Upgrade Woes

I'm installing a new computer to replace the five-year old laptop I've been relying on and, like most things at Chez Szondy, this simple phrase hides a frightening story.

It was bad enough when I ordered the thing only to learn that after the company in question (which I will not name, though it rhymes with bell) trousered the money and then put a "hold" for the exact same amount, which left me in Canada with half my current account suddenly unavailable. I didn't think they could top this, but they did by arranging to deliver it yesterday during the only brief time I was not home and five minutes before I returned and with the promise that it will be delivered today in the pouring rain. No doubt at such a time and in such a manner as to give Little Ann, the younger of our two dogs, time to eat an entire PC and monitor.

Then there is the deal that I made with the wife that if we could tweak the budget enough to get a new computer we would swap around the bedroom and the office, which involves much lifting, carrying, unscrewing, dismantling, reassembling, rescrewing with a lot of dusting, wiping, hoovering, painting, steam cleaning and general mucking about as one can imagine and which has no prospect of actually being completed any time in the near future, so I look forward to the prospect of spending the next fortnight being unable to leave the house because I can't find my trousers. Even my wife, whose idea this was, had second thoughts–actually, a full-blown panic attack at two AM, but she wisely decided not to wake me because my reaction would have been predictable, to put it mildly.

Not that the representatives of homo sapiens have all the rough of it. We moved the bed last night, the underside of which is Carl the Cattle Dog's place of refuge from an uncertain world and he found himself faced with a unique situation; unwelcome change and no place to hide from it. Even after we put the bed back together again Carl was still in a state of shock and spent the night curled up hard against the back of my knees.

And this is all just on the furniture moving front. Wait until I get to moving getting all the electronics moved and sorted out.

I've allocated plenty of wailing and gnashing of teeth time.

Update: Please welcome the Zen 7000; designation for the latest edition of the the Zen network at Chez Szondy. Now for oodles of installing and configuring.