Um... Hi?

Yikes, it's been ages since I last blogged! It's been almost as long since I last read any of the blogs I used to read on a daily basis. Sorry about that. I'm trying to get caught up, but it's really kind of an uphill battle-type-thing.

So let's see... what's been going on in my little corner of the world. School's almost out, which means kidlets will be home. And that means I spend more time breaking up fights and sending little people to their rooms than I do breathing. Yay.

I'm working on getting the first draft of A Perfect Lady whipped into shape, since I have to turn the book in sometime in the next six weeks. Eek. Although, as I'm reading through it, I'm finding it's really not as bad as I thought it was (I probably shouldn't say that, right?) and I'm actually thinking it's a pretty good book. Of course, I'm only about 50 pages into it, so there's still time for it to hit the wall.

I also made a happy discovery last weekend. My very first laptop was a Sony Vaio and I loved it. Unfortunately, the hard drive just didn't have enough memory and even after expanding it, it still wasn't enough. According to my computer guy, I couldn't put a bigger HD in it, so I had to replace it. No laptop I've had since has been nearly as awesome as that Vaio. I held onto it, and the kids used it to play games, but eventually it didn't just stopped booting up, How sad.

Well, long story short (I know, I know, too late, right?) I had a few manuscripts on that machine that I never finished and never transferred (oh, the horror!) For some weird reason, one of those stories popped into my head and on a whim, I decided to see if I possibly saved it to disk.

Turns out, I saved not only one, but all of them. Yay! So I spent last weekend transferring, printing, and reading said manuscripts. One is beyond cringe-worthy, but other two are (I think) salvageable.

Of course, for every up, there has to be a down, right? That down is the backspace key broke off my keyboard. Grrr... Turns out you can't just replace a single key (which is just moronic, IMHO and yes, HP, I'm looking at you) so I ended up having to buy an entire new keyboard. No problem, the guy at the Big Blue Box Store with the Squad people, assured me. Yes, you can swap it out yourself. It'll just pop out.

Um... no. No, it doesn't work that way.

Not only did the old keyboard not pop right out, but the new keyboard came without any installation instructions.

No, wait. That's not true. The instructions? Call Customer Support because they are there to help you.

And if by help, HP means, "We'll keep you on hold for half an hour "transferring" you to the person who can help, only to have that person say, 'Oh, we don't know how to do that. You have to take it to someone else," then HP's "Support" is aces.

But, if you really want true support, just bang your head against the wall for an hour or so. It won't get that keyboard installed, but it'll feel terrific when you stop. Oh, and it is actually much greater support than HP's so-called support.

Ahem...

Okay, no problem. Big Blue Box Store Squad guy also told me that if I can't install the keyboard myself, they can do it for me. No problem.

You know what's coming, right?

I call Big Blue Box Store Squad. They can help me, but they'll have to charge me for a whole new keyboard because, hey, they have to suck as much $$ out of you as possible and OMFG they can't possibly use the keyboard you already bought because the seas would boil and cats and dogs would fall from the sky. So in essence, I'd have to pay for the same $%$@ keyboard twice.

Go. Screw.

So now I'm waiting (almost two days, which does NOT make me happy) for my computer guy to get back to me on whether or not he can/will fix this keyboard. If not, I have a brand new keyboard (that HP WILL be receiving back) in a box, and a missing backspace key (there's a nub that sort of works, but talk about annoying.) If so, then perhaps I stand a chance of getting this fixed. One thing is for certain, HP's support sucks (at least for this it did) and I'm going to make damn sure my next laptop is another Vaio. That's two things, isn't it? Oh well...

So that's what's been going on in my world. Nothing like a little drama, eh? It's fun. And by fun, I mean, "damn do I need a vacation."