It’s always an amazing experience to get a new desktop or laptop, open it, and admire it. The way it looks… the way it feels… the way the keys click nicely under your fingers.
…
And then you start setting it up as you want it, and it’s really quite disappointing. It happened with my last computer (this Dell). It’s happening with my new one.

Finally opened the HP laptop I bought today (decided to keep it) and started setting it up. First thing I noticed was the abundance of useless programs installed. Easy right? Just do a clean OS install and then start building it. Well, this laptop didn’t come with any OS or driver CDs… they’ve been replaced by a “System recovery” feature that eats up some of the hard drive (about ~12 GB) and allows for “complete or partial reinstllation of the system to factory specifications,” so that option is out.
Meh, fine, whatever. I’ll just uninstall stuff I don’t want.
I go to install Microsoft Office with the CD I have. Looks good. Go and start it.
It wants a CD key.
I already gave it a CD key.
*tries the key from the software again*
*doesn’t work*
Hm…
*continues to try*
Long story short, the trial version of Office that came preinstalled was conflicting with my installation, and I couldn’t remedy it by doing a complete uninstall and reinstall of Office. Ended up having to register and activate the trial version, THEN uninstall it, and then install my full version. Here’s hoping it worked.
Besides that, the max screen resolution is also lower than this computer (my old broken Dell) despite it having a bigger screen.
Meh, oh well. It’s still a very nice laptop, and it’s light as hell for the power that it packs. Gonna install more stuff on it tomorrow and start switching over to it.

Dad’s coming home from the hospital tomorrow. Yay.

Yesterday was Vicki’s last weekend here (before she heads off to Rice University), so I spent the afternoon/evening with her, David, Jennie, Laura, and Margaret. Was good. We played some ITG (on my laptop with pads) and Time Crisis 3, then watched Fantastic 4 and Rent and went to get coffee.

Today I saw Katie. We went to lunch and talked. Whee.

Um… yeah. My life is boring.