• friends going through a rough time
• family members who were sick
• people who were terminal, for their suffering to end
• the Ohio State Buckeyes
• the Michigan Wolverines (I didn't say how I was praying for them)
• political candidates
• forgiveness

Last night, though, I just prayed for strength to get me through the next 26 days.

[end semi-philosophical rant]

I did feel a bit better today after a conversation with my friend Lindsey. Now, Lindsey is not to be confused with Linds, nor is she to be confused with Lindsay, a friend from high school. Anyhoo, Lindsey L. (not to be confused with a Lindsay L. another friend from high school, not to be confused with Lindsay, the aforementioned friend from high school...are you keeping up with all this?) and I were discussing the bar. I was explaining generally where I was in terms of studying, and looked up and said, "I sound like a complete idiot." She replied I sounded like everyone else, who is also behind their schedule and wondering about the necessity of outlining.

So, let me tell you about outlining. I'm not sure if I've mentioned it on here. BarBri says you should outline every subject, and schedules one outline per day basically for weeks. This has really bogged me down, because it's taken me forever to outline some of these subjects. Well, yesterday, I saw a paragraph in our schedule that says, a) if the outlining isn't helping you, you may want to consider omitting it; b) don't panic if it takes you a few days to do a single outline. Well, that makes me feel somewhat better.

Meanwhile, my computer decided to do meltdown stuff yesterday. We're still not sure what caused it, but we do know that all of a sudden hitting ALT-TAB was not having the desired effect of transferring me between programs, my mouse was freezing, and hitting the start button was having no impact whatsoever. Also, my browser occasionally shuts down all on its own volition. (Let's hope that's not the case here.)

So today, I attempted to resolve this problem by calling technical support. As I was doing that, I was sending emails to a friend of mine about the experience. Some excerpts:

4:57 pm
From: Michael
To: C
Subject: wit's end

OK, so, I understand that we reelected W last year and as a result, outsourcing contiues unabated, and as a result, it's cheaper for my call to Compaq to go to India. I understand and embrace it.

Is there any reason I have to listen to Indian music?...Apparently, it was recorded live, because every now and then, you hear what might be sounding like disembodied clapping.

Oh, I've been on for twenty minutes. I've talked to two people, given them identical information, and am just going through intake.

To say nothing of the 50 minutes I spent (wasted?) talking online to a tech support guy.

[...]

Yippee, a real person. gotta go. M

***

5:00 pm
From: Michael
To: C
Subject: is there some reason

I have to give my phone # 4 times to these people? EMAIL, IM, something? Transfer it with my call.

Now giving my address for at least the second or third time. M

***

5:07 pm
From: Michael
To: C
Subject: and please

don't ask me if I want to renew my warranty right now, when it's been 31 minutes and 20 seconds and I have talked to three or four little Indians, none of whom have helped me.

Also, please, could we possibly figure out a way of me not having to give my serial number, WHICH IS ON THE BOTTOM OF MY COMPUTER, three times? 'Cause turning over the computer and holding it upside down can't be good.

Also, when I read it back, and you say "H as in 'otel," I don't appreciate it.

***

5:08 pm
From: Michael
To: C

I just gave my telephone number a FIFTH time.

My email address a second time.

[...]

It's still a Presario R3000. It was ten minutes ago [when they asked the first time.] It will be in twenty minutes. When we finish the call, it will be an antique.

***

I wish I could tell you that these emails represent the entire time I was on the phone with these people, but that would be grossly inaccurate. I ended up on the phone for ninety minutes. The first fifty minutes was spend talking to three or four people who took the exact same information. I could just see them sitting there. Guy #1 to Gal #1. "Hey! Michael ______ of _________, Port Clinton, Ohio, whose phone number is _______ is on the phone."

Gal #1: "Great. Why don't I ask him what his phone number is!"

Guy #1: "Oh, you're sexy when you make the Americans go nuts."

[three minutes later]

Gal #1: "Okay, Guy #2, I just got him to recite his phone number again. Why don't you make him give you his phone number AND his address this time?

Guy #2: "Guy #1 just took it from him."

Gal #1: "Yeah, and I'm betting he'll remember it. Teach him to call us!"

***

[four minutes later]

Guy #2 [to Gal #2]: "Hey, Michael _______ from _________, Port Clinton, Ohio, whose phone number is _______ is Line 172, and you've gotta get a load of this guy. He has a computer problem, he's too stupid to fix it, and have we got him by the neck! He'll give you his phone number all day if you ask him!"

By the end of it, I'm sure my voice was being projected out to thousands of cheering people as I marched through my phone number again. After fifty minutes, the fourth person I talked to said I would need to talk to a technician. (Because I didn't want to spend another fifty minutes trying to attain this particular Nirvana, I didn't point out that was the entire reason I had called them in the first place.)

Well, I will give the technician some credit. While he, apparently, was unable to retrieve my phone number from any of the first four people who had obtained it, he actually was interested in my problems, as opposed to the first three persons to whom I related them, who just listened to me rant and then said, "Yes, but what is your phone number?" He actually had me uninstalling and reinstalling and doing this and that and the other thing. I was appreciative.

Alas, it was to no avail. So, he suggested I reinstall my system. Unfortunately, doing this causes all your data to, like, disappear, so I chose the less-drastic option of "repairing" my system (wasn't that what I'd been wanting to do two hours earlier? No, I wanted to spit out my phone number like one of Pavlov's dogs, that's right.) So, to "repair" my system, the only data that would be impaired would be that which is contained in My Documents, which fortunately only contains all of, you know, my documents. Then, I needed the system disc, which of course, is in Toledo. And I'm in Port Clinton. And so the saga continues.

Fortunately, I have friends who are really good at this kind of thing, and have been burning up the email lines trying to come up with fixes. And providing laughs. Good news (a) is that Word appears to be unaffected, and so I can continue to work on my outlines. (B), and I knock on wood as I say this, my computer is acting normally right now and has not been being very evil since I've come back upstairs from dinner.

So, there's the update from me. I don't know how much bar stuff I'm learning, but I can tell you that I do know my phone number, and if you act like you'll repair my computer, I'll tell it to you.

Stay tuned, blogfans. I've been promising a post on Town of Castle Rock v. Gonzales, and I'm determined: It's going up tonight. Before it gets overturned.

(Hey, a boy can hope, can't he?)