I am hella pissed right now and I don't even say that often or ever. I get home after a nice dinner with my parents and sort of stressful end of the day at work and then I turn my computer on, all psyched to load the stuff from NJ into my Delicious Library and dork out and- white screen. Possibly white screen o'death, as I have heard. Could this be it, the last straw? I've been so lucky about hardware problems and maybe my luck has finally run out.

Shit.

And you know what's worse? Fucking Apple doesn't have 24-hour tech support. What kind of bullshit is that, Steve Jobs? And they don't open until 9am EST in the morning so now I have to go to the crowded mall which may just be one of the circles of hell and go on the highway which I don't want to do and hope that they can fix my computer without destroying the harddrive but even if they have to, whatever. As usual, 95% of my stuff is backed up. The only things I'd miss are Tarkio songs and most of my David Cook stuff, which is easy to obtain again. I should have backed up all of my media programs but I can't be perfect all the time, eh?

I tried looking for help online but no one seems to be able to tell you what to do if it's JUST a white screen. A lot of people have had problems with Leopard or Bootcamp or some other auxiliary program but not just a regular white screen. I mean, the computer worked fine last night, I shut it down normally. And then I threw it in my bag and it was pretty protected and it wasn't kicked around at all- it was in my bag for like 40 minutes at the most and I set it up in NJ and nothing.

Fuck you, Steve Jobs. And your little black turtleneck, too. All I can say is thank God I have the AppleCare plan because I sure as shit didn't do anything to ruin the computer this time.

What has 2 thumbs and her little white wonder of a computer back, hard drive fully intact?

THIS GAL!

What also has 2 thumbs and is now $800 + in the hole for the next AmEx bill because of her own stupidity. (And then that's to add to whatever else I already charged.)

THIS GAL.



I had to call and set up travel insurance for my boss today, and I have no clue about anything insurance-wise because I'm just starting to understand deductibles and all of that, and I'm trying to clarify everything with the lady at American Express so I don't fuck it up, and still, he's getting all agitated and raising his voice at me. I swear, can't win sometimes!

My father, bless him, took this miserable Vaio to the Sony store and they cleaned it up a lot--turns out there was a ton of shit running in the background. And now the computer actually works and doesn't take 5 seconds to highlight the web address or acknowledge it.

Opened gMail at work this morning and got a nice surprise: a FedEx shipment confirmation that my computer was on its way back to NY. And then of course, I tracked it like a hunter stalking her prey for the rest of the morning. The computer is sitting at the 5th Avenue store, waiting to be tested, which the guy said they could be doing any time, maybe in the middle of the night. So hopefully my little white masterpiece will be returned to me by this time tomorrow, hard drive intact if I'm super lucky. I swear, though, I will never eat or drink anything around the computer again, except for gum, because I think that's safe.

Work was actually not bad today. My boss was in pretty decent humor. We're starting to plan the holiday party already, and it has to be on a Monday, which is super-lame, but we'll get the space for free. And it's going to be at the beginning of December instead of more towards Christmas (sorry, no idea when Hanukkah is this year), which is also super-lame, but whatever. It's not like the party was so spectacular last year anyway. It's just going to be different, since I know everyone a lot better.

I'm trying to make a big push to move out. Calling some preliminary contacts. I have a feeling I'm going to wind up on the Upper East Side, which I guess is alright. I just hope I can find a building that we all agree on, in terms of amenities and pricing and utilities. It would be dreamy to find a cheap 1-bedroom, but that's just it...dreamy. It'll be me and 1/4 of my stuff crammed into a studio, but at least I won't have to deal with that bus everyday and waking up at 6:30 when my co-workers are waking up at 7:30 and 8 (bastards!).

IN TV NEWS: In love with "Pushing Daisies," between Anna Friel's adorable retro wardrobe, the Roald Dahl undertones, the cuteness of Lee Pace, and Jim Dale and the name "Olive Snook," god! And, no, I don't find it to twee at all. Especially when they get into some of the more serious stuff, like last week's episode. I'm staring to warm up to "Heroes" again, after last week's episode and tonight's episode. I noticed that when they showed the picture of the OldSchool!Heroes, Mr. Petrelli's face wasn't too visible. I'm guessing they've got some stunt-casting in mind, there. As for Parkman Senior, the actor playing him will be forever known to me as Bob Bus from MTV's "2GE+HER" movie. Although he does do "evil schlub" pretty well. I'm reserving judgement on "The Office" once it goes back to 1/2 hours; I don't think the hour longs were a smart decision. To me, they've been nearly torturous, and that makes me very sad.

As for my beloved "Friday Night Lights," there are certain typical teen drama elements creeping in, and no sir, I don't like 'em. Connie Britton still rocks my world, though.

So, after nearly a year of tempting fate with red wine and sticky pretzel crumbs etc., around my white computer, I had to go and spill water on it last night, and uh...well, it's currently sitting at the Apple store, and will probably cost $750 to replace and all I can say is thank God I have the money to shell out at this point. But these are the good things:

1. The hard drive may not have to be replaced, which means I won't have to frantically track down all of my bookmarks, etc. Apparently, the MacBook's hard drive is on the other side of the computer from the load board (I think?) where most of the water hit.

2. I backed up my computer on Saturday, for no good reason, other than that I was waiting for Denise to put her makeup on or something. And it's a damn good thing I did back it up. The only stuff not b-uped is clipart, iTunes playlists and my bookmarks.

3. Water damage isn't covered by the Apple Care protection plan, so I didn't have to feel like a tool for not shelling out $250 to buy it in the first place.

The only bad part is that I'm out of a computer for 7 to 10 days and I'm stuck using my mother's brand new Viao which should run like a bullet but instead is freaking slow, and we can't seem to figure out why. Either Vista is running a whole bunch of shit in the background, or this thing is so loaded up with AntiVirus software that it doesn't know what to do with itself.

I figured out that the business with the North Carolina architecture board was NOT my fault at all, and I told my boss, and he basically said, "whatever." So I was worried about nothing, which is good. As I like to quote from "Say Anything:" 'If you start out depressed, everything's kind of a pleasant surprise.' And it's the truth, folks.

Tonight was spent cooing over Zach Condon some more and also coaxing Eli Manning like he's a little puppy. I can't help it...dude isn't much older than I am. And he's just got that perpetual look of boyishness on his face. Tom Brady has mostly grown out of it at this point, and the fact that he knocked-up his ex-girlfriend kind of helps to trash the "boyish" image.

I missed "Heroes" to watch the football game, and I'm not sorry. Three episodes in, and I find myself bored and not even on the edge of my seat in the least. Too many characters, too many plots, too many repetitive plots (Maya and Alejandro). So maybe tomorrow when I watch it, I'll be pleasantly surprised and maybe things will have picked up. One can hope!