No, Still Not Working

My laptop keeps working on and off.  It works at Borders, but not at Best Buy, then not at this bar where my friend and I hung out.  Then I reset the home modem and it works again -- once again, only after awhile. 

But I bring the fucking thing to the library and it doesn't work.  It probably won't work at home again.  Fuckin' technology.

Meanwhile the modem seems to be working as of this moment, and the desktop is connecting just fine -- except it's still not seeing the name of the network under the name I gave the network.

Like I said, fuck technology.

Update On My Internet Problems

The latest silver bullet -- and the thing I need to turn my mood from upset to happy in an instant, like cocaine -- is this fix-it patch.  Maybe what I'm dealing with is a Vista problem, and this patch is supposed to reconcile the DHCP ... oh, I don't fuckin' know, I just did, and now it works.

However ... while I am so fucking overjoyed that my laptop is connected to the Internet and I could all the surfing I need to do, I'm still holding my breath that this is not over.  First of all, there's the home network I have to deal with.  I tried to mess with it today before going out with my friend to the horsetrack.  As has been the pattern, the modem is completely on the blink all night but OK during the day.  Inbetween catching up on my Internet stuff, I looked and saw that my parents' desktop didn't say it was on our home network, but instead some generic-named public network.  Neither of my parents didn't seem to notice because they could just get on.  But when I looked for our network, I didn't see it listed.  What scares me is that this systemic collapse of the home network is due not to just one but more than one problem.  I hope to God my laptop's now good, but this has nothing to do with the desktop or the modem.

The other thing is something I just realized.  How could I download this patch if I wasn't able to connect to the Internet in the first place?  I was able to connect a minute prior to downloading the patch, somehow.  Well, if I could connect, why would I need the patch?  And if the patch fixed the problem for which it was intended, isn't it possible I have a different problem?  In fact, who's to say that if I try this, say, at another coffeeshop, or even at home, it'd go back to not working again?

Fuck.

Stay tuned.

The Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey

#-1: Twins (Last Week: -1).  That's more like it.  This team, one with the talent to contend and even steal a World Series from the Yanks, responded to their 3-2 loss to Baltimore by ripping off five in a row, capped off with a dominating road sweep of hapless Kansas City.  They have scored 53 runs during their winning streak, including 10, 19, and 11 in the sandwich three games, the first time they've scored in double digits thrice in a row since 1967.

And put me down as liking the trade for Matt Capps.  Disregarding the inevitable truth that Major League Baseball is a business.  The point is to win, right?  Joe Nathan ain't walkin' through those doors.  And Jon Rauch and his scary-ass neck tattoo wasn't getting it done.  The Twinkies are locked into a huge battle in the A.L. Central with the White Sox and Detroit.  What do you do?  Trade for a closer, duh!  And yeah, the team had to trade Wilson Ramos, who's poised to be a star player in the big leagues.  It just so happens that we can't use this blue-chip stud because we already have an awesome catcher in front of him, Joe Mauer, who just might be the best player in the game right now.

Do we reject this trade because of value -- in other words, do the Twinks say no because they're giving up an almost can't-miss prospect for a guy who plays a position that many sabrematricians insist is a-dime-a-dozen?  Fuck no!  Why the fuck did we build these people a stadium for -- to not make moves before the deadline to prove they're pussies when it comes to competing??  I believe that sometimes you overpay in a trade to get what you want.  This is one of those times, and it's perfectly acceptable.  If Rauch can get back to first-half form by teaming up with Matt Guerrier as eighth-inning set-up men, then this is a good trade designed to help get this team closer to a title.  (Of course, if Matt Capps is nothing like what he was with the Bastard Montreal Expos and keeps blowing saves just like Rauch did, then it's a bad trade.  That's how evaluating trades works.)

This week they finish the softest part of their schedule with a three-game series versus Seattle at Republican-loving Target Field.  They then go back into the shit by playing a workweek foursome at Tampa Bay.

