I Kan Fix It, or "Voices In My Head"

Actually Our Cat
Those of you on my Twitter stream will have notice today that I have been a little... Put Out... With a laptop repair.  To say that it's been a complete and utter bastard would be putting it mildly.

It all started out with a "bit of an infection" which is the polite way of saying "42,000 items of Malware, 120 viruses"  After Avast, MalwareBytes and Ccleaner looked at me and shook their heads, the only other solution was a reinstall.

So, at 1in went the disc, and away it went.

Vista, I should add.

And NOT my machine I should doubly add.

Within half an hour (I kid ye not) the install process had Blue Screened of Deathed on me.  Which is never a good sign.  It generally means that all is not well in the Land of Computer Gubbins.  So, I started again, and aside from the sloooowness of it, it slowly did it's thing.

LONG story short, it took two hours to install.  Bare in mind I had lots of other things I wanted to do today, but slowly but surely, I could see them slipping beyond my grasp.

Once it installed, it refused, point-blank, to connect to the internet wirelessly.  Full on childish sulk.  It could see the network, but didn't know what the network was, nor did it believe me when I tried to usher it through the door to the internet itself.  I ushered, nudged, suggested, pushed, body-checked, threw and threatened it with a pointy stick.

But to Internet-Land, it did not want to go.

So, running wires and crap around, I connect it to the network via a cable.  "Ooooh" it said as it found the internet - and then proceeded to sulk that it needed Windows Update to be run.  It took another 90 minutes to decide that, yes, it would very much like 109 updates.

I allowed it, and let it start downloading them and installing them.  Thinking it's connected to a fast network, it shouldn't take too long.  And Microsoft, who are so well known for their accurate guesstimations of passing time, happily told me "Time to complete, 54 minutes"

Not too shabby.  So I started pottering around on the computer, sorting graphics settings and everything else, then pottered around on my phone, shouted a bit on Twitter, looked at the screen... Two hours twenty minutes remaining.

OK, Microsoft still have no clue regarding the passage of time.

32 minutes
3 days
82 minutes
1 day, 12 hours

And so on and so forth.

So I pissed off and did dinner.  I remember when I used to enjoy reinstalling or rebuilding systems, but now it's just gotten to the stage where everything I seem to touch implodes on me.

Dinner cooked, still not done.  Dinner eaten, still not done.  So I went out and did the paper round.  Got in - only JUST done, and half eight at night.  It restarted, and then decided it wanted to do a Windows Update.

And still refused to touch the internet through the wireless network.  The other Vista machine in the house is quite happy using it's wireless, completely believes me when I tell it there is internet, so I know it's not a Vista-vs-The-Router issue.

And then, the kittens woke up.  Or, more specifically, Galadriel woke up.

Cat names are a whole new blog post, so just go with it for now.

I'm sat on the floor, fiddling with my phone, screaming on Twitter, drinking a Pepsi, when she wanders across me to the knackered machine, and my brain decides to tell me she's talking to me.

Yes folks, I've cracked, the computer pushed me over the edge.

G: Stop playing on your phone, the computer is still broken.
Me: Yes, I know it's broken, it's updating.
G: How about I stand on the keyboard - oh, it made a funny noise.
Me: That's because you just cancelled the Update it was doing, move.
G: Alright Alright - heeeey put me down - why don't you call a professional?
Me: I AM a professional.
G: You're talking to a cat.
Me: I'm obviously very tired, now please, go play with Kellie.
G: She doesn't need my help on her game. Oh, what's it doing now?
Me: It's rebooting and searching for more updates.
G: I'll sit back on the keys, that was nice and warm.
Me: No, you can go sit over there
G: Heeeey put me down!
Me: Go play with Gimli, he's bored.
G: He's an idiot, you need my help more than - ooooh a MOTH!
I think I need help.

And FYI, it's 11pm, the kittens are now wrestling, and Service Pack 1 is currently "thinking"

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