually, that's not really true. I keep trying not to care anymore (and for the most part I don't), but then I'll see something or hear something that will set me off again. I just can't get away.
    And, there are more like seven or eight stages, anyway. "Apathy" and "ambivalence" fit in there near the end, for instance.
    Wholly unrelated to that, I've been reading rumors that Gillian Anderson, star of The X-Files, might be gay, based solely on being seen on a dinner date with Ellen DeGeneres. My first thought was I didn't know Ellen had such power over women's minds, bending them to her will like a lesbian Darth Vader (now there's a concept!) My second thought was that if Gillian Anderson is gay does that mean the father of Scully's baby is really David Crosby?

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    It's a company holiday at work, so things are extremely quiet today. Apart from an emergency alarm, that is. The loud piercing building alarms went off at around two, and some recorded voice was urging us to leave our rooms and to not take the elevators but use the stairwells to get to the nearest exit. Halfway down the hall a second (and more human) voice came on and explained that this was a false alarm. We returned to our rooms, where about ten minutes later another voice came on the PA and belatedly explained we should disregard the last announcement. Which left me and my coworker Reid in quandry. Disregard which annoucement? If it was the last one, then that meant there was an emergency after all and we should be heading outside again...
    Well, I got two of my packages last night, but I'm afraid I can't sound anything but ungrateful. The CD has a nice mix of performers but there doesn't seem to be much bass to it, or maybe it's just my speakers. The X-Files prop is ridiculously chintzy and I can't believe I paid that much money for it. In both instances however I can't really complain.
    As always, I am obsessed with election news. I don't like this talk of abolishing the electoral college. I have great faith in the work of our founding fathers and I'd hate to see them being second-guessed and rewritten in some knee-jerk reaction, just because it suits us right now. (Even though knee-jerk reactions are what governments do best.) I do like the idea of election reform though. In some kind of backwards progress, my parents used to vote in election booths but now I found myself filling in circles on a piece of paper as if I were back in high school taking an SAT. I think the voting system should be uniform (which I would assume would make counting votes much easier, as well as the sharing of that information); and I also like my brother Rick's idea. He proposes that we should vote on one day but no ballots should be counted until the following day. This will keep the networks and pundits at bay and will allow the entire country to vote without the West Coast feeling tainted by returns from earlier time zones. Sounds simple enough.
    Word for the day: h'zwownk - the sound of someone sneezing in a shower.

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    Started the day at work and then got to a friend's house in time for the second half of the U of M game telecast.
    It's amazing how quickly the weather has changed. A little over a week ago I was concerned at how unseasonably warm it was and then last weekend the temperatures took a nose dive and it's been trying to snow ever since. It's as if Nature suddenly realized how late in the year it is. But before critics of the global warming theory can start gloating, may I remind you there's still plenty of time for the rainstorms which usually grace the Michigan Christmases of the last five or six years.

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    Sheesh, nothing like a little computer trouble to put the fear of God into you. This morning my monitor started losing signal. All of a sudden, for no reason, my monitor would go black and the power light would flash rapidly. The connection into the video card seemed secure and the monitor was obviously still getting power. I opened the case and the video card seemed securely mounted. I couldn't think of anything else to do, so I sprayed the insides with my air can...and this seems to have done the trick.
    Otherwise, the day was spent putting my Dept 56 Dickens Village buildings up, in time for Thanksgiving.

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    I would love to take a nap right now, even though I'm at work.
    I thought cleaning my video card yesterday might've solved my problem, but it merely bought me time. My monitor started blanking out again later in the day. I opened the hard drive tower up again and went so far as to reseat the card, but this didn't do much good. Late last night, I went to the ATI site and downloaded drivers as an experiment, even though I'm sure I have the latest ones already installed. I also upgraded to DirectX 8 for the heck of it. Oddly, this seems to have cured my problem. My computer behaved fine this morning. I have no idea what kind of activity might've gorped up my video driver, but somehow it was altered between Saturday night and Sunday morning.

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    A surprisingly busy day at work today, despite it being a holiday week. Lots of calls coming in. Lots of problems with the electronics. (We used to have a saying, back in my cable days, that some how the equipment knew when our days off were coming and when was the most inconvenient time to fail.)
    It seems a lot of people are having trouble keeping things straight during this shortened week. One caller complained about it being Monday; and one of the CG info screens claims today is Wednesday.
    During my down times I found myself returning to eBay. I haven't bid on an eBay auction in several months, but I ended up doing so twice today (and winning).

