Lou Pickney's Online Commentary
Working Order
Saturday
August 30, 2003
After a frustrating two-day period, I finally have my computer back in working condition again. On Thursday night it suddenly quit working properly. Subsequent attempts to get it to load up failed. Something about the "registry", from what I read.
I consider myself pretty smart about computers, but this was very baffling to me. Luckily, my experience from the days of MS-DOS paid off quite well. After hours of tinkering, testing and trying everything from "Safe Mode" to making a Windows ME (that's short for Millenium Edition) boot disc at work, I finally rolled the dice and deleted the system.dat file. For some reason, this allowed the System Registry checking program, which had frozen up on earlier attempts, to work properly, restoring the system.dat file from a backup. And, presto, the computer loaded up fine and seems to be working fine now (knock on wood).
College football is on in full effect today... which, in my book, is cause for celebration. Vanderbilt pulled off its annual "tease a win but lose at the end" against Ole Miss; South Florida hung in there but lost at Alabama (damn); Wisconsin came back to beat West Virginia (sorry WVU grads); Tennessee whipped up on Fresno State (and Cedric Houston looked impressive). Good times on the gridiron. Only complaint is that the Ohio State/Washington game tonight won't be shown locally; instead we'll be subjected to Florida State/North Carolina. Ugh. At least I can look for my bro Matt on ESPN with Mississippi State hosting Oregon in Starkville...
A few addendums to the Vegas column...
-We joked that the "Family Feud" video slot game was racist. Why? Well, you could match up families within the slots and win credits, or individual family members for big points. And who was worth the most? The studly white male guy got you the most points. Then the white chick was next. Finally the minority woman was worth the least number of credits. This may have been happenstance for the machine we were on, but it gave us something else to comment on (besides the machine's low payouts).
|  | | Even Ned Flanders gave in to the shady side of Las Vegas. |
-I failed to mention that not only did they show the Jamie Kennedy Experiment episode taped in Vegas, but also they showed the Simpsons episode where Homer Simpson and Ned Flanders went to Vegas. It's like it was an omen or something.
-There are two funny elevator incidents worth mentioning... The first was at the Stratosphere, where an angry man was denied entry to a full elevator by the attendant in the back. He started to demand answers for why he couldn't get in, until he was told that the word came from an official of the Stratosphere. Later on we spotted him eating in the rotating skytop restaurant. We resisted the urge to heckle him (or, in my case, hit him with a flying beer bottle or a Sabu-style running tope con hilo dive). The second came at the MGM Grand on Friday night. A cute 20-something chick was in the elevator, and I started throwing some game her way. It turned out that she had just gotten in town from L.A., and she said she "couldn't wait to get a cocktail in her hand." Rod seemed shocked when we got out of the elevator -- he hadn't heard the "tail" part of that sentence. Heh heh...
-One annoying thing about Vegas is the overwhelming cigarette smoke that pollutes the casinos. It's frustrating to spend an hour getting ready for a night at the club, only to walk through Marlboro City by the slots.
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