#-2: Lynx (Last Week: -2).  Went to see the Jynx play the L.A. Farmers Tuesday night -- what a fuckin' mistake.  These guys, they can't do anything, especially shoot.  Twenty-six percent from the field???  Their 13-point loss capped their season-longest homestand, a stretch where they really could have made hay, at 2-4.  With their 18-point defeat at Phoenix last (Thursday) night, they have now lost five in a row, and they have now slipped below L.A. for the fourth and final playoff spot in the Western Conference.  The only highlight this week: The Saturday night loss to the LifeLock was the highest-scoring contest in WNBA history, 127-124 in double OT.  They can put that in the Wikipedia after the Jinks are folded after this season.

They do have another three-game homestand that starts Sunday against the juggernaut Seattle Bing and continues vs. Connecticut Tuesday.

#-3: Gopher men's hockey (Re-Entry!).  And the talent drain continues this week.  Nick Leddy decided to go pro and sign with the Stanley Cup champion Chicago Blackhawks, and Josh Birkholz, who was about to be suspended  for drugs, quit the team and signed with some minor league outfit in Seattle.  This is almost getting to be a goddamn joke.

Swear To Fuckin' God I'm Going To Kill Something That Has Something To Do With My Internet Connection

I'm thinking I'll take it out my laptop because it's the thing I use the most, but I can't use it at home because for some goddamn reason it and my modem aren't communicating.  It's been this way since Sunday, and I don't know what the fuck happened to it.

The modem's been on the blink the past couple of weeks, but I figure it's because of the power in the house is being sapped to the air conditioning.  But there hadn't been any issue from my laptop pinging with the modem.  At all.  Until this past weekend.

I've been on my parents' desktop trying to look for an answer.  Shit, I brought the laptop down to put it up against the modem, and evenutally it works.  But then I bring it back upstairs to my room, and the connection's all lost.  That means there's some interference between it and the modem, but I don't know what it could be; the phone's been where it's always been, and there is no other device that's using the signal, at least I don't think.

That's why I'm pulling my fuckin' hair out figuring out what the fuck's going on.  I need to use my computer at night, and now I fucking can't.  What the hell's going on???

Gotta send this before it's too late.

And Now I Forget My Laptop ... On The Front Stoop

Forgetting my keys in the trunk keyhole out in the middle of the street is bad enough.  But this might be worse.

I had these orchestrated plans yesterday afternoon.  I wanted to go to a Lynx game last night (don't even bother asking till the WMNSS later this week) and I had to go to "work" at the U.  Although there was some time between them that I didn't really want to spend passing out in public, I decided to bring my laptop with me because it'd make no sense to drive back home and then downtown if I was going to be so close.

I also remembered to turn off the sprinkler in the backyard.  So I opened the front door, put down my computer bag, went out to the back to turn off the sprinkler, come back, get in my car and drive off.

It took me until I popped open my trunk once I parked at "work" to realize that I didn't bring my laptop with me.  For God's sake, it took me until I wanted to take my laptop to remember that I left it at the front stoop.  With everyone able to see, and to take it.

What pisses me off and worries me so goddamn much is that I was telling myself as I was out the door, "Don't forget the laptop, don't forget the laptop ..." and that's exactly what I fuckin' do.  I get into these phases sometimes, usually in the summer when it's hot and I lose all sense, where I misplace or outright lose things.

Thank Buddha I didn't move out of the house.  On my way to the U. I called my Grandmother (who, luckily for me, had not gone to her dental appointment yet) and she was able to bring it back in.  And since I think I needed to use my laptop after the game at least, I was forced to waste gas and money going back home, then going to the Lynx game.  I had to make it worth my while, so I decided to turn on the air conditioning for my parents and take a nap.  The nap, in particular, was awesome.

It takes me actually losing something before I finally pay enough attention and be careful of not forgetting things. I hope that doesn't happen to me now.

I Vacillate Between Vindictiveness And Guilt

Have I said that before?  Have I used that as a subject blog post before?  Sorry, I may be repeated myself just 1 1/2 years after I started this.