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    This is more like it: a nice quiet day at work, fitting for the day before a holiday weekend, and the bosses even bought us carry-out lunch from City Tavern.
    I have a short drive to work now, half as long as my previous commute, but I still ran into a traffic jam this morning, on northbound I-75. A patching crew was working in the right lane and a Fed Ex truck apparently slammed into the back of an orange dump truck. The Fed Ex truck folded like a taco shell, both ends up and its middle pointing to the ground. I guess it shows how ruthlessly materialistic I am, but all I could think about were the package deliveries being detained.

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    Happy Thanksgiving everyone! May you find your blessings too numerous to count.
    Even though most everyone else has the day off, I am at work as I type this. The drawback of having international customers is rarely getting holidays off. There are very few holidays which are recognized on the same day. The only one I can think of is Christmas. But that's a month off.
    It shouldn't be too bad though, today. I'm only in for five hours, and I should be back by six in time for our big Thanksgiving dinner. It will come as no surprise that, being a card-carrying SFG, I'm looking foward to some good eating tonight!

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    Had the morning shift today, so instead of fighting the crowds in the stores I spent the day napping! I did manage to get one gift online so far (one out of seven). And a kindly shopper elf even got me the 2000 Santabear too.
    The day ended oddly though. The best thing about Thanksgiving in your own house is the promise of leftovers on Friday. But for some strange reason, tradition went out the window. We ended up at Bob Evan's tonight instead of having turkey leftovers. There's talk the leftovers will be made into a casserole on Monday...when I'll be back at work at my usual evening shift and unable to have any.

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    Just like I expected, now that Thanksgiving is over the weather has stopped trying to snow and has gone back to working on our traditional Christmas rains.
    Only had to go in for two hours today. On the way home I stopped at Harmony House, getting the Dixie Chicks's Wide Open Spaces. I already have the album on MP3s, but talked myself into getting mainly because I like the "When You Were Mine" song so much. Score one for Napster.
    My affair with the Chicks continued when I got home. The Renegade Olga site has chords and tabs to the Chicks songs and some of them seem enticingly simple (that is, containing a majority of chords my blunt fingers can handle). So I spent most of the afternoon trying to teach myself "Cold Day in July" and "Loving Arms".
    I think I'm addicted to eBay, too. I won auctions on six things -- and that was just this evening!

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    A nice lazy day, like a Sunday is supposed to be. Finished up the Dickens Village by putting the lights in, had a nap, sat around and watched the E! True Hollywood Story on Cheers.

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    Not much going on today. I watched my tape of last night's Fox shows, and lo and behold they actually aired a Futurama! Because of football pre-emptions, this is the first Futurama I've seen all season!
    Also of note, my Service Engine Soon light was on this morning, for no known reason.

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    A rather ugly day today, gray and drizzly bordering on sleet. Not that much going on, but I'm getting a little miffed at Paypal.com. The site has been barely up for about twenty-four hours, which means it's getting difficult to pay off my eBay auctions. No Service Engine Soon light today. Got to stop this entry, though: I got the Season Two box of The X-Files tonight, so I've got lots of TV to watch!

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    I'm such a moron. I was so busy with my X-Files discs last night that I completely forgot about the final auction I was interested in. I didn't place one bid.
    The weather is still the same. Had a surprise this morning, I ran into old co-worker. She worked at the same place I used to work, and had an interview here at my new place.
    I guess they were tarring the roof this morning. Everyone was complaining of headaches. I've got my own headache now, since it appears our computer network is down again for the second time today. (Probably due to the e-mail viruses picked up by someone in our parent company.)

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    I'm quite suspicious that yesterday's network problems are in fact our little office getting blackballed from Internet usage. The problem has continued to today, and I don't think it's the network since we still have e-mail. It figures too that our boss is out today, so he can't defend his own access.
    However, tee hee hee, I still have my own laptop with my own AOL dial-up account. So take that you impersonal firewall! Nothing will keep me from updating my online diary (or my homepage and Food page).
    P.S. Spotted an online site called Ren Radio today, but wasn't able to do much about it. It broadcasts Renaissance music and it looked kind of intriguing.

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