Me On TV

JJ and I went to The Crucible on Saturday and saw Ian Mcculloch pull off a shock victory against world champion Graeme Dott. JJ recorded the TV footage on his computer and came up with that photo.

In other news, it was JJ, Caroline, Kate, her mum and I at the quiz and we got 75 out of 137 which was good enough for 6th out of 6, 18 points off 2nd last yet only 28 points off 1st. Song 4 would have been Scissor Sisters - Mary but I didn't get it. Britney was close but this week's song is The Spice Girls - Who Do You Think You Are.

Woo a completed post on my laptop!

The Vista Upgrade Explained

I say explained, I can't really explain most of it but it's just a guide to my experience. I did take photos of it but they're not exciting so won't be appearing here.

To start with I uninstalled programs that were not compatible with Windows Vista then I started with the Vista installation. It stopped after a few minutes telling me that it could go no further until I uninstalled Windows Sharepoint Services. So, I found this inside Microsoft Office XP Pro and right clicked and pressed uninstall - "You cannot uninstall this application as it is not installed." So, logically, I try installing it - "You need SII 4.0 or higher to install this program." Again, logically, I installed SII 6.0 and went back to the install bit but received the same message. I tested Vista again but no change so I was mighty frustrated and nearly threw the laptop of of the window (like new regular poster Sarah D) but as this would have broken my laptop and the window, I just went to bed.

That was one hour wasted on Saturday. Installation attempt 2 was on Tuesday where I let Phil assess the problem. He decided deleting Office would work but nothing seemed to happen and it certainly didn't make a difference to Vista. Then, I figured out what a link meant that Ed had sent me earlier in the week. It had mentioned to look for all sts files and delete Setupsts within Sharepoint. All I did was delete Setupse from Sharepoint, tried the upgrade again and it worked. Another hour had passed so I was pleased it worked. The upgrade process took about an hour and 20 minutes including a scary period where everything looked to have frozen for 5 minutes but all was well.

It then started crashing again as I may have mentioned on Tuesday night so once again I turned off and went to bed. On Wednesday I logged in and it was continuing to install drivers for Vista that I had cancelled by accident the night before. Oops! That took about 20 minutes and Vista has been fine since then working well and looking quite cool though I haven't done much with it yet because...

... my crashing problem is not yet fixed, in fact it may be getting worse. Ed diagnosed a touchpad mouse issue last week which seems to make sense and after 10 crashes in the last 2 nights I used a usb mouse tonight and all was good. Until I started blogging when about 6 lines in, it stopped working (though did publish causing confusion for a short while) so I restarted and finished the post but the mouse would not move and the post was lost. I didn't go to bed but my brother did so i'm completing another 2 hour post on his computer while my laptop looks sad and lonely on the floor. Very annoying. I feel a trip to PC World may be necessary unless anyone has any better suggestions.

P.S. I can rule out that is it not Sarah D's blog that is causing the problem ;-)

Hello Vista

I have Vista. It looks different but in a cool way. It'll take some getting used to. Crashed 3 times in last 20 mins. Hopefully this trend won't continue. More details a nother time. It's late now and i've had an energy sapping couple of days.

Another Week

So, the update promised within a week was not quite within a week but this will do. My laptop hasn't died by the way but neither is Vista installed. I spent an hour on Saturday night trying to do it and it kept messing me around however another attempt will be made tonight.

So last week there was only Ed, JJ and I at the quiz in which we came 5th out of 7 with 91 out of 139 but we were beaten by a team of 14, were only 6 off the prizes and 7 off last so it was quite close. Week 2 music choice: Boyzone - All That I Need.

Tuesday was another pub with Kate and Ed (oooh i've worked out how to link again (random)) which was good. Wednesday night will be covered in a later post. I went out on Friday night with Rob and Ann into Huddersfield and it ended up being a late one with 9 VK/Smirnoff Ices and 2 pints being consumed. My memory is hazy of the latter part of the night but I remember seeing Lisa and her mate Rachel in Livingstones. I'd just said to Rob he could use the chat up line "Are you Rachel?" to any girls in there and see if it worked so it was quite funny when she came over and said "Hi i'm Rachel". You might of had to be there. We're not very good on chat up lines as you can tell.

