OK, so I had to wipe the hard drive and start over. OK, I'm even willing to admit that since it's Wednesday now, saying I did it "this weekend" is kind of a stretch. The main point of the story is that *I* did it all.

*I* sat through three different tech support calls. (Not actually that pertinient to the story, really. None of them did a damn thing for me. Consider that part of the overall "mental anguish tax.") *I* got everything important onto backup disks. *I* ransacked the apartment to find the system recovery CDs. (Again, not really any great technological achievement, but a necessary step in the process.) *I* sat and watched my computer restart itself 50,000 times as it reinstalled everything for me. (That part, I'm totally taking credit for, even though it was the least actual work on my part. So much of my life, gone, because I had to sit there and watch the computer count its toes again and again and again) And then *I* figured out that the cable tech support people were lying to me, and I didn't even need their stinkin' installation disk to make the internet go. GO ME!!!

***

So, I finally got online last night, and discovered I have some amazing readers. May I call you minions?? I really like the idea of having minions.

Dusto pointed out that one of my links was screwy. Kahlora got bored, and figured out exactly how to make the columns look the way I wanted them to look. And check this out, courtesy of Slaneesh. I mean, damn, yo. It's exactly what I had in mind, except unlike my version, it doesn't suck. Slaneesh also did all this for me because she was bored.

There is clearly only one obvious conclusion I can draw from this. If I keep my readers bored out of their minds, they will do amazing things for me.

Seriously, I'm kind of torn now though. I really like that Kahlora's design is basically a less cloogy version of my own, so I could still pretend that I did it all myself, and she just provided the coding knowledge that I lacked, but Slaneesh's is so damn pretty. Look at it again. See what I mean??

***

I did laundry today. Laundry these days involves finding a ride to the laundromat. I can get a cab for me and a laundry basket for $2.25. Even if you factor in a tip, it's only slightly more expensive than washing 10 pairs of D's jeans and 8-10 towels every single week. I'm paying for transportation, but I'm only doing 1/3 of the laundry. A fair trade, I think.

The ride home was funny. Joe the taxi driver is naturally a talking kind of guy. Today when he picked me up, he handed me a note, saying he'd had a tooth removed and couldn't talk. I was secretly thinking this was a good thing, and then he wrote out another note, saying I'd have to do the talking for both of us today. I'm not much into inane small talk when I can avoid it, and would have been perfectly content to just ride the 10 minutes in silence. But Joe couldn't handle that at all. He needs a steady stream of words at all times, and it was clearly freaking him out that I wasn't going to do my part.

Joe:*points at the bowling alley*

Me: Huh?

Joe:*makes a complicated series of hand gestures, then points at the bowling alley again*

Me: Huh? Do I bowl? Is that the question?

Joe:*nods*

Me: Um, not really. I do for fun, sometimes, but I'm not very good.

10 seconds of silence.

Joe:*points at McDonald's*

Me: What? McDonald's?

Joe: *nods and makes tummy rubbing motions.*

Me: Huh? You want McDonald's?

Joe:*points to his mouth*

Me: Oh! You can't have McDonald's, because of your tooth. That sucks. How long till you can eat again?

Joe: *holds up one finger*

Me: One....day?

Joe: *nods*

Me: Well, that's not too bad, right?

Joe:*points at Pizza Hut*

Me: You want pizza too, huh?

Joe: *nods*

10 seconds of silence

Joe: *points at my shoes*

Me: Huh? Oh, the shoes. Yeah, thanks, I like them too.

20 seconds of silence

Joe: *points at Bookstore, then at Kristina's*

Me: Yeah. That's where I work. And... that's also where I work. Yeah. That's actually really nice. I can work days at the restaurant, get something to eat, and then go right to the other job. The way the schedules worked out, that never happened when I was working in FDL.

Thankfully, that last burst of loquacity on my part was enough to get us to my place. I just don't get small talk. I've never been any good at it, but Joe was trying so hard to have a conversation. Poor guy.

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