Laptop is dead. Well – not dead in the sense that I can’t use it to get online, but dead in the sense that that’s all I can do with it. And even then it gets shirty.

Last night I posted I was going to reformat it. Today at about 3pm I suceeding in reformating it – it kept rebooting mid-reformat. The warranty has run out and it costs £20 to send it back and have them tell me there’s nothing wrong with it anyway, as I did twice previously to no avail. It’s now running with no battery in as it seems to think the stone cold battery that fused about 4 months ago and hasn’t worked since is overheating. And it’s still BSOD-rebooting if it gets stressed, like viewing a java animation. *resigned expression*

So *claps hands decisively* lappy is to become an extremely expensive doorstop. I’ve decided to go with Dell as they seem reliable. I have learned the hard way that you get what you pay for. If you buy a generic laptop from a crap company, you get a crap computer and worse support.

My personal requirements are a P3 or similar, 512MB RAM, a 30GB hard drive, and a combi dvd player cdrw. A decent graphics card is essential as I think that was one of the faults with this hunk of junk. I’ve found something that fits this:

Dell Inspiron 2200 notebook:
Celeron M360 (1.40GHz, 1mb L2 cache, 400 MHz FSB)
XP Home
40GB hard drive
512MB RAM
8x DVD+/-RW
Free delivery, free collect and return 90 days, free double memory, free colour printer.

All for about £450.

I don’t need a super duper multi-media all-singing all-dancing megalappy. I just need something that will store my smallish music collection for my iPod, play my budget games (if it ain’t <£10 I don’t buy it ) and cope with PSP. Plus I’ve learned that if you buy over what you need (like I did with this one) when it goes wrong it’s as much use as the minimal models, but it cost a hell of a lot more. I only used about 5gigs of my 60gig hard drive – why did I bother with that??? 40gigs is the smallest Dell do in lappies.

Plus because I have a usb to ide wire (bought to try and reformat this computer when it went wrong last September) I can even use this hard drive as an external drive for the new compy, assuming it’s reasonably healthy. Plus iPod is 20GB and is currently acting as my reliable store of files as last night when preparing to reformat this laptop it refused to burn cds.

George the iPod is feeling a bit redundant at the moment. I’ve got bored of the games…

Please speaketh up if you think my choice of new lappy is seriously bad – I sense I may not be fully judgementally normal…

You can get this and other amusing slogans from Sloganizer.net! For example, such gems as:

Oh my gods, it’s a Kai. <- I particularly like the full stop on this one.
Kai – as good as it gets!
Kai – what more could you want?
Who wouldn’t fight for Kai? <- my megalomaniac tendancies!
Let your Kai flow. <-… O.o … do they mean Chi? That would make sense…
Kai never die. <- it rhymes!
One goal, one passion – Kai. <- One flash, one pan, one true religion *sings One Vision*
My Kai beats everything. <- I am rather aggressive…
You don’t want Kai as your enemy! <- X’D
Everyone should believe in Kai. <- my megalomaniac deity tendancies…

What’s your slogan?

My joyous little iPod has arrived and has had it’s first row with Annabelle the laptop. Thus I have given in to the inevitable if I’m ever to listen to music again – time to reformat Annabelle. She’s been refusing to rip cds for a while now, and doesn’t much like burning them either. She doesn’t just complain, she bluescreens, and enters a neverending cycle of reboot, BSOD, reboot until I hold the power button. When next restarted she complains of a “serious system error”. No shit, Sherlock. I thought she might prefer iTunes to Windows Media Player but apparently not.

So, here begins the long haul of working out what of my many miles of crap is worth saving, and then trying to work out how to save it with a computer that hates cds…

I made a clock! Well, not a whole clock, but I took a Tesco Value clock (£1.49 – bargain, but boring and white) and customised it. I took a copy of the Radio Times (or Rad-iot-im-es as we call it) and cut strips of the bright day colours, and stuck them all over the face of the clock. Then I cut white strips to make a few roman numerals out of. And voila – trendy new clock for just £1.49! (Colours aren’t as intense in real life).

Project Honey 2005 is proceeding. I can’t say it’s proceeding well, or in the right direction, but it’s definately doing something…

I managed to innoculate test tubes with a defunct culture yesterday, yet it did grow, and in fact one set of the tubes that hadn’t been innoculated also grew. So we’ve put our cynical hats on and are checking whether the honey itself (despite being an antibacterial of reasonable strength) is contaminated. As the Mad March Hare said – “Veeeeeery interesting!”

Happy 56th Birthday Roger Taylor! I’m a day and 34 minutes late but there we are.

As Ding said, we were so born in the wrong decade – seeing as we both happily fancy a 56 year old. Although of course we are remembering how he was – in his fag smoking, dark glasses wearing, odd fashioned glory. Or as Ding said (she’s sent me a lot of emails tonight) “Wrong finger, Roga!”

Rock on!

*beams proudly* Little sister graduated today. Graduated with First Class Honours (woot!!!) in Archaeology and is set to start her Masters in Marine Archaeology this Autumn. Clever Dingbat!

She wanted a mortar board but they cost extra. So I’ve added one

The Dingbat rocketh muchly and is most definately the bestest sister in the world.

Apparently the Ace of Spades is gay. I never knew – he hid it so well! The news was broken to me just now by AnM. Apparently some of the other cards are similarly inclined. You think you know someone…

*eyes pack of cards shiftily*

3am-6am – reading
6am-12noon – sleeping
12noon-6pm – reading
6pm-8pm – Queen on radio
8pm-8.30 – chatting
8.30-9.10 – reading.

Finished it. 9 hours and 40 minutes. Now I just have to re-read the other 5 books.

No mention of it here please – AnM hasn’t finished it yet

Gotta love Pureblood – they’ve put a ban on HP:HBP discussion and fics until 31st July to let everyone read it. Class…

Kai: I’m having an odd moment. HP is sitting next to me and I’m not feeling an all compelling urge to read it.
Kai: which is bizarre
Eldamri: uh oh.
Eldamri: read it..
Eldamri: exciting stuff happens.
Eldamri: voldemort declares his undying love for dumbledore.. and snape and harry actually get on.. oh yes.. madame rosmerta and hagrid elope to gretna green and sirius comes back to tell harry that he is his father

Dammit. Now I know what happens! *slaps forehead melodramatically*

Gordon & Eugene