Kate had a BBQ on Sunday evening. After cooking about 10 little sausages and 2 burgers on it, it didn't want to cook anymore so we used the grill instead and went inside as it was cold and dark. A nice evening though.

Which brings us back to Monday. JJ, Caroline, Kate, her mum and brother Stephen all came to the quiz this week where we came 5th out of 10 with 81 out of 135. The team of 12 beat us again though and we were nowhere near any prizes. Tune 3 is one of my all time favourites: Darius - Colour Blind :-)

Goodbye XP

Just a quick post to say i'm now about to defragment my laptop and then try and install Vista. If it doesn't work, this could be the last post for a while which is a shame as I have plenty to write about. Hopefully though everything will go to plan and i'll be a Vista expert (know more about it than Ed) by the end of the weekend.

The Last Week

Goals On Sunday on Sky reported last Sunday that Chris Kamara was leaving Sky to rejoin Bradford City as manager. Unbelievable I thought! So anyway, I let a couple of City fans know. Later on I checked and saw nothing about it. Stupid April Fools Day!

JJ, Caroline, Kate, her mum and I got 84 out of 139 in the quiz coming 5th out of 10. It was a bit crowded. In a new feature I will be naming my favourite song from the music round and see what a quality mix tape I can come up with in 15 weeks. Week 1: Teenage Dirtbag by Wheatus!

Ed came back for Easter on Wednesday and came round and fixed my broadband problems and tried fixing my laptop. We now think it's the mouse that is the problem but it's it's only crashed once since so it's difficult to tell. I took the opportunity of a non Playsation owner coming round to beat him at Resistance: Fall Of Man which I did, 30-20 (phew).

JJ, Ed and I went to The Murg on Thursday which was nice but the music was loud. I beat Ed at pool after we'd had a random chat with some girl Ed knew from primary school. On Thursday the three of us were joined in The Allan Fold by Caroline and then Lucy and Dave and then Kate and Alison! It's a nice pub and was good to see all of them again.

I've been gambling at the weekend with no success on the football, a small amount of success on the golf (though the hedging was perfect) and a bit of success on poker helped by winning from a 10% chance when all in as I was tired and couldn't really see what suit my cards were! They've now made the pictures of suits bigger so that won't happen again.

Quiz again tonight with a changed line up. But who will it be? No doubt details will appear here within a week.

17, Borat, Facebook

I've been playing more on the new machine but have written enough about that. Kate, her mum, JJ, Caroline and I got 17 in each round at the quiz on Monday. Well, that's not quite true - we got 17 out of 26, 25 and 30 in the first three rounds then 10 out of 20 on the pictures and 24 out of 38 in general knowledge giving us 85 out of 139 and 4th out of 9 (though we were nearer 8th than 3rd). I didn't win anything this week either :-(

On Friday night Kate came round and we watched Borat (for full title please click the link) on DVD. It was funny but didn't want to be any longer as his silly humour only lasts so long so it's a good thing it's the shortest film I've ever seen!

It was my annual visit to the opticians yesterday and there was little change confirming my right eye is less blind than my left! I felt I did better than last year which was maybe due to me not going out and getting hammered the night before. So a tip to avoid glasses if you're on the borderline - stay sober and have a good night's sleep the night before your test and maybe you'll see more!

While watching cricket (Aussies thrashed Bangladesh) and losing at poker (twice to AA) I signed up to Facebook as three people have invited me to join. It's a bit like Friends Reunited but with more pictures and free. I seem to be among the oldest 20% on their which is quite scary. I've added a link to my profile in the sidebar replacing the bouncebackability petition as it was added to the dictionary over a year ago now. Nice work Lovejoy!

My laptop keeps crashing. Rubbish! Ed is coming home later in the week so hopefully he can continue to help to troubleshoot.

I've been gardening today. I cleaned my car and mowed the lawns for the first time which was quite difficult as they were long uneven and hilly, my dad weeded and Phil flew to Austria - typisch! He's gone to Zell Am See for two nights where Martin, Birgit, Rolf and two or three of their friends (which someone should post a comment about to let me know who they are) went in the Gute Reise textbooks. That was like half my life ago though - no wonder I can't remember!