My 30th birthday came and went, and all in all, it was a pretty good birthday. Whateley had no idea what to get for me as a present, so he just said, "I'm forcing you to spend money, now get what you've always wanted but never bought."

So I got myself a sewing machine.

I'm so lame, but ever since I started watching Project Runway, I've always wanted to make my own clothes. Well, I've been "designing" since I was a kid, but it's mostly me doodling characters, usually women, and coming up with costume ideas for what they're wearing. I used to take old clothing scraps and make fugly Barbie clothes out of them. Anyway, since Whateley made a mandate, I went ahead and got the best sewing machine I could find at Target.

I also got some fabric and a pattern for a nice, simple dress, and I was thinking, I'll have this done and ready in no time! Then I actually opened the pattern and started reading the directions. Let me tell you, sewing is a lot more complex than it looks! Actually, the hardest part is all the terminology that has developed since the invention of the sewing machine, and the people who write the patterns just use them like a sailor littering their speech with "colorful" language.

So my machine has yet to be set up, and instead, for the past week, I've been poring over Sewing for Dummies, which, unfortunately, contains way too much of the same terminology and a dearth of illustrations. So I picked up another book that proudly proclaimed on the cover that it had over 1100 photo illustrations. It helped a lot.

Anyway, I think I've got the book knowledge for this stuff. Now it's just a matter of sitting down to actually make the dress. I got some extra fabric since I fully expect me to mess up a lot. I thought about getting a really simple pattern, like a tank top or pajama pants, to start off with. But then I thought, that stuff is usually ugly and frumpy and I'll never wear it, so I'd much rather struggle and take a longer time with my first project, especially if it seems like it'll be something I'll actually wear.

There's a small part in the back of my brain thinking, maybe I'll get good enough to get on Project Runway! But I don't think I'll devote enough time to it to get that good. And with my luck, I would end up being the person they portray as bitchy.

My computer's back to the way it was. I ended up reinstalling Windows XP on Xeowolf's loaned computer, but there's an odd issue with XP. Mainly, when it first shipped, it really didn't know how to handle networking. I believe all that got resolved with service pack 1. But the stupid part of XP out of the box is, it usually can't connect to the internet to download all the updates. So after a couple of days of trying like mad to get the computer to recognize the ethernet drivers, or even using a ghetto USB wireless networking card, I got frustrated and turned my borked computer back on.

Apparently, a few days shut off gave it a good slap to the face or something, because the mouse and keyboard started being recognized. I just booted up the computer as usual, and everything was back to normal. I think it was the WoW gaming mouse that I had gotten. It's kinda nice cuz it has a lot of the WoW commands pre-programmed, and it's got 16 buttons along with an LCD color changer. But it may have been the cause of my computer borking out. When I plugged it into Xeowolf's computer, it made the keyboard totally lag. So I switched it out with Whateley's old mouse, and then it stopped mis-behaving.

Anyway, next on my agenda regarding my computer is a fresh install of Vista, and hopefully my months-old monitor problem will get solved too. I'm also hoping to get some digital art software installed. My art skills are getting a bit rusty.

So I am convinced I am cursed when it comes to computers.

My current computer, which is less than 2 years old, has decided that it no longer recognizes USB drives. Or more like, it's perfectly willing to give it power, but that's it. It doesn't want to acknowledge that anything connected to it wants to have anything to do with it other than draw on it for some juice.

Anyway, a week ago, I put my computer on sleep mode, and when I took it out of it, the next time the computer went automatically to stand-by mode, it decided not to recognize my USB mouse. So Whateley thought he should re-boot the machine so the mouse can do its thing.

Well, when it rebooted, it decided that along with the mouse, it will also no longer recognize the keyboard. Now, my computer is running Vista, and Vista requires you to login by clicking on your profile.

Yeah, you see where I'm going.

So since the mouse doesn't work, it won't let me click on the profile. So then I tried re-booting it and getting into setup. But to do that, I need to hit a key at the loading screen to do so.

... yeah....

So no matter how many times I restart my computer, I can't do anything but watch it go to the login screen and then just sit there. After a few restarts, the computer freaks out and gives me the option of loading it in Safe Mode, but only if I use the arrow key to select that option.

