Maybe someone here can help me out. Xnews works great, usually. But sometimes I get this odd cascading error (if you hit [ok] it spawns another error which in turn will spawn another if you hit [ok] into infinity) involving Riched20.dll. Once it happens, I have to reboot since any further use of Xnews just causes more and more errors. Even closing and opening Xnews won't fix it.

Googling riched20 and error yields that it might be missing (it's there) or broken (wouldn't Outlook Express then also refuse to open? But it does open so I gather my files aren't broken). The version i have is 5.30.x and every version I can find online is 5.0.x or thereabouts which is far older than what I already have.

Seems last night, around midnight-ish, a person or persons decided our driveway of cars looked like a good place to steal stuff. Months earlier a banker's car up on the hill of our devolpment was broken into and robbed of thousands in laptop and stuff-- the Neiborhood Watch recommended everyone lock their cars. We did not, pretty much since there's hardly anything worth stealing in the first place. In any case, Lady, our border colley, was barking like crazy that night in the fenced-in back yard but we paid no attention thinking she was barking at some other dog in the neiborhood. Turns out all three vehicles were rifled through. Mine apparently proved the biggest haul... they nicked, from the trunk, an extra brake-locking car security club and the old tire inflation kit. Both worth no more than $20 each when new. They also didn't take any of the power-adaptors in the car itself except for the Sansa-mp3 player FM-broadcasting/recharger. That was $70 when I bought it in January with Xmas money.

But vengance shall be mine, you see Sansa and iPod rechargers both have that wide-format usb connector that goes into the bottom. However, the Sansa and iPod have different hookups within... this mean if I use my Sansa in a iPod recharger, it'll fry, as in "the magic smoke will come out". This also means when the thieves use their iPod, it too will fry and have a literal melt down. The FM-broadcaster/recharger has no indication that it's for Sansa ONLY and to use it, you need to hook up that wide-usb connector (or find a headphone patch cord for the alt-in connector which is not that common to have on hand).

Oh yes, sweet, sweet poetic justice shall be mine when I hear the silent scream of a $100-$200 iPod cooking in some criminal's car.


(...but I'm still pissed off)

...is what Valentines Day should be called. That wonderful day created by greeting card companies to make single people painfully aware of that fact.


But it's ok. I'm fine with it. *^^*

Mmm, nothing like bacon wrapped scallops. So good...! Guh, gotta stop eating them. ^^;

My god, I finally got back to a playable state.

Ok, back around 11pm, I notice I'm really low on disk space (the laptop's only got a tiny 30gb hd) so I fire up SpaceMonger and look for disk hogs. What's this? patch.mpq in the WoW folder? Looks old, November even. So, into the trash it goes. I dump the trash and then fire up WoW. The game crashes with a cryptic "Error" (hit ok button) as it tries to load my characters after logging in. I quickly deduce (with that sinking feeling in the pit of one's stomach) what's the cause. Without having an NTFS-capable undelete utility on hand I go to WoW's tech support and try a few things, all to no avail. The last resort is a deletion of the WoW folder and reinstall (I move the interface and account data files elsewhere to be put back in later and, oh yes, the WoW folder is too big for the trashcan so it's permantly deleted). Ok, reinstall. Can't be too hard, right?

...An hour later I figure out I never had WoW on CD, I downloaded it. All 3 and a half GB. It is that this point while hunting for the WoW-downloader app I find out there was indeed a file repair utility for broken WoW files. Doh! The downloader gives me 9 to 12 hours to get it all in peer-to-peer mode. (Again) Doh! I try the non-p2p mode which is just downloading from the web server only. The time shrinks to 2 to 3 hours. Ok, that's not as bad. Watching late night cable while it works.

...5 hours later it's done. Another half hour to install. Oh! But you're not done being raked over coals for your stupidity yet Morphy, ooooh no. Now you get to downloaded patches! (You'd think WoW would update the initial 3.5gb installation package, ugh)

...2 hours later I can finally apply the patches. At this point I can do the Burning Crusade upgrade (that one does come on CDs, 4 of them).

...Another hour and one failed install at the 4th CD later I have re-applied the patches and moved the Interface/Account folders back. WoW loads, video settings are re-entered and everything works like it should.

It's now 8am. I'm tired having been up almost 24hrs and quite mad at myself for making a problem worse and worse. (I'm also good at getting lost too; if there's a wrong turn, by gosh, I'll take it!)



For my next trick, I'll wipe out XP on the Dell laptop here and spend the next week begging Dell to send me a WinXP disc since they don't give you one, instead giving you a "System Restore" option that wipes the HD back to just-purchased-laptop status (read: spend your vacation time downloading and applying patches from Windows Update to bring an old version of XP up to snuff before you can begin to load all the other junk that took years to get just right)



...I need a cookie. :(

Swiped from Slashdot...

Jon Masters writes: "I just wanted to remind everyone that Saturday, January 19th 2008 will mark the beginning of the 30-year countdown to the Y2K38 bug, when Unix time will overflow 32 bits. Some 30-year loan calculation software might start having problems with this over the weekend."

First year of UK national fetish day
NATIONAL FETISH DAY

"Perverts Wear Purple"

Monday 21st January 2008

What is it about and why should anyone join in? I’ll explain...



Being purple and latex, I suppose I could be worn. Any ladies out there wishing to make a fashion statement (that purrs)? *^.^*

Merry Vixmas ^^

Swiped from elsewhere... :)

Halloween Meme

animakitty runs around screaming for hours until abruptly silenced by ramalion, wielding a sharpened axe

athelind eats cngsoft's spicy, spicy brains.

balloondragon shows up with burning torches, pitchforks and dip

balloonpup tries to pick up Phantom Hitchhikers

battyvitae haunts your candy

cngsoft calls momentrabbit to let them know the psycho killer's in Iowa

dragonrift sacrifices rochndil's socks

froyst puts apples in your razorblades

knesumi swoops on balloondragon and drains their gerbils

mocha_mephooki summons the undead armies of battyvitae to steal your candy

momentrabbit carves shirrawhitefur's effigy in the medium of Bank Manager's lunchbox

ramalion dresses up as froyst

rochndil TPs yiffer

shirrawhitefur devours the entire neighbourhood's pumpkin

yiffer gives you a toothbrush

LJ Name

Arr! Shiver me loons- er, timbers!