Anyway, feeling defensive and sad most of the time takes a toll on your mind.  Every day, especially as soon as my parents come home, is a mind game that I may be playing only with myself.  But I just can't help the fact that I have to gird myself in case anything bad happens, because oftentimes it does.  As I've said before, the anticipation about how my parents feel, in particular My Fucking Father, takes up a lot of my mental attention.

Take yesterday, for example.  I wanted to grease any wheels that needed greasing by calling Mother and asking her is she needed anything from the grocer's (she wanted kiwis, which I got).  I got home just after they did; in fact, they were getting out of their car when I drove up the driveway.  As I was, and Mother was lifting a branch off one of the dead-looking flowers on the walkway, My Fucking Father looks at me.  And I swear he gave me The Eye.  That look, you know?  That look that says, "Why do you haunt me?  Why do you torment me by your presence?  I have plans on turning your room into my gameroom -- why won't you move out?"

Why haven't I?  Anyway, I'm in defensive mode.  I assume, and I think correctly, that Father is in Vindictive Mode, so I have to keep my guard up.  And such an approach was employed at the dinner table later that evening, when I told them that I won't be eating dinner Wednesday because I'm attending a Happy Hour.  Mother asked, "Do you have to pay?" to which I say no, I don't think so.  Then Father chimes in with a typically juvenile question: "Do they pay you?"

Now I know what he's thinking: Why don't you get a job?  Actually, I do have a job, and to get My Fucking Father off my back I've told him I've got one.  It is just two hours a day, three days a week, for ten bucks an hour, but it's still a job.  I think I told him this, therefore his bitchy question wasn't warranted.  Told him so with my tone, too; I said, "No.  Why do you ask?" as I tilted my head to one side, the unspoken statement coming from which being, "Well that's a stupid thing to say."  He didn't say anything afterward.

But then, to smooth things over, I drift downstairs to their computer, in case they need me to do anything.  And sure enough, Father wanted me to do something, and without acting like an asshole while requesting it.  He was confused about some form he needed yesterday, and I helped him open up the attachment and print it out.  He's buying some property or something.

OK, so maybe the look and the question weren't intended to be as mean as I thought they were.  But later, as I made them sign and initial the forms they needed to send back, Mother (who is a co-owner of this place) balked.  I wanted to exercise, so I just left them alone to talk things out.  I went to the bathroom and gathered my things, and as I get ready leave the house, I hear them arguing downstairs, then hear a door slam a couple times.  OK, so maybe Father and Mother were being mean today.  (Maybe not Mom, though; she didn't like that I wiped a rice bowl I got for her with the wrong towel.  Instead of yelling at me, she just took the bowl and rinsed it herself.  It'd be moments like that where I would be the one that would flip out, but this time, I just let it slide.)

Whatever, I get a good workout in and come back.  I was in the mood for the apple juice that is just sitting in the downstairs refrigerator.  All I wanted was some juice.  I go downstairs, in the dark so as not to wake up the 'Rents past midnight, and get the juice.  Again, I don't turn on the lights because they're sleeping and I've done this many times and I haven't run into anything in at least five years.

What I usually do to protect myself is to put my hand out in case I'm walking into a wall.  I do that, hoping nothing will go wrong ... but then I push something over.  And it shatters into what sounds like a million pieces.  The measuring cup Mother drinks out of, goddammit!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So now I have to turn on the lights and cause a commotion because of the mess I made.  And I have to stay there until I clean it all up because my parents wake up frequently to piss and they're going to be walking on those bits of Pyrex.

I'm anticipating their rage when they open the door.  It took them a couple minutes.  Did they actually sleep through it?  No, I figure, they're in a deep sleep and that crash was so loud it's taken them a couple minutes to figure out what the hell's going on, and once they realized it, and that I did it, I'm going to get it.

As I'm sweeping up the bits of fake glass, I finally hear the stirrings from their bedroom.  Like I thought, My Father came out first.  But instead of yelling at me for waking him up, he said, "Broke a glass, huh?"