Uh huh, you see why that can be a problem.

After a few more restarts, the computer freaks out even more, and tries to start up System Repair upon booting. Only thing? It prompts you to PRESS ANY KEY to start up System Repair.

So what about plugging the keyboard into the PS2 port? Wouldn't that work?

Yes it would... if my friggin' computer HAD a PS2 port. See, I got my computer from Dell, and apparently, they don't make motherboards with PS2 ports. I HAVE to use USB keyboards and mice. But what the hell are you suppose to do if the USB ports aren't being recognized?

Sigh....

Our friend Xeowolf decided to lend me his spare computer so I can at least play WoW and make the raids while we decide what to do next with my computer.

And yes, I'm cursed when it comes to that too. :-(

Y'see, that computer has Vista installed on it, only it's the same product key as his current computer. It hadn't been updated in awhile, so I started installing Windows updates, mostly cuz that computer didn't have any separate virus scanners installed. Well, turns out, my installing these updates, it also prompted Vista to verify the product key, found that it was running on two machines, and invalidated that one. So it kept warning me that I had 10 days (and counting down) to activate the Windows, or it'll shut down or something, I guess.

Sigh....

Xeowolf brought over his XP disk and we've just re-formatted a fresh install. This is going to take awhile.

I don't know what's the deal. It seems me and computers just don't mix. Well, at least computer ownership. The one that just borked out I had gotten because my previous computer had borked also.

Perhaps this is a sign that I should shun all technology and go live in the woods.

Update on my computer woes:

The main problem seems to be that Vista doesn't recognize my monitor as a PnP monitor, and will only install the drivers as a generic non-PnP one. So even though its native resolution in 1680 x 1050, it's insisting on telling me the monitor can't handle it.

Funny enough, I go to the monitor's website, and it doesn't even offer drivers since the whole point of these monitors is that they're PnP and therefore do not NEED special drivers.

Sigh.

Xeowolf, however, managed to at least get Vista to install the latest drivers from Nvidia. Apparently, updating video drivers from Windows Update is a bad idea. They rarely have the latest ones.

Argh. Too much computer troubles!

So the other day, after a perfectly normal night of WoW after a long day at work, I shut down my computer. A notice came up saying that it was installing 1 of 2 updates, and then it would shut down. There had been a lot of Windows updates lately, so I thought nothing of it.

Well, the next time I logged in, my screen looked horrible. My monitor is a generic, PnP 1680 x 1050 widescreen monitor that I had picked up at Costco. It had been working fine for years now, and suddenly, my graphics card couldn't support that resolution anymore. It was set to 1440 x 900 by default, and I couldn't for the life of me put it back to 1680 x 1050. I downloaded the latest drivers from Nvidia, even tried using their beta drivers, but none of those supported that resolution. I finally had to create a custom setting for that resolution, which I could only use after I checked off on Windows to not hide "non-supported" settings.

So I managed to get my desktop back to the normal size, albeit with the possibility that my monitor will explode in the near future.

But here's the worst part: it's made WoW run horribly. First off, WoW no longer has the setting to make the resolution at 1680 x 1050. Secondly, the framerate went from a decent 25 to 50 frames-per-second to 9. Sometimes 6, sometimes 16. But the framerate sucks now, and the game is laggy as hell.

I thought it might be due to the high population areas the graphics card was having trouble drawing in all the characters. But then I went to locations where there were virtually no one, and it was still laggy with a low framerate. I even set the effects to the lowest it could (without looking like absolute crap), but that didn't help.

Sigh. I don't know what the hell Vista is up to, but it just took a perfectly good set up and made it crap. The fact that my decent graphics card can't even support the native resolution of a friggin' plug-n-play monitor is the crappiest thing it's done lately. I don't know who to get mad at, Vista or Nvidia.

From some googling, this appears to be happening with a lot of other people, though I don't know what's the common ground. Some of the people suggested turning off all anti-virus and un-installing the current drivers before re-installing the updated ones. I've tried all that but so far no luck. Sigh.....