The computer arrived yesterday. I was deathly afraid to go anywhere, though I know UPS only comes after 3pm to my neighborhood. Knowing my luck, I would go somewhere for an hour, and that would be the hour that my new computer was delivered!!!!

But it got here around 3:30pm, so I guess I could have gone somewhere.

From 3:30pm onward, the large boxes in my front hall taunted me. "Put me together!!" they whispered. "See how fast I am!! See how much hard drive space I have!!!"

But I resisted! I was a good little wifey and waited till Kurt got home from work, even though that wasn't until 8pm. I was glad I did, though. It's hard work disassembling one computer and reassembling another!

("No disassemble number 5!!!")

Finally we had everything hooked up. It is pretty straightforward, after all. I've hooked so many computers up in my lifetime that I can almost do it in my sleep. And since everything is color-coordinated nowadays, that makes it even easier.

One slight problem -- I don't have a PS/2 port on my computer, so right now I can't use my ergonomic keyboard. I think I might have a PS/2 to USB adapter in the box; I think I remember giggling about that when we first got the keyboard. The keyboard Dell packs with its computers is TINY -- only large enough for the keys. It looks cool, but it's hard to type on. And it's hard on the wrists as well, since there is no built-in wrist rest.

It's kind of hard getting used to the LCD monitor. I like it because there is a ton more room on my desk now, and I can have my speakers just behind the monitor instead of on the shelf above the work area. Having the speakers there was a pain in the neck, as the wires got in the way of the books I have stored up there.

Once we got the computer all hooked up, we started it up, and we didn't have sound. I didn't worry about it too much; it took me another hour before I realized that maybe something was seriously wrong. When we had unpacked the speakers and the subwoofer from the box, we noticed some damage to the woofer, like someone had sat upon the box. But we were prepared to deal with it if they sounded okay. The problem is, we had no sound. If we did turn the sound up as loud as it would go, then the sound was extremely scratchy and still not very loud.

Finally I hooked my Boomtube (a Woot purchase!) speakers up to the headphone jack, and baddaboom! Sound! So I knew it wasn't my sound card. It had to be the speakers, right?

So I called India, I mean, I called Dell to get a new set of speakers. I really don't mind that they were broken because I don't think it was Dell's fault. I think UPS was careless in their handling of the box, and that's when the damage occurred.

The very nice lady on the other end of the line (who for some reason sounded exactly like my stepmom, only with an Indian accent) assured me that they would replace the speakers with no problem, and they should be to me within three to five business days. I was happy.

This morning I realized I need sound. I am one of those people that can't have a silent house. If I am not watching tv, then I have the radio on. I need some kind of noise in the background. Also, I rely on the sounds on my computer to tell me what's going on without looking at the screen. So I hooked my Boomtube speakers back up until I could talk to Kurt and find out where he stuck the old Dell speakers.

Once I talked to Kurt, I got out the old speakers and hooked them up. This was no small feat, let me tell you. Bless his soul, Kurt is not a neat wire kind of a guy. I know that wires get all bunched up after years of being in a confined area, but I didn't think they would do that just overnight! It was quite an undertaking to get the new speakers unhooked and removed from the desk.

Once I had the old speakers in, I realized we had a big problem. The old speakers were doing the same thing!!!

At this point I was getting pretty pissed off. I mean, I spent a good chunk of money on this computer, and I'd already had to call India, I mean Dell, earlier in the day because Dell pre-installs all this CRAP on your computer before it's delivered, and some program was causing my computer always to be active, thereby not allowing my screensaver to run. I'd been talking to a computer geek friend earlier in the day, who'd said that Dell had been a good brand back in the day, but that it'd seen its time. I was starting to agree with him at this point.

So once again I called India, I mean Dell. Another nice lady answered, who basically made me feel like the world's biggest eejit.

My problem was I had been plugging my speakers into THE WRONG PORT!!! There's the upper color-coded port, which on all other computers I had owned had been the correct port, but since we had a sound card installed (not just the cheesy one on the motherboard), I needed to plug the speakers into the color-coded port at the bottom of the tower where the sound card is.

Well, gee.

This isn't the first time I've done this. When I hooked up the first computer that I called my own when I got to my first college dorm, I managed to plug my speakers into the wrong port then as well. But those ports weren't color-coded; they were just three identical ports in a row, and you had to have just the right light to be able to see the engraved lettering telling you which port was which.

At any rate, my speakers now function, and it's weird hearing some bass to my sounds! I haven't had a woofer since I was in college. Our old computer was just a good basic model, nothing fancy, and definitely nothing extra like a woofer.

So all I have to do now is get used to this extremely bright LCD screen (and I've set the brightness WAYYYY down already) and install the programs I'd had on the other machine, as well as rescuing my contacts from the old computer. All in all, this new computer seems to be working out fairly well, which makes me happy.

Wooooo!!!

PS: HAPPY 32nd BIRTHDAY, KURT!!!