if there is any time when i've felt the pain of total defeat, this is it. i've spent the entire day trying to coax windows into reinstalling correctly, and now that it's working…i'm defeated all over again.

the day started off great, with the dsl tech arriving early for the appointment that i had made. we begged and pleaded my computer to work properly until we finally ended up setting the dsl up on an external ethernet router (not really a router, but an external pppoe [ppp over ethernet] modem) and then i was cruising along, just fine.

and then i tried running windows update. i got through some critical updates with no problem, but then the eternal bane of my existence, service pack 2, decided to lock my computer up and send the boot sector (and ntloader and just about everything else) to that big developer circle in the sky. i tried to repair the install, but it didn't work. i ended up having to format the entire system partition and starting from scratch. this process went every way but smoothly (every which way but loose?). i'd say that the install process for windows2000 locked up a good seven or eight times before i finally got the fucker working. and you consider this piece of shit working, or i'll be a monkey's uncle. i take that back…it'll end up not working anymore and how am i gonna explain a little monkey nephew?

windows is now working. the dsl is reinstalled and working. all of this adds up to great, right? wrong. now come the details…

i lost every shred of saved email i had. every email to or from her. every email that you sent me and that i wanted to save. my address book gone. all of it. poof. somebody please so that i stop feeling so empty inside…

on top of all that, my complete and utter defeat, she won't return my calls or email. it's just salt in the wound, i guess. what should i expect? i never did anything wrong. i should know that when you do nothing wrong, you usually get the worse treatment than when you are a total shit.

this would be where i'd say one of those typical guy things like "women…i'll never understand 'em."

well…as typical as it is…it's true.