12:16 p.m. - Sunday, Jan. 11, 2004
A Fine Mess
Whooo! It's been quite awhile since I made an entry here. It has not been good so you really wouldn't want to know all that's happened. I am going through another period of things going wrong and this has been goin' on since around Christmas when I had a flare up of some kind and ran a low fever for days. The fever made me want to sleep all the time.
Finally I got over that and then my computer really did crash on New Year's Eve. The hard drive went kablooie! and had to be completely replaced by a Dell technician. Couldn't get online at all. All I had was a blue screen with some print telling me that I had problems. Well....I knew that much. Talking with Dell on the telephone I was surprised to learn that their representatives are actually located in India--the country! I woke some poor guy up at after 1 AM in India at my 2 PM here. He didn't get angry but he let me know what time it was there. DUH! When am I supposed to call Dell?
Then just a couple of days later my ISP, Comcast Cable, went out, both the tv and the Internet service. Whaaaaaa! Now that's rough! Finally the tv returned but not the Internet. I began messing with the Internet Explorer property settings myself trying to figure out why it wouldn't connect to the Internet and changed some of the settings. The next day I called Comcast and a very nice tech helped me get back online again. But then it wouldn't allow me to stay connected because of the messed up settings, lol, but now that's cleared up too. People like me who know next to nothin' about computers should never try to figure them out on one's own. So far today (knock on wood) the computer seems to be ok.
I bid on some video tapes of Ryan Merriman on Ebay and ended up bidding against my Canadian friend, JB. The bidding was blind, meanin' no one knew who the other bidders were. I didn't want the tapes to go to strangers, but I also didn't know I was bidding against JB and running the bidding up for him. I felt so bad about that when I found out. But JB is a really nice sport and joked about how it was for charity and he'd not donated enough to charities for awhile. That was sweet of him to try to make me feel better.
The first thing on NMG that I saw when I was back online was that the "final" auction was up. And I jumped at it before I contacted JB or I would have known he was bidding. Then right after I set my high bid, I posted on NMG that I had bid on the video(s). JB knew then that I was also bidding and he sent me an email to tell me, but once the high bid is set it can't be changed.
When a high bid is set then Ebay will bid in increments over the last bid until your high bid is reached. Once you set the high bid you can't undo it or change it except to make it higher. So the bid was already set in stone so to speak. My high bid caused JB to have to pay more for the tapes than he would have if I hadn't been involved. I feel so bad about that. Next time I will know to contact JB first before I take part in a blind bidding for Ryan items on Ebay. JB told me that he wouldn't have known either about me until I posted on NMG about it. I don't like blind bidding, especially if there's a chance I might be bidding against some of my friends. Well, if JB should choose never to speak to me again I can certainly understand, but so far his attitude has been very kind and gracious.
I have become interested in a series on Showtime on tv. It's called "Queer As Folk" about a group of gay friends and their lives. It's fictional, of course. The showing of guys involved in sex isn't too appealing but the storyline is really good. Plus they have some hot men playing the leads. Well, even if they are gay, there's no harm in looking, is there? There is one really hot looking guy on the show who's real name is Randy Harrison. He plays Justin Taylor in the show. Wow. He is so cute. JB told me that he read that QAF has a high volume of straight women viewers. I can understand why. The show comes on Sunday nights at 9 PM here. So I am anxiously awaiting it now.
So far on this season there has been a situation involving a gay, a character named Brian Kinney, working for a political figure on his campaign. What was very interesting was that the candidate running for mayor was against gays. The show had a good plot on that one, especially when the candidate discovered that Brian was gay. The writers created some very interesting shows with that.
Then there was the continuing saga of a teenage gay who was murdered and left in a dumpster. From week to week the show involved the viewers in the struggle to get the police to search for the killer. Because the guy running for Mayor was against gays, the police stopped investigating.
The last thing I will write about here is the ongoing plot of the problems faced by Ted and Emmitt, a gay couple. Ted has gotten involved wth using drugs recently and even tried to get Emmitt into doing drugs also. But Emmitt is wise and refused to take the drugs or to associate with the guys supplying the drugs with whom Ted had begun spending time. He even talked Emmitt into giving him a dinner. Emmitt thought it was to be a private dinner for Ted and a few close friends of both of theirs, but then Ted showed up with the drug gang. And things went downhill fast. Ted, in his drug-induced anger, threw Emmitt out of the apartment and out of his life. It was so sad. Poor Emmitt.
Well, this is what I did while I was without a computer--I watched tv. Lots of tv. And discovered QAF. I am anxious to see the past episodes so I have added all the past series to my list at NetFlix. To buy the various seasonal episodes would be really expensive, but I can rent them from NetFlix. Too bad my DVD Recorder won't let me copy the copyrighted dvds. *sigh*
We got some nice snowfall here day before yesterday. Some of it's still hangin' around on my porches. That's what kept me indoors most of last year was the ice and snow clingin' to my wooden porches and steps. Even when it's clear from the yards and streets it's still icy on my porches.
Today I need to work on makin' out my shoppin' list for groceries. I need to get some things purchased before more snow hits. I need to buy staples like dried beans and instant potatoes just in case I can't get to the store for awhile over the next couple of months. Most other items I can now purchase from Walgreen's and they will ship it to me by UPS. I have written about this once before. I would call on my neighbors and family for help during those months but I'd hate to think that the ice might cause an accident for someone doing me a favor, so I will do it this way. Besides....this way I get to chat with my cute UPS man a little bit, hahaha.
I haven't gotten around to it yet, but I want to wish all of my readers a Happy New Year and I wish the best for all of you in the year ahead. I will also be keepin' my fingers crossed about this computer. So far, so good. I'm off to catch up on some of my favorite diaries that I read.
Bye for now....
