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Mosaic Musings...interactive poetry reviews _ Member Announcements -> Basilica _ Lori's Comedy Act of the Week... or two!

Posted by: Cleo_Serapis Aug 26 13, 09:01

Hi all,

THE FOLLOWING IS A TRUE STORY (not a paid announcement) !!!

Last Sunday morning (8/18) my Gateway Media Center tower PC from 2005 that I use for all my home stuff (and MM too) crashed. The power supply blew and with it, took the mother board out too. L L L So I’ve been without a PC as my OLD Thinkpad laptop is also on its last legs for a week now (except at work using the ‘Dell’ Bose computer). So, now I must shop for a new computer for all my home needs, personal and professional. I am thinking of not getting another desktop solution, but rather a new laptop with lots of memory, a faster CPU and way more hard drive space to use as a new solution which will kill two birds with one stone as I would have portability with it too. They are so much more affordable now with so much more inside than the $2,100 I paid for my Gateway 8 years ago. I am hoping to get Windows 7 still as I just have reservations about upgrading to Win8. I still use XP at home (or was anyway) :wink: Does anyone have recommendations? I know I want at least an Intel i5, preferably an i7 processor with at least 6GB RAM and a 1TB HD (or 750GB min).

On to the comedy portion of the show now . . .

I had the week from Hell all last week. I woke up last Friday morning (8/16) at 3am to a whirling buzz above my head and . . . fill in the rest. I opened one eye and said, "There's a bird in the bedroom." When I sat up and watched it doing figure 8s - ummm NOT a bird - it's a BAT!!!!!! EEEEEEwwwwwwwwwww! I never saw Barry get out of bed so quickly! I ran into the bathroom and shut the door, lol - it was a real comedy show let me tell you. So I grabbed a towel while it was circling overhead as the cat sat on the bed watching & dozing off. If we had a clue, we would have shut the door to the room to at least trap it (and us) in there. But the shock of it - well - it got out and flew down the stairs into the family room.

So I'm there running around chasing it with a towel, half asleep and half-dressed. Then I decided to grab a blanket off the couch. When I moved the blanket it flew off the windowsill (6 inches from my leg) and then we lost sight of it for the day. :( So, I worked from home Friday and after calling a wildlife control guy, he said: "If it's still in the house, you'll know at 7:45 tonight." Not realizing this bit - I worked in my favorite room all day - the sunroom. The mangy thing was in there with me ALL day hiding somewhere. The ONE room I didn't check that good - it must have flown from the family room into this sunroom and I didn't know when we lost sight of it. I think it was behind the bookcase. I must have had woman's intuition though because at 7:30 that night I decided to close both doors to the room figuring when it came out at dusk at least I could be closing off certain rooms to restrict where it would fly.

So picture this: I'm sitting on the loveseat watching TV getting nervous as the sun went down, and then something caught my eye, like a shadow from the ceiling fan - although it wasn't on in the sunroom. Then I see it again crossing across the windowed door to the family room. I yell out: "It's in the sunroom!!!!!!!" So we bolted out the front door and opened the sunroom door to the deck and about 5 minutes later it flew out. Freaky though because its mate started flying toward me standing on the deck watching it. At that point Barry threw up a handful of mulch (they need to have something moving for their 'radar' to detect it) and as soon as he did that - out it came from the room. WOOHOO!!!!!! Then we ran so fast back into the room and slammed the door behind us. Although that was funny too because the storm door wouldn’t close – it got stuck open so I'm like "Shut the door, shut the door for crying out loud!"

That Sunday night, I was hearing this clicking noise in the sunroom ceiling wall near the chimney where the gutter is at the corner of the house. It was wasps!! I had 4 nests in close proximity! We had to have a professional company come out Wednesday and put poison in the wall and around the house. Then we patched the teensy hole as they were entering into the sunroom after he was done. Barry had climbed onto the roof initially that Sunday and hit the outside corner with a can of spray too, lol. Then yesterday (a week later) we patched it up entirely with black caulk stuff. I think we must have killed about 3 or 4 dozen of them with fly-swatters last week before the guy came Wednesday. The painters had a hell of a time with them as for two weeks I had my house repainted (from 8/12 – 8/17). I got stung too and also have poison ivy right now on my right ear badly and under my left ear on my neck. :(

At least the bat has not returned (never had one in the 4 1/2 years I've lived in the house so we are pretty certain the painters when replacing some facia boards) must have left an opening temporarily and it slid in somewhere. Every night like clockwork I look out the window for them at 7:45 and every night (so far) they BOTH are flying high – so I have been easing back into a better sleep pattern for the time being.

Having fun yet? I must come up with a word of the day. BATMATISM at the Pestagon!

Too funny!

Cheers,
Lori

Posted by: Larry Aug 28 13, 22:59

Hi Lori,

On the computer crash, I feel bad for you because I've had two of them crash on me in the last few years and only had the files on one of them backed up. I had to go back through all my writings and fill in what I lost on the other computer.

On the "Batmatism" and your story... "Funny!!! I've left something for you in the "Logarhyme" thread.

I'm still getting a chuckle every once in a while when I think of your story.

Larry

Posted by: Cleo_Serapis Aug 29 13, 08:18

Well, that's NO fun Larry to lose files (as I did too).

My 2007 IBM Thinkpad needed a system restore back in October as well (2 months before the 2005 Gateway initially creashed on Christmas day) but it's NOT my 'Main' PC at home. I keep very little data on it and have it networked to the Gateway. Since it's running XP and Office 2003, that one will become dinosaur soon too. So now I will buy a new laptop solution instead of another desktop to kill two birds with one stone. I am not keen on Windows 8 however, so am hoping to find a powerful laptop with Windows 7 over the weekend. MS Office is ridicuously overpriced and I fear I will pay $400 for that (as I need Outlook & Publisher for MM as well as what's offered in the cheaper 'student/home' version).

LUV your poem in the other thread!! I've copied it here at work and the one before it to jog my muse.

It IS very funny - we must be able to laugh at life's jokes!!!

Cheers,
~Cleo