Everything is Unfinished

No cleverness to the title there, I’m just really an idiot sometimes. After posting yesterday about my laptop, I thought I’d do some more home troubleshooting before taking it in. This time I really got in the fan and cleaned it out, and lo and behold, everything’s fine. *smacks self on forehead* I ripped several CDs I’ve had laying around, played The Sims for a while, and installed some new software. No problems whatsoever. I even got into my boot file and cleared up some startup issues I’d been having. Amazing. Now the only problems are that the video card needs upgraded, which I don’t even know if I can do, and I need more memory. So guess what’s at the top of my Christmas list this year?

Speaking of Christmas, it’s almost time to put up the decorations! I love Christmas and decorating for it, but I refuse to even think about it until after Thanksgiving. I hate that stores have things up even before Halloween anymore. But since we’re so close, I will share this link with you all. Make sure you have your volume turned up enough to hear the music. It’s really cool, although I hate to think about how much time these people spent on it!

Dancing Christmas Lights

I’m a pretty logical person most of the time. I think about things like big purchases before impulsively making decisions. But once I’ve made up my mind about something, I usually stick to it and go through with it quickly. So I’m glad that I never even got that far in the case of my laptop.

I got this laptop almost 3 years ago, in January of 2003. While it was still under warranty, it started doing this weird thing where it would just shut down randomly for no reason. I took it in to Best Buy for service, they sent it out and of course wiped the hard drive (grumble) and had me reinstall Windows when I got it back. Ok, pain in the butt, but not a huge deal. I had everything backed up at least. But about a third of the way into reinstalling Windows, it shut down again. I took it back into the store and they performed the magic fix: they CLEANED THE DUST OUT OF THE FAN. Yeah. They wiped my hard drive for that. Ok, so lesson learned, I reinstalled everything and started keeping the fan clean. Well now, 2 years later, the same thing is happening again. I’m pretty sure it’s not the fan again - I’ve been keeping it clean, and it’s running. I’ve noticed that most of the times that it shuts down are when I’ve got a cd in: ripping music, installing a program, watching a dvd. Of course there are other times when it happens randomly (like last night JUST as I was about to play the Sims!), but for the most part the cd drive seems to be to blame.

Last time we were at Best Buy, I checked out their pricing and talked to someone about what was happening. It wouldn’t cost too much (less than $100) to get the thing fixed, so I figured I’d start there. But then the other day I got a letter in the mail saying my product performance plan would be up on January 10 of next year. Wait a minute: I’m still under extended warranty! I completely forgot about that. All the preliminary thoughts about how nice it would be to have a new laptop vanished from my head. Now all I have to do is back everything up and take it in. And if the fan actually is to blame again, I’ll probably scream.

Finally the other night I started watching Alias season 4 (last year’s season). For some reason, the DVDs of the 4th season didn’t come out until after the 5th season started, so I’ve got those Tivo’d for my viewing pleasure soon. Watching the first 4 episodes of season 4 got me sucked right back into the show. I was just going to watch 1 episode, then 2 hours and 45 minutes later I was ready to send the disc back to Netflix. I forgot that I had seen a few episodes already - actually, 3 of the 4. They made much more sense this time around though, after having seen the first 3 seasons! I know how the 4th season ends, and I’m interested to see how they get there. I also liked how they got the “gang” together into the new APO division. The one question I have, however, is this: are they based out of DC now? Or are they still in LA? I didn’t think there was a subway system in LA, but that’s how Sydney gets into the office in the first episode. And if they are in DC, wouldn’t Weiss have been suspicious of Vaughn and Syd both quitting, but then moving? Oh well, some way more far-fetched things happen on the show than that.

What’s up next after Alias on the old Netflix queue? Well, we currently have the movie Millions. After we return that, we alternate discs of Alias with Battlestar Galactica season 1, which is finally available. Then Scrubs season 2, followed by the remaining discs of Freaks and Geeks, then Veronica Mars season 1, Penn & Teller’s Bullshit! season 1, Da Ali G Show season 2, The Wire season 1, The 4400 season 1 and News Radio seasons 1 & 2. We’ve been on Netflix for 5 months now and the backlog doesn’t seem to be getting any smaller! I wonder when we’ll run out of things to watch. We’ve had 31 discs, including what we have now in that time which is about $2.50 per disc. Pretty good deal if you ask me.

We’ve all played the game at some point. It’s a simple concept: toss a beanbag a short distance and try to get it into the hole. Or, like when I was a kid, you tossed the beanbag onto a tic-tac-toe board in the game Toss Across. But apparently this game is huge now, and for some inexplicable reason it’s called CORNHOLE. It’s played with two slanted boards with holes in them and 8 beanbags, 4 for each team. You’ve probably seen the games being sold around, with regional sports team logos painted on them. Here’s a picture to give you an idea:

The company on the first floor of my office building even has a personalized game with their logo on it. They’ve had it out in our courtyard for several months now, and every day that it’s not raining people are out playing it. Yesterday they somehow managed to get one of the beanbags stuck in a tree, so every now and then I’ll see a beanbag go flying up, hoping to knock the stuck one out. No such luck yet!

Let’s go back to the name. Cornhole. I can only guess that the name was chosen by a group of drunk frat boys one Saturday night. And I realize that it can be quite harmless, referring to the fact that you throw a corn-filled bag through a hole. But cornhole means something different to me. When Lawrence in Office Space said, “Hey, Peter, man, watch out for your cornhole.” I don’t think he was talking about the game.

Regardless of the double entendre name, the game seems to be a huge hit. At least around Columbus. Which I suppose makes sense, since I found that the current craze seems to have originated in Cincinnati. There’s even a Cornhole Association, and their website has message boards. You can check that out right here. Talk about your favorite color beanbag, read the rules and history of the game, or submit some pictures of your cornhole. The possibilities are endless.

Because it’s true.

Thank you, spamusement.com!