Well, I'm feeling significantly better today . . . I actually made it out of the bedroom and onto the couch, where I spent most of the day enjoying the sunshine streaming in through the windows. I didn't make it to the beginning-of-semester kickoff meetings (especially not the luncheon!), which was disappointing because I didn't get the chance to reconnect with my colleagues. I'll be on campus tomorrow, though, so maybe I'll get to see people then.

Mostly I spent the day engaged in computer follies. (One of the problems with updating the blog regularly is that I have to own up to things like this . . . ) I seem to have acquired a new netbook over the weekend. As you may recall, I had been the somewhat satisfied owner of a white Acer One netbook, which I bought as a travel computer when I came home from China. Well, in November, Emma's laptop died (just before her final papers were due, natch), so we gave her the white netbook, and I got a blue one to replace it. (Blue is always my preferred color.)

I took the computer to Tucson, and used it quite a bit while we were there. I found the text annoyingly small - I bumped up the font size on my gmail (which meant I hadda scroll side to side), and I came home thinking I need to get new glasses because I found it very hard to read.

Then on Saturday we went off to Circuit City to look for a stereo receiver, and saw that they had Lenovo 10" netbooks. This was the first time I'd gotten to see them, and I immediately noticed that the extra inch of screen size, plus the matte screen (the Acer screen is . . . is what? Glossy? Shiny? Too reflective for my tastes??) made the display much much MUCH easier to read. So-ooo . . . yeah, you guessed it . . . Emil ended up with the blue Acer One, and I got the Lenovo.


(Hand included in photo to show size.)

And let me just tell you that I LOVE this computer. Nobody will get it from me unless they pry my cold, dead fingers from the keyboard . . . which, by the way, is clicky and responsive and so darned fun to type on, it reminds me of those ol' IBM PC keyboards from the mid-80s. (If they would work with modern-era computers I'd still be using one, because I'm sure we've got about ten of them in the basement somewhere . . . but let's not go there . . . ) I love this computer so much that I am considering sending my other laptop (a Sony Vaio acquired at a bargain-basement price) off to Charlie in Tucson; previously, that was the computer I used all the time, and the Acer was just sort of held in reserve. But this could really be my only computer.

So one of my "moving-in" tasks today was to install the Chinese language support. I went to the control panel, clicked on the language icon, and told the machine that I wanted to be able to type in Chinese. It gave the matter some thought, and then told me that it needed me to insert the installation disk into the CD-ROM drive.

Only problem is, I don't have an installation CD. (This makes perfect sense, since the machine doesn't have an internal CD-ROM drive.) I went to the Micro$loth website, where the first support question was, "Did your computer come with the operating system pre-installed?" "Yes." "Okay, well, too bad for you: We can't help you. Check with the manufacturer."

So then I called Lenovo. The helpful technician told me he really couldn't do anything for me. I said, "So I have a stripped-down version of Windows then." "Oh, no, Ma'am, your version of Windows is fully functional." "Well, I want to type in Chinese characters, and I can't, so from my point of view, this is a stripped-down version." He suggested that maybe I could find someone with the Windows XP CDs . . . I explained that I wasn't exactly happy with that solution, since I had just purchased a brand new computer. So he arranged for someone higher up to call me back. Within 72 hours. Or maybe a little longer, because they've just come back to work after Christmas. I'm sure that when I get the call, we'll have a nice little chat, which I hope ends up with me getting some installation CDs.

I also sent out an APB on my lists and on Facebook, because I thought I only needed one file . . . and I of course got three copies within an hour. But when I got that file and tried to install the language support, I realized I needed a gazillion other files as well.

So then Emil mentioned that we had an old, moldy set of XP installation disks sitting around somewhere. He found those in short order, but unfortunately, the filenames of the language files had all been changed, so once I got past the initial file, WIndows couldn't find any of the other files it needed. (Perhaps I could delete the file that I got from friends today and try to do the whole language install from the XP disks - perhaps there's an old version of that initial file on there, and everything would install fine. Or maybe my computer would seize up and smoke would come pouring out. Who knows?) (UPDATE: Just tried it. It didn't work.)

So then I called Circuit City. Someone there - some very helpful someone, and this is another reason that I'm glad we live in Lansing, because I doubt this would've happened in a place that was more On the Grid - told me that if I bring in the computer (and our external CD/DVD drive, since they don't have one of those), he would use their XP installation disks to add the language support. So that's what I've got on tap for tomorrow.

You know the really funny thing about this story? For a few days, my computer has been confused about what time it is. At first I thought maybe the clock was not working, but today, when I came out of my feverish flu fog and was thinking clearly, I went to re-set the time and date . . . and discovered that the computer thought that it was in the time zone for . . . Beijing. Which is, I'm sure, exactly where it came from. (And where I could download the language pack with no problem, I'm sure. Along with the whole operating system and about 7475487980 movies.)

Ah, well. Just a quaint little ironic reminder of what the experts have been telling us lately: China produces and we consume. (Almost makes buying this computer seem like my patriotic duty done. What have YOU done for the economy today?)