Since it's Sunday, nothing happens. No shipping, nothing. Bleh. So I get to wait.

And, while I'm waiting, I'm stuck on this laptop that keeps locking up whenever I try to do anything that makes it work and get warm.

More bleh.

Maybe the laptop cooler will fix that.

One thing I figured out is that, while I'm waiting, I actually can get pictures off my camera. Earlier today, I was complaining about not having a card reader on this thing...but I found the special cable that came with my camera, and it just auto-detects and installs itself, so that's nice.

So, I got pictures of my laptop.

That up there is my screen, which never stays dimmed, because I never get around to restarting before the machine locks itself up.

And that's my keyboard. Notice the touchpad is turned off. I'll get to that in a minute, first...

Look. It's the tab key they stole. Or, where it should be. Horrible Circuit City bastards.

That's my mouse. My wonderful trackball that I'm using because I can't quite tolerate getting used to the touchpad. Yet.

Once I have my tower back, I suppose I'll start getting used to it again. If the laptop cooler works, that is.

Maybe it will.

Oh, one last picture....

This is why I'm not 100% out of my mind pissed-off. This is my magical rescue gadget. It's a USB IDE device. That big black thing that isn't attacked to the silvery USB thing is the power supply, which plugs into the harddrives and makes them make those whirry noises.

The black thing that is attached to the USB cable is the IDE...thingie. It plugs into the other part of the drive, and makes it so I can get at stuff on big harddrives without ever having to turn off my computer. It's damned spiffy.

And it means that I can check and see if my stuff's been wrecked. And it hasn't. My drives are okay.

Yay.

Oh, and it also works on laptop harddrives. Not that I've been able to get the one laptop drive that matters to actually work, but maybe there's something wrong with that drive....

I better post this before the laptop locks up again.