Went to Black Friday at Wal-Mart. Had my stompy boots on, did not, unfortunately, get to use them.

We got to The Mart of Wals at 3:30am, and grabbed a cart. I had @DaemeonX with me, and we cruised through the store, picking up the items we needed that were
not setup for the 5am start. Finished up at 3:45, and setup at the ps3 display. At about 4:45, one of my exes showed up at the display, and was standing right
next to it, while the earlier crowd was keeping enough distance to allow carts and shoppers to pass by.

At 5am, she just about got her block knocked off. At 5:00:10, I was passing ps3s behind me in a chain-gang method that we had worked out earlier, and 5 ps3s
got delivered to the 5 people who had set up the bucket brigade : ).

We pulled out of the ps3 scrum, and @DaemeonX says "merry christmas!".

I replied, ever so suavely, "what?"

He pointed at the ps3. We picked up a few other items, including a mess of VERY good deals on rugrat bait, and got on out of there.

I has a ps3. And Black Friday is _highly_ amusing. Next year, I think we are gonna do Best Buy, that should be fun!
"No can brain today. Want cheezeburger."
From NGE: Nobody Dies, by Gregg Landsman
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5579457/1/NGE_Nobody_Dies

Just something I found while looking for some parts my RC Hummer required



The music's a bit .....

I was expecting to see a Kajira stomp through at one point, till I remembered if someone brought an RC Hummer or drove their car onto the lot, that would count
as one.

--Rod.H

Well, I've been looking, and I've noticed that we don't have a topic here for videos made from Touhou Project songs, remixes and other assorted.

So I decided to make one.

To start things off, an old classic and a new classic.

New Classic: Bad Apple!!

Old Classic: Fragrance Of Oriental Sunflower
- Grumpy Uncle Gearhead

Okay, it's now official. At least 3 of the girls were not given the talk about the birds and the bees. Which is surprising considering 2 of them have
mothers. What good is it to get to first or 2nd base if you can't go all the way to home?
__________________
Into terror!,  Into valour!
Charge ahead! No! Never turn
Yes, it's into the fire we fly
And the devil will burn!
- Scarlett Pimpernell

Over the last few weeks I had a battle with my nieces PC.

It started to give me the infamous missing or invalid hal.dll.

So after some research I booted the system into recovery mode using the Windows XP Install CD.

Try to delete boot.ini

Run bootcfg /rebuild

run bootfix

exit and boot into Windows XP

Window starts normally.

I login then reboot...

Only to get again:

"Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt:

system32hal.dll.

Please re-install a copy of the above file."

After a couple rounds of this I did a repair installation of Windows XP.

That worked for all of a few days...

Again back to the missing or corrupt hal.dll

Stop for a few days to cool off.

Do some research.

http://forums.techguy.org/7031504-post4.html

Rerun the above procedure

I note that boot.ini

boot into safe mode cop from window update folderto system folder hal.dll, ntoskrnl.exe

ntkrnlpa.exe with the versions that are their.

Reboot and then I reboot without loginng in.

Login

Then logoff and reboot.

Only to get again:

"Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt:

system32hal.dll.

Please re-install a copy of the above file."

Ok back where we started...

Then I rerun the commands take a look at the root directory after login.

root.ini is missing

Post what has been happening so far at tech support site to see if get any suggestions as to a solution...

Get suggestion to run chkdsk /r after booting in recovery console and then run windows defrag...

Did so end result

Windows boots up normally

after a reboot...

Bad or missing hal.dll...

Repair procedure again

This time after login in I take a look at root directory with windows explorer (after changing a few defaults so will show hidden and system protected
files...Boot.ini is gone.

At this point I came to the conclusion that something was happening after logging into Window XP. Probably malware...

Do some more searching using different search terms...

Then finally a clue...

http://forum.applian.com/showthread.php?t=2123

To be brief apparently some versions of the ask.com toolbar in conjunction with IE8 delete boot.ini, autoexec.bat, and config.sys (last two not needed in
windows XP).

Knowing that my niece has downloaded games and may have installed the ask toolbar without even realizing she had done so.

Run yet again the bootcfg /rebuild and bootfix commands

Boot into safe mode.

Check if ask.com toolbar is ionstalled. (it was).

Uninstall the damn thing plus a few other toolbars that had been installed.

Reboot.

Login to windows

Take a look at root directory...

Root.ini is there.

Reboot

This time windows finally loads normally...

In retrospect the few days the computer worked after the repair installation was due to not having updated yet to IE8. As soon as it updated ask.com and IE 8
zapped the root system files.In this case I would call ask.com toolbar malware.
--Werehawk--
My mom's brief take on upcoming Guatemalan Elections "In last throes of preelection activities. Much loudspeaker vote pleading."

Holiday wishes to everyone this morning, even if you aren't in/from the US.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

I originally posted this to the FFML on 11 April 1997, as an entry for a fanfic Bulwer-Lytton contest. Sadly, it didn't win. I'm reposting it here as a result of the Ushio and Tora thread up in
General/General. Unfortunately, you need to be at least marginally familiar with the first couple episodes of the series for this to make much sense.

Quote: Ukyou unshouldered the giant spatula and lept into the fray, its violent swings dispatching fish and insect monsters left and right. Her ankle-length
mahogany hair swirled around her like tendrils of smoke as she launched herself at the ugly apparitions.

"You're not bad with that thing, kid," said the huge, tiger-like creature at her side, "but get more than 3 feet away from it, and
I'm going to eat you."

"Shut up, Tora!" Ukyou yelled as she clanged the battlespat over the orange monster's huge head.
Damn, she thought, I should have left him down there in the cellar under Dad's restaurant, pinned to the wall with this stupid spatula. Who'd've
thought those family fairy tales were true? Who ever heard of a magical spatula powered by the human soul?

-- From episode 1 of "Ukyou and Tora"

Journey - Into your arms.

absolutely WONDERFUL work. I reccomend Time3 for any Journey fan. If you're shopping, pick up a copy of Arrival to go with this.


"No can brain today. Want cheezeburger."
From NGE: Nobody Dies, by Gregg Landsman
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5579457/1/NGE_Nobody_Dies

First, a URL, for a REALLY short onsie.

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3581083/1/CyberGenerated]%[link=http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3581083/1/CyberGenerated]http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3581083/1/CyberGenerated]

This is the only Cybergeneration fic I've ever seen, and also the only Harry Potter/cyberpunk. Now, I haven't looked hard for HP/CP either, but on a FFN search for "cyberpunk" there's half a dozen Naruto stories, a couple Kim Possible, and a few pages of stuff from settings where it applies in the first place like GitS or BGC.

So, know any other Harry GoBoy, choombas?

- CD
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

I got an invite to Google Wave from someone I'd never heard of called "izeas.gt". I'd've written it off as spam except the links looked
legit, and googling the guy's handle turns up an anime fan who appears to be working with Google code in some capacity.

So... is one of you proud contributors to this community "izeas.gt"? Or do I have a previously unsuspected fan out there who's just gifted me
with access to a Google beta?

ETA: I overlooked something during my first pass of investigation... "izeas.gt" seems to have something to do with TVTropes.

I think I'm going to take the chance. With my security measures, the worst I can get is Google saying, "What? No!" when I try the link.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.