Didn't say anything.  For all shit I thought he was giving me tonight, I feel really awful about this.  I'm such a klutz, and I just didn't want to bother anybody by what I did, and I ended up doing that and more.  And all I wanted was some apple juice.

Well, either because he didn't think I did a good job or he actually wanted to help, he took the broom and started sweeping himself.  Then Mother got up and pointed out that some of the glass got under their door and the door of the closet right next to it.  Shit, man, this was everywhere.  It took 10 minutes out of our lives, but I think everything's swept up.  And thank God, they didn't give me any shit for breaking the glass measuring cup in the middle of the night and waking them up.

I will say this, only because I'm an asshole: In his insane mission to move everything out of the house, he moved the pool table to one corner of the current game room and the wicker chair to under the altar.  Before, that wicker chair was in front of the ledge that I ran into; if I ran into the chair, I knew (in the dark) that I was too far to the right of the stairs.  Now, not only do I not have that, the chair is to my left, so I had to veer right.  I now have to zig-zag to make sure I get to the stairs, and I just didn't move to the left fast enough, and I met the ledge instead.

Of course, I also didn't have to stick my hand out right in front of me.  If I put my hand out at, say, hip level, I wouldn't have knocked anything over.  So ... yeah, it's my fault.  Goddamn I hope they don't use this against me later.  And I hope the measuring cup I bought this morning makes up for it.

Delinquent Bunnies

Came home late Saturday night.  Startled by the live animals on the street; can't have critters I ran over on my conscience, too much in it already.

I didn't hit them, but I drove past them.  What were they?  Turns out they were bunnies, two of them.  One of them passed in front of me, the other just seemed to loiter on the side.

We have a lot of bunnies in the neighborhood, or at least in our backyard.  Grandmother said a few months ago that one of the dogs from one of the houses close by us killed a rabbit, and the dead carcass ended up in our backyard; she somehow got the city to dispose of it.  Saw another dig through our dirt and lie flat right on top of the hole he/she/it made.  Guessing it was taking a shit.

Anyway, I'm fairly certain one of the neighbor kids got a bunny for a pet, decided he or she didn't want it, and just let it loose on the town.  It met up with another abandoned rabbit, and they fucked like ... well, rabbits.  And now we have these two lollygagging bunnies hanging out at 2 in the morning on the street.

I immediately thought that kids would do the same thing.  What if they were teenage bunnies, doing nothing but ruttin' on a weekend summer night?  What if they could talk?

"Dude, I'm bored."

"I know.  I thought summer would be better than this."

"Shit, it's better than fuckin' homework and shit."

"Hey, you wanna root around the Asian family's backyard?  They have no idea we'll be there."

"Already been.  How about the Hispanic family down the street?"

"Which one?"

"Ummm ... don't know.  Shoot, let's just go to the Somali family right over ..."

"Dude, watch out!"

"Shiiiiiiiiiiiit!  Watch where you're fuckin' goin', asshole!"

"Goddamn, you don't see us rabbits hanging out in the dark?!  Fucker."

"Dude, let's go."

"Where to?"

"Uh, let's go behind the church."

"And do what?"

"Well ... we are rabbits.  Wanna fuck?"

"Sure.  Gotta condom?"

"No, we're rabbits."

"Oh."

Almost Had An Epically Bad Day Yesterday

I do not function when I'm tired.  I hate that about myself, but when I'm run down not only am I useless, I become dangerous to myself and others.  I didn't hit anybody with my car yesterday ... because I almost lost my car.

I was chilling at this teahouse whose guy was very nice when I dropped by to sample something.  So I was cathing up on my Mafia Wars and hating myself that I was waiting for my laptop to fully charge before I work out (got my workout in, though I had to cut a few corners), so I bolted out the door as soon as it was done.

I don't know about you, but I usually frisk myself before I leave somewhere -- make sure I have my keys, cellphone, wallet, aka The Big Three.  But leaving the tea place I couldn't find my keys.  Where the hell were they?  Checked the table but it wasn't there ... and then I realized that I was really, really tired after I took a nap in my car before getting a drink.

