Week 33: Vivacious Lady

My weekend was amazing, largely because I did absolutely nothing. It was nice to take a few days to just kind of relax. I didn't leave the house much, I read a few books, and I watched a movie or two. It was bliss. Pure and simple.

I spent much of Saturday reading "Eona" the sequel to "Eon" by Alison Goodman. Oh. My. Goodness. SO GOOD! There really aren't words to convey how engrossing, and just generally amazing these two books are. I was completely captivated by the first, and was hard-pressed to put the second one down. If I were to describe these two books in one word it would be Epic.

If you're looking for something new to read I definitely recommend this duology. It's absolutely fantastic!

It was near noon or so when I originally sat down to read. The house was completely quiet since the rest of the family was out and about for the morning. It's not often that I get the house to myself. So just out of curiosity I flipped on the TV and shuffled through a couple channels.

This is when I ran across the Turner Classic Movie channel. It just so happened that this month they are featuring a different star everyday, and Saturday they were featuring James(Jimmy) Stewart. When I flipped to the TCM channel the 'Vivacious Lady' was just starting, and within the first few minutes of the show I was hooked. What a cool movie!

This trailer that I found on YouTube gives you an idea of the film if you're not familiar with it:


I watched that, and then returned to my book. By the end of the day I finished reading "Eona", and once again I want you to know I was blown away. I mean, what are you doing? You need to read this book! SO GOOD!

Having finished my book, and yet too caught up in what I had just read to even think about starting another book right away, I began obsessively searching the Internet trying to find 'Vivacious Lady' on DVD, or maybe even on netflix. As it turned out this was no simple task.

I couldn't find it anywhere... until I finally did late Sunday night. A copy is now on it's way to my house. I'm excited! In between searching for this DVD and beginning a new book, which I may talk about in a later post as I haven't formed too many opinions of it yet, I watched 'Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation' on netflix.

Again it's an old black and white James Stewart movie. It was a cute/funny movie and I thoroughly enjoyed it. That put's my current James Stewart movie count at four. In addition to the two that I've previously mentioned here, I've also seen 'Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" and "The Shop Around the Corner", each of which are absolutely delightful.

So that's what I've come away with this weekend, a handful of book/old movie recommendations. Have you read/watched anything particularly great lately?

I'll talk to you soon.

Technology Woes

Technology is not my friend at the moment, and Window’s Vista has certain never been my friend. Why can’t my computer just stop gross and work like it is supposed to, or even like it did say four months ago. Roughly four months ago, because I can’t be bothered to actually remember when this happened as it would be too helpful; my computer decided it no longer wanted to recognize the optical drives existence.

They are no longer communicating, which makes my life difficult which seems to be the theme of the universe.

So I have lived without an operational optical drive for some time now, and have recently embarked on correcting this issue. This is plan that I should never, ever have acted on because it has been nothing short a headache. I have tried installing driver updates, and BIOS, I’ve referred to the HP site and their advice… I’ve even reset the computer to its original factory settings managing to lose a couple files that I failed to remember I hadn’t backed up. Thankfully it was nothing vital.

My older brother works with computers. I let him take apart the drive and look it over, and by all appearances it should work. Following that inspection I “borrowed” my younger brothers computer, which is the same model and traded drives. I thought maybe the drive was the problem and since his worked before switching them, it was worth a shot.

Upon switching the optical drives I discovered that not only did the one from his computer still not show up on mine, but the drive that refused to exist on my computer worked just fine in his. O. M. G.

At this point based on what research I have conducted regarding the issue, because I’m not the only one who has had this particular problem with this particular model… It looks like the problem may be the motherboard. Now I am not fluent in computer, but this prospect doesn’t make me all that happy. To add insult to injury I can’t seem to communicate effectively with the HP support people to find out a concrete solution to my problem.

For the moment the prospect of just living with the mysteriously missing drive is appealing. Technology is short sucks.

A Long Day, A Long Night

I feel as though today has been majorly counterproductive. A large portion of the day was devoted to attempting to get my computer to recognize that my CD/DVD drive is in fact still connected to the computer. Stacey tinkered with it, but couldn’t seem to pinpoint what the problem is exactly.

I ended up switching the drive in my computer with the one in Shawn’s, only to discover that the drive is perfectly acceptable. It works just fine in his computer and for that matter the one that was originally in his computer works fine in his as well. Neither optical drive works in my computer.

My computer has decided it hates me. Obviously.

Last night, in an effort to fix the above problem I rebooted my entire computer bringing it back to its original factory settings. Of course, when I did this it didn’t occur to me that I had some music on my itunes that I had failed to back up. That was a hassle in itself since I ended up wrestling with my ipod until it agreed to cough up the songs that had nearly eluded my grasp.

I’m tired of fighting with technology. The evening doesn’t look much brighter from here. Though I have managed to save the majority of my music, and am now reinstalling itunes for the third time today, I still don’t know why my CD/DVD drive is refusing to work and my cousin is going into emergency surgery.

I’m hoping and praying that she comes through it ok, because the doctors are worried. My parents are down at the hospital now, and I’m here holding down the fort. These are the instances that make me nervous about the future. I know I’m ready to move forward, and yet in so many ways I know how much I’m needed… But she’ll be alright, we all will. We just have to move through this one step at a time, starting with tonight’s surgery. I’m putting this out there, and asking for prayers for my cousin and the doctors that will be with her in the next few hours. Pray for steady hands and a smooth operation.