Somehow my "Fantasy Landscapes" collection made it to the front page of "Most popular last 24 hours" in collections. I have received a bunch of faves on it which for some reason are not showing up on the collections page itself...


This is the first time I've made it on to the front page of anything, so it calls for a celebration. (Chocolate Milk! w00t!) It'll probably be gone tomorrow, but the 24 hours of Semi-Almost-Fame felt good, even if I only learned about it an hour ago.

You can check out the collection here:
[link]

In other computer related news, I verified the hard drive was indeed broken (Check disk at BIOS level told me right out to replace it). I bought a new hard drive, installed it, and tried to restore it using the recovery discs. Nothing. Contacted HP tech support, and after a bit of back and forth try-this-and-that, we determined the recovery discs were bad, and I'll need to order new ones from HP. End result I'll be out an extra 16 bucks (Three days of food!), and without a computer for another week at least. To say I am peeved at Geek Squad would be an understatement.

Warning! Anti-Geek Squad rant below:

This would not be terribly vexing, if I had not PAID Best Buy's Geek Squad to make my recovery disks so I would be sure they worked if something like this happened. I found out later that I could have burned my own recovery discs, which Geek Squad conveniently did not mention when I bought the computer. Next time they offer me any of their services, I shall politely inform them that I won't been needing them, as I've not heard of any snowball fights in Hades recently. I shall then inform them that if they are desperate for my business, they might try cranking up the air conditioning in the store and buying a snow machine.

Actually, I probably won't say any of that, but it felt good to type it... I'd also like to take this opportunity to say I had a most pleasant experience with HP tech support, they answered my Emails in most cases within the hour, even though I was no longer under warranty.

Really though, this is somewhat of a blessing in disguise, as I have a bunch of midterms next week and I don't need a computer to study for them, so it's probably for the best I won't have it as a distraction. At least that's what I keep telling myself.

Apologies for not getting to all the messages and deviations piling up. I haven't deleted any yet, but I have over a thousand to go through. Please bear with me.