Val Breaks Her HIPPIE

If I disappear for a few days, don't start to worry too soon. I'm having computer issues. 

 

Sunday nooned dark and late, with a rainstorm that persuaded me to lie abed longer than necessary. So it was around 1:00 when I tore myself away from watching Dazed and Confused, and made my way to the kitchen table to fire up my HP laptop, HIPPIE.

HIPPIE was having none of it! Not only not firing, but not even smoldering. Just a little spark, then nothing but the Spinny Blue Circle of Wait. Nothing would load. Even the troubleshooter was cantankerous, but eventually told me that SOME websites were reachable. Huh. I wonder which ones? I couldn't even get Firefox to open.

Funny thing, on Saturday night, HIPPIE slowed to a crawl, and as I went to do a re-start, I saw that an update was going to proceed, whether I wanted it to or not. So I did my re-start with the option of an update followed by an automatic re-start. Because I know it takes a long time to get going next time if I let HIPPIE shut down after an update.

You know what always happens, right? Everything can be working fine, and then that danged ol' update rears its head. I couldn't even get the 4-squared START button to work on Sunday. Due to that Spinny Blue Circle of Wait appearing every time I hovered over it. After more than an hour, I tried ESCAPE, which didn't work. So I held down the power button to extinguish HIPPIE. After a town trip, I tried again. I spent all afternoon and evening trying to get HIPPIE going. I wanted to try a System Restore. Nope. Spinny Blue Circle of Wait. THEN I lost the whole task bar at the bottom!

I figured HIPPIE had taken his last gasp. Hick said I could use The Pony's old old laptop, which he'd used maybe once, since The Pony said he updated Hick's photos on it. Of course you know what happened. NOBODY KNEW THE FREAKIN' PASSWORD! 

 

I bet I tried over 100 combinations of the two passwords and their variants used by The Pony, and the ONE password always used by Hick. Nothing worked. Strangely, four of them SEEMED to work. Which is just impossible! I'd get the WELCOME message and the spinning circle of dots, then it would revert to telling me the password was incorrect.

After 45 minutes of texting The Pony, and sending him a picture of the screen, we agreed that he could not help me. But he volunteered his newest old laptop, for Hick to pick up Monday afternoon. He promised to send a note with the password, heh, heh.

Anyhoo... at 8:00, I gave up and went to make my supper. Hick had already been fed. I then planned a trip down those 13 rail-less basement stairs to see if New Delly would still work. I've neglected him for months now, saving my knees by staying upstairs.

I sat down at the kitchen table, having returned The Pony's old old laptop back to the marred coffee table in the living room. I powered up HIPPIE one more time. On a lark, I plugged in the portable DVD player that I use for TurboTax, and had used last week to install my old Hoyle Casino & Word Games CD. I've been playing Texas Hold 'Em against fake people every night.

I signed in with my password, and HIPPIE showed the full task bar again! What in the Not-Heaven? I tentatively tried the START button, and the regular list popped up! Emboldened, I closed that list, and tried to open Firefox. SUCCESS!

This is very strange indeed. I'd been playing that Hold 'Em without the CD connected. It works either way, but without the CD, you can shut up those other players. They don't spout their canned responses. So obviously, HIPPIE worked five or six days just fine without that portable DVD player and the Hoyle CD connected. I don't know why that would send HIPPIE off the deep end, into the Spinny Circle of Wait. But for now, my HIPPIE is unbroken again.

I am still having Hick bring The Pony's old laptop out here, to use as a crutch.