Does anyone else loathe that smug, smarmy paper clip with the smirk that masquerades as a "helper" in Microsoft Office?  I hate that thing.  I really need to find my installation discs so I can upload my kitty, puppy and wizard assistants.  Evil thing.  *glare*

I got Windows installed on my main drive of the laptop today, and it didn't wipe out too much!  *cheers*  Of course, I lost all of my desktop settings, game verification folders, my fonts, my Excel and Word, and some other minor things, but all in all, most of the stuff was still there!  And since everything is backed up now, it's just a matter of copying over the few missing things and re-inputing the game codes.  So a lot less work involved than I feared.  Now it will be off to get Trend Micro and Spysweeper, recommended to me by a Geek Squad friend, and pray that nothing gets my computer like that again.  I know from now on, every computer I own will have at least two hard drives - being able to install Windows onto my backup drive and copy all my files from there proved a godsend.

I finally got the Windows reinstallation disc from Dell, and installed it on a different partition (thank heavens my laptop has two hard drives).  It worked!  I was able to access all of my files and burned everything I needed onto a small stack of DVDs.  Now the next step will be to finish installing it on my main drive (it gave me the option to try to fix the OS, but I wanted to make sure I had everything backed up in case it wiped files.  That will be what I do tomorrow.  Hopefully it will restore any missing files and will work perfectly again with no more troubles, but if the worst happens and I have to reset the computer back to how it was when it shipped, at least I don't have to worry about lost files and data.

In other news, my dragon circlet came in today - very pretty.  I'm going to add some beads and cording on the back so it matches my dress.  I also got the skull and crossbones buttons for Tonks' necklace - they just need to be painted an antique gold.  And I finally found my fabric for Tonks' coat - I'll be ordering that early next week once I determine how many yards I need.  Merle also got my headpiece just about done; we are waiting on the ribbon to arrive from Scotland (it is guaranteed to be here by mid-August).  I also ordered my sash (they are based in Kentucky, so no shipping concerns there).  Now I am looking at dragon chokers and I might order a pair of khussas for the DM.

All in all, a good day.

Well, I've had an eventful four days!  I went over to Christine's Thursday afternoon and she helped me look at fabric for my Tonks coat.  She also looked over the reference pictures I had and thinks it will be easier than I am fretting over.  We went over to Joanns and I got a couple of patterns for the coat, as well as my thread for the dupioni and a zipper for the dragonmaster dress.  Then I headed over to Mom's work to see if her co-worker was able to fix my computer.  He had found a nasty Trojan, which he was able to get rid of, and some spyware.  However, when he tried to restart the computer, it wouldn't start up; kept freezing right after the Windows splash page and before the logon screen.  He even tried the cheat method, but it wouldn't let us access the system restore points.  He worked on it for several hours, and I tried a few more things over the weekend, but no luck.  It looks like the spyware deleted at least one vital dll file, so I a going to try re-installing Windows tomorrow.  *sigh*

Then I headed over to Newark after having dinner with Mom, talked to Andy's mom for a while, and then after Andy got off the computer, talked with him.  Then Kelly got back and I caught up with her.

Friday morning Kelly and I drove around and looked at some apartments, had lunch at DQ, stopped at Cord Camera for me to pick up an application, and hung out at Best Buy a little, where one of her co-workers gave us some other leads for apartments.  Then we checked some more places out and headed back to the house for me to fuss with the computer and her to play a little WoW before she headed to work.  Then I went to visit Grace for a couple of hours, and then returned to Andy's.  We watched some more Chobits (second fave anime series!) until Kelly got back from work.  Then he went to a bar with his sister for a couple of hours, while Kelly and I watched the Escaflowne movie.  Then I got ready for bed (sleepy!) while she played some WoW.  Andy got back just before I fell asleep, and we talked about 15 minutes, and then he headed to the computer while I went to dreamland.

Saturday I slept in later than I wanted, but Andy and I still had time to look at some places.  He wanted to go to Best Buy, so we stopped there (I'm going to be a regular soon, it looks like) and I grabbed Road to Perdition for $7.  Then we returned to his house and after Kelly got back from work, his mom took us to dinner at Texas Roadhouse.  After dinner, Andy, Kelly and I had a planning meeting and discussed some logistics about the apartment, and it looks like we are leaning towards a 1380 square foot townhouse in a place called McMillan Woods.  We watched Phantom of the Opera after that, since Kelly hadn't seen it yet, and then Sunshine, one of Andy's picks.  Then Kelly went on the computer and Andy and I finished Chobits.  His mom looked over the pictures from the photo shoot I did with him a few weeks ago, and ordered some prints (my first order - woohoo!)  Chrissy (Andy's sister) also wants a photo shoot done, which I will schedule for August.