I raced back to my car, and there it was, dangling from the keyhole of the trunk.  After getting out my laptop, I just left my keys there.  That is something I worry about all the time, and I know I'm susceptible to just missing things other people remember to do just because I was exhausted.  I had this huge (but successful) meeting yesterday, and I had nothing to do, and I had all these choices in front of me, and I was tired so I took a nap ... and then this happened.

I was not in the safest neighborhood.  I was certain that someone saw the keys and took my car.  I laid out free bait, for God's sake.  For a few seconds there I even forgot where my car was and I actually assumed it was stolen.  (That's when I reached for my cell to start calling 911.)  But either people didn't notice it, people saw it but knew they couldn't get away with it, or people there were nice, since the keys were still there.  It was there over an hour.

I got so goddamn lucky last night.  But the bad thing about this is, I know I will do this again.  Because there is nothing I can do to stop my forgetfulness.

Having a bad connection at home I have to deal with, but when the same thing happens at my favorite coffeeshop, I don't know what the world's coming to.  Had shit to do, dude.

That's all I have to say about this.

The Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey

#-1: Twins (Last Week: -2).  I'm getting this out before Friday's game, so the Twinks go 4-2 this week and easily reclaim the top spot in the WMNSS.  They have begun a 13-game stretch where they have a chance to feast on bottom-feeders Cleveland, Baltimore, Kansas City and Seattle, and yet they drop the first two games to the Indians at home.  They stabilized by taking the getaway game and winning last (Thursday) night at Baltimore, and combined with the Saturday and Sunday wins over Chicago (the Sunday matinee being a weird, wild one), they are still in the thick of the A.L. Central race.

Delmon Young is the best player on the team right now; he's Top 15 in RBI.  Manager Ron Gardenhire finally did the right thing and moved him up in the lineup.  Not only is he now producing like the first overall pick is expected to do, but is there a chance he has gotten his name into the MVP race?  (Well, probably not because of the defense, but you can't take his name out until after you reach "honorable mention" level.)

The pitching may be less of a worry now.  I say that because Francisco Liriano and Carl Pavano are throwing consistently enough that I'm not worried about them the rest of the regular season.  And Bill Smith finally pulled the trigger on both suggestions written here last week, putting Brian Duensing in the rotation and yanking Nick Blackburn into the bullpen, and calling up Anthony Slama (while sending down the struggling Alex Burnett).  Slama looked real good in mopping up Wednesday against Cleveland, and Duensing pitches for his life tonight against the Orioles.  Let's say if this solves the Twins' pitching woes.  After finishing their series with Balmer this weekend, they visit the Royals.

#-2: Lynx (Last Week: -1).  Yeah, turned out to be false hopes.  They drop both their games this weekend when they had a chance to score at the end of regulation and send both into overtime.  (Similar scores, too -- 73-71 to best team in the league Seattle, 74-72 to San Antonio.)  They now have a 2-2 record in their very long Target Center homestand.

At least it seems as if they have finally found their roles.  Seimone Augustus has played well enough to be the #1.  But Rebekkah Brunson has now become the #2 and the inside force.  Lindsay Whalen shouldn't be playing more than 25 minutes a game, but she's become a good starting Point Guard and a stabilizing force to get the team into their sets.

Nevertheless, the best thing for this squad is that they're in an incredibly mediocre Western Conference.  The Jynx are in fourth place, but not only are they only 1 1/2 games behind second-place Phoenix, they are two games up on Los Angeles for the final playoff spot.  (With the exception of the Seattle Bing, every other team out West would be dead last in the Eastern Conference.)  It just so happens that the two teams I just mentioned will end the Lynx's homestand this week: Phoenix on Saturday, L.A. on Tuesday.  I believe I shall to go to the Farmers Insurance game just to check the team out.  They then go back on the road and play at the LifeLock on Thursday.