Entering the 7th Circle of Hell

There are several things that fall into this category. Buying jeans is one of them. Swimsuits is another. The mingling on Wednesday nights at church is among them as well. Being on the phone with Microsoft's tech support for 4 1/2 hours with Penjab or Muhammed (no joke, I'm dead serious) is another.

It all started on Wednesday afternoon when I routinely downloaded Norton Antivirus 2006 onto one of the MOST important computers in the office. It's the most important computer because it holds the program that contains ALL of the vendors that have EVER exhibited in our shows. When they did the shows, their addresses, specifics on all sorts of stuff. MUCHO importante. Well, this being the most important PC in the office has an operating system of Windows 95. YEAH. How pathetic is that?!?! I've been telling NH for quite some time now that we need to upgrade big time. Because of crap like this. Cause here's what happened... and maybe it's cause of the Norton and maybe not... but we've had MAJOR problems ever since. And I still can't find Norton and we (the company that is) spent $100 bucks on it.

Downloaded Norton (cause the previous subscription was up) and when it was finished it tells me some crap about how you have to have Windows 2000 or higher to install. Perfect. Just great. So I run to Office Depot and get Windows XP. I've talked to NH about it before... don't have too much of a choice now so I'm going to buy it and install now. No questions. When she gets back from Hawaii, she'll have to deal. Anyway, so I install the stupid program and ALL HELL BREAKS LOOSE. And you think I'm kidding. I mean, boy howdy. How hard is it to install a program? It's not. It really isn't... but for some reason... XP skits out and didn't install properly. Well Beef comes up to the office and trys to help out a bit. Well 5:30 rolls around and I've got to be up at the church to give blood (we had a blood drive) so I leave. Surely Thursday morning I'll be able to start with a fresh outlook.

Nope. Thursday morning wake up feeling like I'm going to HURL (cause I didn't eat enough the night before... gave blood felt woozy and then didn't eat enough for supper and woke up REALLY feeling it... UG). So I get to work and here ensues the chaos. I HATE MICROSOFT. DOWN WITH BILL GATES! Dirty Jew (that was for you Beef). So anyway spend two hours in the morning with a lady who can't speak English and told me (no kidding on this one) to restart the computer (no joke, I'm serious) 8 times to help the problem. YEAH, THAT'LL WORK SISTER. Two and a half hours in the afternoon with a man named Muhammed who couldn't speak English. Spent the whole day in TK's office trying to solve the problem. Intermidately called the infamous Beef, HE WAS A HUGE help. Don't know what I would have done at times.

At the end of the day, Sharon told me she didn't know how I still had any sanity left or how I hadn't hauled off and told all the Microsoft people off cause if it'd been her she said she would have. Problems still not solved.

This morning wasn't much better. Had to take ANOTHER office computer into CompUSA for some diagnostics. The power supply is blown and with the video out-put. Great. Just great.

Waiting for Beef to show up now. I had the idea of completely wiping the hard drive (on TK's PC) and starting over. Beef said to get the boot disk from the internet (since the version I bought of XP is only the upgrade... good gravy, could this get any more complicated????? wait, let's not ask). Took 6 disks. We'll see how that goes when he gets here.

I HATE COMPUTERS.

Except that right now one is doing very well at helping me blog some stress away. Maybe hate is a strong word. But after the mental breakdown eariler what with the tears and all... oy. Sharon came in and gave me a hug. Hugs are good. Especially when you're stressed out about loosing your job over a machine and you're trying to solve a problem you can't figure out for the LIFE of you. MAJOR frustrations. HA! Sharon also came in and laid hands on the computer and prayed... so maybe when Beef gets here it will work! PLEASE LORD! That would be nice.

And I found out this weekend is going to be MUCH more stressful than planned.

AND I found out that more people know about my blog than planned thereby inhibiting my freedom to write exactly how I really feel about this whole computer situation at this moment.

Dang it all to hades.