Came home from work yesterday to find that the electric company played a nasty little trick on me by turning off our electricity. By accident, of course. As poor Lola, my computer (sexy name for a computer, eh?), was up and running at the time they switched off power, she seemed to have suffered some sort of “compy brain damage” and decided that all she could possibly produce in the wake of such a traumatic event was a plain black screen. I’ve never had to endure such agony as that which plagued me yesterday, as I sat there for well over an hour switching her on and off in the hopes that she may somehow return to life… but no such luck. So, I took a little trip to Best Buy today after work and waited in line next to a very talented young man who passed the time by repeatedly dropping his own sandals on to his feet and catching them in a way so that they slipped on perfectly (watching him raise his arms in triumph every time he managed it was especially entertaining), in order to speak with a member of the “Geek Squad”, who assured me that all I had to do was reinstall Windows. Little did he know, all I really had to do was trick Lola into thinking that I was doing a full ‘System Restore’ - before I could actually complete the action of restoring the hard drive, up pops DPT, and all is well again. Shame, really, as I quite fancied buying myself a new computer. A nice little laptop. Lolita, I’d name her. She’d go everywhere with me. We’d be best friends forever.

Or until she died. Like Lola almost did.

Best not to spend my hard-earned money on such extravagances, though, as I will be traveling to Chicago at the beginning of September, for a weekend of drunken debauchery well-mannered frivolity, and I need as much money as I can possibly save, to spend on hookers and coke. By “coke,” I mean “Coca-Cola,” of course. And by “hookers,” I mean… erm, “rugby players.” (Thank you, Dictionary.com.) The 9-hour drive to the Windy City should be entertaining in its own right, as Sarah and I fully intend to spend it listening to Teh Potter on tape. Err, on CD. Actually, on Ipod, I suppose. You can’t beat Stephen Fry narrating Half-Blood Prince whilst surrounded by the (surprisingly boring) Iowa countryside. Surely.