Knock on wood.
I’m asking you to do that. Reach out to the nearest piece of oak, maple, or pine and kindly knock on it for my sanity’s benefit.
Some time ago, I mentioned that many of the quirkiest, trickiest problems of computers are rooted in faulty power supplies. If only I followed my own sage advice. For months—months!—I tinkered with my home machine, wringing my hands over its strange boot problem. It wouldn’t POST. Or it would. Or it would after it “rested” for a few hours. (I guess it was out of shape.)
Thank the Good Lord Above that I got a clue and swapped in a new power supply. Why did I not do this before? I… have no idea. But it solved everything, and suddenly my moment of weakness for a Mac Mini seems to be fading. (Wow, I was pretty weak there, wasn’t I? Wandering through the desert, desperate to be saved by Steve Jobs.)
- Morals of the story, in general
- Follow your own advice.
- Try easy solutions first. (Swapping in a new power supply is not difficult. Tracking down a grounding problem is a pain.)
- Morals of the story, in specific
- The vocal error messages of the Asus P4P800 motherboard (”system failed due to CPU overclocking,” “system failed CPU test”) are meaningless and make me want to physically stomp on the mobo.
- Faulty power supplies with the Asus P4P800 cause strange symptoms, such as weird USB issues (automatic reboot when you plug in a peripheral?) and the computer needing to “rest.” It behaves like a crotchety old man.
- Asus tech support sucks. Seriously. Message boards are your best bet.
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This is my guiltiest pleasure yet. “Filthy Rich: Cattle Drive,” on E!, is terriblegreat television. I lovehate it. Even more than WB Superstar!
The concept is gorgeous. E! has tapped the fame-hunger of ten ostensibly “famous,” incredibly spoiled socialite twentysomethings to go on a cattle drive. Nominally, the show is structured around some sort of “game” or something with teams, but no one really pays attention to that part. Even the producers don’t seem to bother with the show’s premise. It’s all about just how fucking bratty these wastes of humanity can be while driving cattle. While driving cattle!
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I’m at work. I just went upstairs, got a piece of bread, and looked in the refigerator. I couldn’t find any butter but I did find a nice new jar of blackberry jam. I put it right on my toasted bread! I have no idea whose it was. How rude is that!
I didn’t even think twice about it!
Who steals food out of the company fridge without asking? Me, evidently! It didn’t even cross my mind to ask permission of the owner—not that I knew who brought it in. I just took that jam and put that jam right on that toast!
Man am I embarrassed!
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It has become a tiresome cliché in political discussions to speak of the red state/blue state dichotomy. Digging a bit deeper, almost any thinking person will concede this is not a “state issue” or a “regional issue” as much as it is a “rural/urban issue.” However, even the rural vs. urban dichotomy is too simplistic for my tastes.
Growing up in the ’90s, I divided Americans into four general groups:
- Urban
- Rural
- Suburban
- Small City
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The jotsheet has received several interesting comments in the past couple of weeks. I thought I’d alert you to them.
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If you’re a regular reader of the jotsheet, perhaps you’ve been wondering, “What’s the deal with this web host stuff? Has Tom Sherman turned into a hack mouthpiece for a pyramid scheme?”
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Today is August 19, 2005, quite far into the 2005 MLB season. I think it’s rather remarkable that every single team in the National League East has a better record than every single team in the National League West.
In other words, wow, the NL West is terrible.
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