They are back

June 28, 2009 - A-life & Australia & ENGLISH - (7) COMMENTs

Or they were here the whole time? Who knows. I am talking about cockroaches. I think they are nasty, while Nathan seems to have accepted them as normal Australian “pets”. He cannot get bothered. I still freak out when I again spot one in our house, because they are just yuck! Nathan thinks that mice are way more dirty than cockroaches. I would not agree. Cockroaches are a normal incidence in Australia’s hot climate, but since we are in winter season now, and the temperature dropped quite a bit, I thought the cockroaches would die or at least leave us alone. Of course that was a bit of naive Cola thinking, because they would survive everything. I read from someone who has spotted them in a freezer!!! Holy bastards! But now that we sealed almost every crack, got a new back back flyscreen door, sealed the under the sink cupboards thoroughly, got a almost new non-leaking fridge, I thought that the problem was under control. I must say, the traps (lure ‘n kill baits) from Bunnings need to be replaced, because they are probably not working anymore. I also think, that they could come in through the new sealing fan in our bathroom that has been installed a few weeks ago. They can easy come from the roof through the fan slits. That would explain why I found the cockie on the bathroom floor…on its back! Doing the last movements…it looked like it was dying.

Why are cockroaches always on its back when they are going to die?

I caught it with a plastic container and ran out, only in my underwear (it was late evening, and there was no free hand to put clothes on), throwing it…accidentally only into our front yard flower bed. Oops.

Funniest thing happening today

June 25, 2009 - A-life & ENGLISH & Funny - (0) COMMENTs

In facebook I have a request from a person (male) wanting to become friends, which means to actually be able to see my full profile on facebook and generally be able to exchange messages.
Normally I get quite a few requests from random people I don’t know or from people who know some of my friends but I don’t know the person.
This one is different, because the guy has no photo in his profile and no friends so far, which is a little bit weird. First I thought, ah, I would know a guy with that first name, but the surname didn’t fit.
Well, I think it is weird that I am the only person in his friend’s list then and why hasn’t he got at least a photo? Suscpicious….just spam?
I was too curious and wrote that person a message:

“hey, you added me as friend. who are you? do i know you?”

Today came the answer:

“Hello my dear Anja,
I´m a little bit insulted. I used to be your boyfriend. How are you doing?”

Laptop update

June 22, 2009 - Australia & ENGLISH - (0) COMMENTs

I will make it short. WordPress didn’t save my long post that I wrote on almost all day. Well, it was not meant to be published I guess.

In a nutshell: My laptop’s ac power adapter is not the broken part of my laptop. I went to a store to test my laptop with a brand new power unit. Still didn’t work. Then I went to the HP service dealer in Perth. They wanted to have $110 for the first quote and also $110 for saving my data from my hard-drive. Even up to $800 for replacing the motherboard (if it really is the reason for not turning on). Too much; I decided to do it better on my own.

That said, I bought an external case for my laptop’s hard drive. Why? To get it out of the laptop, inside the external case, plug in the USB into another laptop, e.g. Nathan’s, trying to access and save my laptop’s data before it takes the last breath.
The external case was only $15! Aluminium, USB powered. Great deal!

What can I say? Doc Nate (who normally puts his hands on Mac’s only) opened up my laptop and took the hard drive out, put it into the external case, plugged the USB in the drive and also in his Macbook Pro. Running! Within seconds I could see my files. All there. Yay!
This means that my hard drive was and is not damaged. It really seems to be the motherboard, which unfortunately is too expensive to replace for my old laptop. Not worth it. Therefore: looking for a new cheap but good replacement….maybe a netbook? 10inch? 13inch? Dell, Toshiba, Asus, HP or MSI?

Well, I didn’t really plan to spend money for a new laptop right now…therefore it needs to be a bargain baby. Of course, I want the best for the least. :P DRAMA!

My laptop is dead

June 15, 2009 - A-life & ENGLISH - (1) COMMENT

This morning my dear HP laptop decided to not start after I pressed the power button.
A few lights flashed (wireless, hard-drive, power), but only for 2 seconds. Then dead. The fan didn’t even turn on, the hard/drive didn’t make a sound…yes, you can guess that I am typing this post not from my computer. Luckily Nathan lets me use his. Well, after I searched for a few hours for help online, I decided to try out the HP online support help. Awesome! I was guided through a troubleshooting process.
Removed my battery, removed power supply, presed power button for 1 minute, put battery back in, connected with AC power adapter and tried to restart it. My fan started running, yeah! Full of excitement I wrote him he were a genious…but after a 4 seconds my laptop turned off again, even before I could get anything onto the screen…and I added the words “almost”. His conclusion was that it sounds like it is my system board. He gave me 2 addresses for HP service shops in Perth. I also asked him if he could give me the board model number so that I can buy the system board and replace it myself. He was so friendly to send me a link how to remove a main board and put a new one in. Unfortunately, I don’t have the right screwdriver to open up my laptop (who invented these tiny special screws??? damn! ).

After the chat with the support I thought about another idea: maybe it is my ac power adapter?! Maybe my laptop didn’t charge anymore and ran out of battery power? That could be a reason why it is not turning on. Simple as that. The ac adapter is running since 6 years…and mostly every day. I will try to find a store tomorrow who has the right ac adapter so that I can try it with my laptop right in the store. The ac adapter would be one of the cheaper items to replace. The main board costs around $200 (plus shipping) if I install it myself. I don’t want to know how much they charge for labour if I bring it to a service shop. The only thing I am worried about are my PHOTOS and some other data (my thunderbird email program for instance)!!! I do backup data, but there is so much I haven’t backuped yet! So many photos that are not copied to my external hard drive…I hope they are not lost. Please let it be my ac power unit. Pleeeaaaaase!
Wish me luck!

OYO

June 9, 2009 - Australia & ENGLISH & Natey&Cola - (2) COMMENTs

What can that mean? OYO is the new slang for One Year Older. It is my Birthday today, yeah!

Happy Birthday to me!

Here are some photos from the surprise birthday party, which Nathan organised for me last Sunday!

He worked until 1pm and we planned to do something in the afternoon together. He called at 2pm that he is helping a friend from work with something and he will be home a bit later. So I waited. Then he called and said he wanted to come home now, but his car won’t start (again, a usual problem since weeks). I went down to the beach, where he was, to pick him up.
When I arrived Nathan wanted to say bye to his colleague and asked me to come with him. At this point Nathan acted a bit weird. Then I smelled his beer breath and said: well, you said you are helping a friend, but you smell like you just had a beer together at the beach…Suspicious…I started getting a tiny bit angry, because it was so important to him, that we spend time together after his work, but he just went to have a beer with his work colleague/friend.

The following photo story will tell the rest.
SURPRISE SURPRISE!
The first time (in my life, I think) that I had no clue what is going on. No one ever had a surprise party for me.

Click on the PLAY button and start the slideshow OR stop it with PAUSE and go forward with the left and right buttons.