Monday, September 1, 2008

Stupid is as Stupid Does.......

I really, really hate it when I do something stupid. Especially something stupid that costs money. It should make me feel better to confess it to the whole world, but it really will just make me feel stupider.

Hubby got a new computer last week. His old one just wouldn't go to eBay and Bettorschat fast enough, so we got him a new one. It came with Windows Vista (jury is still out on that) and Office 2007. I was still using the old Office XP on my laptop, which is just about the only computer I use.

The disks for Office 2007 came with the new computer, so I thought to myself, "Hey Self, why don't you install this on the laptop, and that way you can open all the 2007 documents that students submit." See, I was really trying to work more efficiently. Not cheat. I figured I had actually paid for the stupid program, so it was okay to install it on a different machine.

I knew the odds weren't good that it would actually work, but I figured I could return to the old program if it didn't. So I patiently waited for the program to install on my laptop, which it did beautifully. Didn't even ask me for the access code, even though I had it handy. I rebooted when it prompted me to do so, and I was sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo excited that I had beat the system.

Until I tried to open Word 2007. Then it said, "You naughty girl, you have already used the activation code on this product. Have a nice day. Goodbye, Stupid." Not really, but it may as well have.

So since Word 2007 was useless to me, I decided to do the right thing and UN-install it. I think you can guess where this is going. I uninstalled it. And now I have no word processing at all. No PowerPoint, with two presentations to make online tomorrow night. No Excel to enter the miles and miles of bicycle riding I'm not doing. I can still get online, but doing anything for my online teaching job is pretty much out of the question (except on hubby's brand-new, super-fast machine, and I swear I did not do it on purpose).

I debated buying a new laptop (I had already been shopping for one anyway) to the tune of about a thousand bucks.

My copy of Office 2007 will be here Wednesday. Two-day shipping.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Really must suck to be outsmarted by Microsoft. thank gosh for 2 day shipping although I'm sure it cost you a fortune.

Anonymous said...

I recently switched to Apple...I don't feel stupid much anymore...at least with computers.

Cheri Pryor said...

So...what would happen if your husband needed to REINSTALL Office on HIS computer? Would it not let him? I love computers. But hate them at the same time.