I’m getting a new PC at work. Or more like, I have the new PC, but I can’t use it yet because I’m waiting on our I.T. department to buy the license for a program I need to do my job. So my shiny new PC is sitting on my desk, mocking me with it’s sleek 19″ LCD. “You know you want to use me, Nicole. I have a cooler version of Outlook, I’m faster, I have a DVD-ROM, and my resolution kicks your old monitor’s butt”. Oh how it mocks me! But I can’t do anything about it. And I found out it might not be until next week that the license is purchased and the software is installed. I’m so sad. Don’t they realize this is torture to a geek like myself?
Category: Tech
USB cord lengths
The thing I find interesting about USB devices is that more often than not, the cord is not long enough. Why is this? Joe bought me a USB vacuum for my computer for Christmas and the cord was so unbelievably short, we had to plug it into his laptop so I could clean my keyboard, and my keyboard is wireless! But the cord would barely reach around my tower so I couldn’t hold the keyboard near the tower to use the vacuum. Retarded.
Then I bought this USB hub. It works fine, except the cord is so short that it barely reaches from the back of the tower to halfway to the front, so it has to sit on top of the tower instead of my desk like I wanted. I just don’t get why the design is so flawed. Someone please give me a logical reason for this because it doesn’t make sense to me.
Tooth aches, card readers, and DS games
Ugh. I’ve been wanting to write about so many things this past week, but I just don’t have the time or energy. My teeth have been hurting like hell the past couple of days making it feel like my face is about to explode. Since it’s mostly my top back teeth, I think it’s sinus-related, but I’m not sure. I plan on making an appointment to see my doctor this weekend since I can’t take much more of this pain.
My 8-in-1 card reader died which blows because now I have to hook up my camera to download photos. I bought the reader a year ago and so far Lexar hasn’t been very helpful. I e-mailed them explaining how I’ve tried a different USB cord and even plugging it into another computer and it doesn’t even light up to indicate it’s plugged in or reading a card. I got an e-mail back from them suggesting the things I already did. I replied and asked whether they are going to fix it. I doubt they will, but if I don’t ask I’ll never know for sure. So now I need to buy a new one and I don’t think it will be another Lexar. Any suggestions? I need something that reads both Compact Flash and SD and is under $20. I only paid $9.99 for the one I had (amazing, since I see it everywhere online for $35).
It’s been super busy at work this week, making me ever so glad I’m off Friday. The stress is causing me to grind my teeth, which is making my teeth hurt even more. By the time I get home from work my jaw is killing me and I end up vegging out in front of the tv and playing with the Nintendo DS. Yesterday we went to Toys “R” Us and got three new games since it was buy two get one free: Tetris DS, New Super Mario Brothers, and Bubble Bobble Revolution. So far I’ve played Tetris and it’s even more fun than I remembered. We also got Dig Dug Digging Strike the other day for only $10.48. Other than the stupid story, it’s fun. I hate games that have a bunch of dialog you have to read before you get to the action. It is so annoying!
Anyway, time for bed. I’m hoping I can get a relief from the pain I’m in since two extra strength Tylenol and two Sudafeds haven’t had any positive effect.
Cell phone redux
Tuesday night I stopped deluding myself and put my SIM card back into my old cell phone. I’m done with the bullshit I’ve been dealing with ever since we “upgraded” our phones. We never had any problems with T-Mobile’s service until then. Suddenly we were getting dropped calls and poor signal quality to the point where it sounded like the other person had been dropped down a well.
I’m pretty pissed off about the whole thing, but I know there’s no point in calling T-Mobile because we’ve had the phones for two months now. When I switched back to my old phone, the reception improved instantly, so it’s probably not even their network that’s to blame anyway. What a waste of money, though!
Both phones are made by Samsung, so I don’t know what the deal is. Maybe when they pack all these other “features” into the newer models, like a camera (which I never used by the way), they sacrifice other things, like actually being able to hold a conversation without having to keep calling back because the call disconnects and then endlessly repeating yourself because the signal goes in and out.
That’ll teach me to upgrade, huh?
LCD TV
Ever since we bought the plasma tv last year, we haven’t had a good tv to play video games on. Joe has been putting a 19″ tv in front of the fireplace and using that from time to time which clutters the living room, not to mention sucks as far as picture quality goes. We had been mulling over buying an LCD TV strictly for gaming but they aren’t cheap. The least expensive one in an acceptable size was a Polaroid 32″ LCD HDTV that Circuit City normally sells for $999. We looked at it last weekend and Joe read reviews about it on their website but we really couldn’t decide. Until this morning, that is, when Joe opened up their ad in the Sunday paper and saw it was on sale for $899. We headed straight to the store and then spent a good hour or so going from store to store looking for a decent tv stand under $100 for it. We finally found a nice stand at Value City of all places. It was a stand I had been looking at on Walmart’s website that they didn’t have in the store. It cost a bit more, but only by $5 after factoring in the shipping charges we would have had to pay. So now we have a kickass gaming station upstairs in our loft. The only thing that stinks is the space isn’t laid out too well (here’s our current setup) so there’s nowhere good to put the leather chair that was up there so you can sit on it while playing. I think we should put it in storage for the time being and get a bean bag chair or something. I swear, that’s it for furniture. I’m starting to feel like it’s getting a bit too crowded in here as it is.