Puppies!

This adorable puppy video was linked on Cute Overload. It eventually led me to this one and then this one, too. Really I could just watch puppy videos all night long.

So the day before Christmas, we went over to my mom's house to check out her laptop which was having problems. And boy was it having problems. I have never seen anything like it. The screen was convinced it was 1024x768 instead of widescreen, so it was displaying with a black bar on the right side and the bottom of the screen was weird with the start bar and stuff pulled down and distorted. That had been going on for a few days, but she was still able to use it like that, but then the day before, suddenly it had started having trouble with the keyboard as well. It was acting as if it were stuck with the control key down. I know sometimes that's like the sticky keys function or whatever stupid thing like that, but it seemed to be something else here.

Finally we decided we'd just have to reinstall Windows, so we took the laptop home to work on it. Bruce reinstalled Windows and restarted the laptop several times to make sure it came up normal each time. Seemed fine, so we gave it back to her Christmas day.

She called that night to say it was doing the screen funny again. Okay, I told her I'd Google and see if I could see if there was anyone else with this problem with any advice. I never got around to it, but then she called again yesterday morning to say now it was doing the keyboard thing, too! Argh!

So she brought it over again today for us to look at. I'm really not sure what can be done at this point, but Bruce is going to poke around with it. Getting it fixed would likely cost more than it's worth, so if he can't get it fixed, we might end up getting me a new laptop and selling her this one (because dude, she only uses it for Word Perfect (not even internet, since they don't have a router), so a brand new computer would be totally wasted on her). I'm loathe to do that because even if we get me a pretty cheap laptop, we can't really sell her this one for the full price of what a new one would cost me, so it's still spending money we don't really have (and even though it could be taken off on the taxes, I dunno, we'd either have to get it in the next couple days, or it would be for next year's taxes, which isn't much help to us now).

I feel bad, too, because we just sold my mom the laptop she has right now in...May, I think, or April. So it's not been that long. And it was working perfectly for us before that. I'd only had it for a couple years. :-/

We're going to Fry's in the morning to look for mice for Bruce (his has been having rechargable battery problems for...seems like a couple years now, but it's been something we can deal with, and since he hasn't been able to find a new mouse he likes, we've just been sticking with it, but it's starting to have other problems, too, now) so we might take a look at laptops there as well, just to see what they have.

Unpopular Fannish Opinions: Holiday Exchange Edition

Turning in a sloppy fic for a fest? RUDE.

I'm talking about purely technical stuff here. Some people are just always going to be bad or mediocre writers, but everyone can at least turn in a presentable story. One or two typoes is understandable, especially with a longer fic. But when something is riddled with typoes and misspellings and formatting errors, that is just not acceptable. If you want to write stuff like that on your own time and post it in your journal or on archives, whatever. I still think it shows an incredible lack of respect for your readers, but I wouldn't necessarily call it rude. But when you are writing a fic for someone, you need to put in the effort. If you know you have problems with the technical aspects of writing, get a beta. Sometimes it can be hard to find a beta, but if you are writing for a fest, you can always ask the mods or post in the comm or whatever. There is already a built-in community there to find you a beta, even at the last minute.

Not only do you need to be extra careful in writing for holiday fests because you are presenting it as a gift to someone else, but also because you can't easily make changes if you catch them afterwards; you have to bug the mods to change it for you or just let it go. So check it over first. Then check it over again. And again. Have a friend do it (and not the sort of friend who is unwilling to tell you you made a mistake); make sure you get a beta. Get the number of mistakes down to as close to zero as possible.

Sometimes typoes creep through anyway. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about stuff that has obviously not even been read over once after writing. And that? Is rude.