Sunday I visited with my friends Mark and Mike.  We went to Dawes and spent some time there, and then they drove me over to Buckeye Lake and showed me where they used to live and how much it is being built up with new mega-houses.  We had grilled chicken for dinner and then I returned home to look for that damned Windows reinstallation disk.

OK, here's an update with me for the past week or so:

1.  The laptop is still being wonky.  Avast did find a Trojan, which I got rid of, and it is currently undergoing a thorough scan, so we'll see if that helps.  I also have a friend who is very knowledgeable about computers who will take a look at it later this week.  Keep your fingers crossed.

2.  I'm going to a job fair tomorrow!  It's being held in Columbus, and seems to be fairly large.  I already printed up a bunch of resumes and business cards to take down.  I'm being optimistic that I'll find my dream job (I need to find something soon - only four weeks of unemployment left - eek!)

3.  Costumes: Thanks to selling lots of things on eBay, I purchased my rust beaded trim and my gold trim at Joanns last week, and located my Mary Janes that had disappeared in my room for my Scottish lass.  The tartan should be arriving in the next week or so from the UK.  I won the combat boots on eBay for Tonks and they just shipped - now hopefully they will fit!  I also ordered my dupioni - a beautiful olive green.  A seamstress friend of mine is going to help me with the Tonks coat - I will be seeing her Thursday for fabric hunting and construction assistance.  I finally did find a very high-res picture of the coat - it is more intricate that I thought, but I am still going to try to pull it off.

4.  Photography:  I finally got around to printing off some business cards, as well as pricing lists, order forms, and samples of the frames/borders and color spaces I can use on the photos.  Now I just need to start getting the word out there.  I am also looking into submitting a few photos into our local county fair in late August.

5.  Now that summer temperatures are returning to normal, I am finding it harder to get out and do things.  Heat and humidity have never agreed with me - I find even 80's hot!  I am planning on getting my bike tire fixed this week, so maybe I will go biking on the trails in Newark.  If I didn't have so much to do this week, I would drive up to the state park and take a hike in the coolness of the trees.  I really need to get out and about - that will be the great thing when I move and have roomies; I am much more motivated to do things when I am not alone.  I think I will take a nice walk at Dawes on Sunday! 

6.  And finally, I'll be starting to go apartment hunting this weekend!  Kelly and I are scoping out places Friday morning, and then Andy and I will go back to the places that we liked to see what he thinks.  Just a few months (it appears)!

I really hate viruses, and spyware, and adware.  I evidently caught something (although I don't know what) and cannot seem to get rid of it.  Fortunately I have two computers, which is how I can type this, because when I try to access the Internet, Firefox freezes up and I can't get out of it without using the Task Manager.  And then it won't open again until I restart the computer.  IM is fine, just regular Internet usage is affected.  *grumble*  I've updated my antivirus and spyware/adware software, and also installed five additional programs that a tech friend of mine recommended(Avast, Crap Cleaner, Stinger, Spybot, and Ad-Aware).  I've done full system scans for all of these programs, and deleted all bad files that were found.  But still no luck.  Hopefully she will be able to look at my laptop next week sometime and figure out the culprit.  Nothing like wasting three days.

Hackers suck.  Also anyone who creates viruses, trojans, spyware, and adware.  Somehow I got a nasty trojan and some nasty spyware on my computer yesterday evening, even through my virus protection (granted, it expired two months ago without my knowledge, but it wasn't THAT old) and my tight firewall.  So I've spent the entirety of today updating my protection (and actually upgrading to a more thorough service), waiting four hours for it to download via dial-up, installing it, running a preliminary scan, restarting the computer, deleting temp files and associated program files, and running a thorough scan (still going on).  Because someone out there thinks I have no better use for my time.  I've been unable to check half of the sites I need to (e-mail, Google, Myspace and eBay) because of this crap.  Fortunately, I think I will have it out of the system by tonight. And I've set my firewall to very tight security, and my scans to every day.

Japanese game shows rule.  At least, the one featured on the show "I Survived a Japanese Game Show" does.  It runs 9pm on ABC on Tuesdays and is great, which is saying something because I'm not one for either reality shows or game shows.  You get a little taste of the Tokyo culture too, which is nice.  Check it out sometime; I find it rather funny.