get up.... I'm pressed into the wall by Ruby (our dwarf german shepard).... I manage to get free... the wifey refuses to get up... she does not have to be into the University until 3pm so she's having a lie in..

I stagger to the office... and there's were things get interesting

Delenn, my second workstation boots into Ubuntu....gives a long string of beeps and falls over.
a swift kick to the power switch... and she boots normally into Ubuntu. strange, but what the hey...

I boot Cerberus my main workstation....

Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt:
Windows root>system32hal.dll.
Please re-install a copy of the above file.

Ruh Roh!

.....3 hours later.... I've got Windows running again (ok which one of you stole my Boot.ini file?? while I did have my Hal.dll, the Boot.ini was missing... it gives the same error.....) and I've got Ubuntu installed on Cerberus as a dual boot as insurance...

now.. can I haz my coffee in peace??

oh yeah.. while I was trying to get the systems working... I also hadda put the garbage and recyc out... (thanks to the rest of the house for not sorting the recyc!!), break up a hound snarling match (Smiley stepped on Billy, (Billy's just getting over pulling a muscle in his back so he's grumpy...)), put the Mum-in-Law's hearing aids in (she's never gonna learn to do that herself...), get the Wifey up and out the door, (so she can have lunch out and I can just get on with things....)....

coffee.. yes.. come to me coffee yes my precious... mine! my precious...dark roast....

Go have your coffee and relax:)  You deserve it for sure!!

 I see that Khai was waxing poetical about,

coffee.. yes.. come to me coffee yes my precious... mine! my precious...dark roast..

Coffee ... that's good ... doesen't have certain  ... ahhhhh ... side effects as,

~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-
In the beginning was The Word,
and The Word was {Dark Bittersweet French} Chocolate.
And The Word became flesh, and dwelt upon us forever.
--Confections 1oz:360cal
~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-

[seen in somone else's eMail signature]

--
Martin

aah coffee...

It is by Caffiene alone I set my mind in Motion
It is by the juice of the Bean that thoughts acquire speed
The hands acquire shakes
The shakes become a warning
It is by Caffiene alone I set my mind in Motion

Red Bull man! Thats my drink of choice these days.

Damn Khai...what a bummer man.

I was happily working away last week and my system just went poofff...and died.
I worked on it for about 30 min and decided it was either the Motherboard or Power Supply.

I ran out and grabbed a new 650w PS - Installed it in about 5 minutes and crossed my fingers when I applied power to the system.
It appears I guessed right on the failing device since she powered up without any problems.

Whew - I was not looking forward to installing a new Mobo. 

soo.... you're saying Hal was messing with you? Yyou're lucky you weren't ejected into the Void without a tether! Somehow, something stronger than coffee would have come to mind with that morning. 

the worst part was finding an XP disk to boot off to fix the problem.. I was able to find out what the problem was using Ubuntu but not fix it - the missing boot.ini...

I have 4 XP Pro disks.
4
took an hour to find one....

(found the laptop's Vista basic, the 2 Upgrade copies  of Vista Business Edition (unopened and gathering dust.. they came free when we bought the 2 Dell desktops), multiple copies of Windows 98SE........)

...and now I find I installed the wrong ubuntu.... I put on the 32 bit cos it was to hand..... thinking I can just run an upgrade to 64bit later... nope... have to reinstall it ........

AARRGHHHH