About That Mayhem i Mentioned or This WAS very exciting.

You've seen that guy on the insurance commercials, right?  Mayhem?

Well, now i'm going to try to remember the rest of the story i started to tell about our adventure into Black Friday.  

I believe it was 12:40 a.m. when i left off.

Sometime between 12:40 and actually heading home, it became important to get something called an hdmi cable.  This is the cable that makes a high definition t.v. actually show a picture that is high definition, as compared to those other regular pictures we used to get on those box shaped t.v.s that we never knew had anything wrong with them.

But i digress.

Must have hdmi cable.  Cable not in box.

Since the lines were so long at Best Buy, we made our way to the not quite as horribly busy anymore Wal-mart, where hubby went in to purchase the sought-after cable, and where i used the ladies room as quickly as i could before hurrying back to the vehicle to guard the ever so valuable items that were in plain sight in our little vehicle.

Hubby quickly purchased the hdmi cable and a couple of other things.  I don't remember what those couple of other things were, but couple of other things were the only things in the bag when we got home.  Apparently another bag remained at Wal-mart.

And OH the sadness. The time may very well be 2 am or something to that effect, but we are setting up a giant t.v. before there will be sleep.  Well, at least before hubby will sleep.

There was great lamenting about the still and again missing hdmi cable, but he persevered and figured out a way to set up the t.v. anyway.  But alas without the high definition.  And i have to agree, that wasn't much of a picture.

My poor hubby.  Sometime after i had my treasured new laptop plugged in to charge up, i completely checked out, and....

I didn't tell you about the laptop.

As you might imagine, since i got the exact item i had researched and picked out and stood in line for, i was mostly just interested in my laptop.  Not so much interested in the giant t.v. or its hdmi cable.

Well, there's something about adrenaline and lack of sleep that can do bad things to the workings of the mind.

My hubby was at some point reading reviews on this t.v. (post purchase), and reflecting on the horrible picture we were getting without the hdmi cable.  And thinking OH NO.  I have a horrible t.v.!

I, on the other hand, was finding my new computer unresponsive to being turned on.  But i just decided it needed to be charged overnight or something before it would work.  So i plugged it in, admired its beauty, and went to bed.

The time is roughly 3 am.


Thank God for sleep!

After not nearly enough sleep, we awoke and set about the business of the rest of black friday.

Hubby rushed to the local Family Dollar, purchased an hdmi cable, and found his poorly reviewed t.v. to be just wonderful.  Relief.

I realized that when a computer is plugged into the wall, it should power up, and came to understood that we would be traveling back to the big city today.

The time?  10ish, a.m.

I boxed up my useless treasure and got ready to leave.  My hubby, whom i love like crazy, looked at my with pity and kindness and chose to travel with me and keep me company.  I was glad.  And after a pit stop for a very large cup of coffee, we were back on the road.

Thankfully, the return line at Best Buy on black friday is almost non-existent.  And the geeks made sure my replacement computer (of which there were plenty) would successfully power up.  For this i was very thankful.

I can't remember the order of things quite right.  But in some order, we shopped a couple of different home improvement stores for tools.  We explored my husbands admiration of my new computer, and we ended up finding him a not quite so wonderful computer for an even smaller black friday price.

And also...

Oh this requires a flash back, or something like a flash back.

Something like a flashback:

For years, in our past, my husband and i have enjoyed a computer game, called Civilization, in which one starts out as a caveman, builds a village and eventually a civilization, which fights against other civilizations to rule the world, or just reach space; it depends.  And for years, we have dreamed of playing said game against one another.  But for this reason or that, have never accomplished that goal, of playing the game together, on separate computers, against each other.  Maybe a silly dream, but a dream.

End something like a flashback.

And also, he purchased two copies of the newest version of the civilization game, so that we could play against each other on our new lap top computers.  It was very exciting.

On the way home, i drove, and my loving man, whose computer turned on immediately, explored his computer.  I was a little jealous.

Wow, i'm just realizing how long this story is going to be if i don't find a way to sum it up.

Summing up:

Civilization game didn't work.
Older version of game purchased on internet.  Twice.
Plan to connect to internet through cell phones worked great for me and not at all for hubby....even after an entire day on the phone with AT&T and still not getting to use my own computer.
Hubby very frustrated.
Dream of playing Civilization against each other finally unthwarted became successful by means of cord connecting both computers directly to one another.  Oh the hours and hours and hours of time we spent blissfully manipulating pretend people on our computers.  It was grand!

Frustration with Windows 8 eventually...

Oh wait. Here i cannot sum up.  I must esplain.

In my personal opinion, the Windows operating system hit its perfect peak with Windows 2000 Professional.  Any and every new version since then has been entirely for the purpose of selling new software.  There has been no improvement in the ability or ease of use of this system.  There has been only frustration and fluff.  This fluff has culminated in the amazing test of human tolerance which is Windows 8.

As you might imagine, both of our new computers use Windows 8.

After some bothering around and figuring out how to get around the fluff and the pretense, i eventually have started to come to terms with Windows 8, and enjoy my computer more and more.

My hubby on the other hand has decided that he will protest the makers of fluff and frustration by refusing to buy their product until they sense it up a bit.  He actually considered (those of you who know him and his red hot distaste for all things apple will understand that the world might really end on 12/22/12) switching to a MAC.

A moment of silence please.

Deep breath.

For those of you who are unfamiliar, until Windows 8, one could just as easily have said , "when that man buys a Mac.....," in place of, "when pigs fly and unicorns fly airplanes....." in regard to my husband.  Apple products are universally banned in our home.  But on this day......

This is a big deal, people.

And this weekend, hubby's computer went back to Best Buy. In protest.  Of Windows 8.

And the money shall be saved for something more sensible, like a table saw.  Or a wrench.  Or a lifetime supply of hdmi cables, just in case.

Or maybe a lot of rice in preparation for hard times.

Anything but a Windows 8 computer.

And that, my friends, is the rest of the story, as best i can remember it.

I don't mind telling you that i feel a little bit satisfied about having researched and chosen and gotten a product i love (minus the aforementioned operating system).  I hope to blog hundreds of thousands of meaningful words on my new gift.

With hopes of less fluff in Windows 9.

Good night.