themes, icons and fonts, oh my!

by | Jul 19, 2002 | Imported Entry

After working on the deck today, I come home, shower and sit down to check my email. Thankfully, the nice people at TGTSoft responded to my email and I have my answer. It seems that despite a complete registry cleaning, a reference to StyleXP still existed and that was to blame for my inability to reinstall the software. What I would like to know is WHERE exactly these references are being hidden. It certainly isn’t in the registry anywhere, I’ve looked. I’ve cleaned, uninstalled, cleaned again and still the reference is there. What if I’m trying to get rid of a program all together. You’re telling me that they’re hiding registry entries on my and not telling me? I think that’s a little bit recockulous (nagle, spelling?), don’t you?

So, after putting my anger/computer conspiracy issues aside, I brake down and actually register the damn thing. The way I figure it, I’m using it every day, it works well, it’s small and unintrusive and it’s only $20. So, now I’m the owner of a nice and legal copy of StyleXP. Fantastic.

Of course, this means I need to find thousands of new themes to use with it… and I figure, if I’m finding themes I might as well find logon screens… and if I’m finding logons, I might as well find backgrounds… and icons… and screen savers… and fonts. As you can see, today is “windows make-over day.” I’m already halfway into downloading stuff from ThemeXP, DL icons, Deviant Art and DaFont Font Archive. At least it’s giving me something to do while I wait for Rio Bravo to start on AMC. Which, by the way, is a fantastic movie. A great western staring none other than John Wayne, Dean Martin, Ricky Nelson and Angie Dickinson. Simply awesome. Then again, I have a soft spot for westerns, so maybe it’s just me.

That is all.

How not to build a deck

by | Jul 19, 2002 | Work

Today was deck building day. Huray! The process of building a deck involves many things. Among them: hammers, nails, wood, sweat, physical injury and profanity… in that order. Ok, so it’s not the end of the world, but hitting your thumb with a hammer hurts like you would not believe, unless of course you’ve done it before, in which case you can more than understand the profanity. My belief is, that if you hit yourself with a hammer and you don’t utter some form of explative… you’ve got anger issues. Regardless, work was done on the deck. A few days and it should be done. Whether I’m there for it’s completion is of course, up in the air. Adecco, those tits, have yet to call me back. It’s not for lack of trying however, I’ve called them three times a day for three days.

So, now I’m home, sweaty, dirty and smelling like sawdust. At least my tan is improving I suppose. If you can call “bright red” a tan that is.

Less than interesting…

by | Jul 18, 2002 | Imported Entry

What a basically useless day. I was on the phone with Adecco who told me to “just sit tight” and that they’d get back to me. I’m sorry, I thought this was only my livelyhood we were talking about. Silly me, I appologize for not wanting to be BROKE! (deep breath matt)

Somehow undaunted I went to the gym to “relax.” I’m not sure why, I didn’t actually think that physical activity would make me relax in any sort of way but I went just the same. I pounded out 30 minutes on the eliptical trainer (half bike/half treadmill) and another 30 on various weight-type equipment.

So, after sweating more than I thought humanly possible I returned home to the brilliance that is air conditioning. I love this stuff. It makes my life complete. I feel sorry for everyone that doesn’t get to enjoy the splender that an indoor temperature controlled enviroment can bring.

So, post shower and pre dinner I decide to hope on this towering piece of computer goodness and see if I have any email. I didn’t, unless you count the 3 pieces of unnaturally aggrivating SPAM. “No, I don’t want to enlarge my penis, enter a pyramid scheme or refinance my home, go away.” At this point I figured I’d poke around at Style XP again. I really do enjoy the program and was 99% ready to pay the $20 to have it nice and legal when all of a sudden it decided to act up. At first it just wasn’t loading themes correctly, then not at all. So, a week or two ago I decided to uninstall it. Today I go to reinstall it and try again and I get some obscure error from the install program and my system locks up. So, I wrote an email to TGTSoft tech support asking about the problem. If they’re going to get my $20 then this program had better work correctly. I’ve yet to hear back. We’ll see.

My brother also got off the phone with my parents and apparently we’re going “out” for dinner. Usually “going out” involves having pizza delivered but I think they’re actually considering leaving the house this time. I’m really in the mood for some chicken marsala so I’m hoping to convince them that Italian is the way to go.

Other than that, it’s been a completely unproductive day. What fun.

Creepy

by | Jul 17, 2002 | Imported Entry

I’m starting to think that Amazon.com knows me a little to well. My “recommendations” page today contained the following:

Warcraft 3 for the PC
The Good, The Bad and The Ugly on DVD
On the Road by Jack Kerouac (book)
Northern Exposure by John Digweed (CD)

and possibly the best recommendation ever…

the childrens book, If You Give a Mouse a Cookie.

Now, that’s creepy. I knew I’m a kid at heart… I just didn’t think Amazon was going to affirm my suspicions. Hehehe.