I dont mean mine. =P

It seems that just because I'm on my lappy a good 12 hours a day, people assume I know something about computers! Isnt that kind of like assuming that just because someone has driven to work for years, they can rebuild an engine?

So a friend brings over his quite old Dell desktop over, maybe two weeks ago, with the assumption that I can fix it in 2 seconds. Suddenly I've somehow become The Flash of computer repair, despite a nonexistent marketing and advertising budget. O.O

I put off dealing with it, until a few days ago, despite repeated, "is it fixed yet?" queries.

So I turn the thing on and it gets to Windows, and instantly 30-40 programs try starting up at once, as soon as Windows starts, like a line of large, hungry people scrambling to be first in line at a buffet.

The sad little hourglass appears to be trying to give some of them a timeout, but cant seem to keep up. The hundred or so icons on the desktop are unclickable, and the Start button looks like its painted on and just there for decoration.

Well this is easy, I figured, I'll just reinstall Windows!

I throw XP in the cd drive, and boot up.

....No dice. Apparently the cd rom isnt even an option in the boot order, which I find out by going into the bios and setting it to boot first.

I get into Windows Setup and it asks for a product key. No biggie, I figured, as there's one on top of the computer, obnoxiously printed in small print, right under "Genuine Product Key".

Apparently "Genuine Product Key" stands for "Invalid Product Key", because thats what I get when I enter it. I tried a handful of times, in case my quickly going sense of sight somehow caused the error.

So now I'm looking around for another windows cd, in the stacks of cd's that I have lying around. This is why when people ask if I know anything about computers, I shake my head furiously and say, "no habla ingles!"