Frustrated is a better mood than Grumpy, but it'll have to do.

• Picked up another Toshiba Gigabeat for SpouseKitty. Loaded it up with audiobooks. Our library has a way to 'check then out' over the web to download them. They're in WMA format (Windows Media Audio?) That file format can have restrictions imposed on it, such as "it goes boom 5 November." That's a good thing -- that is the same as me checking the book back in.
  
  
• Had a problem getting it to recognize on my laptop. Remember, I have the exact same one. The players each have an internal serial number, but the software evidently was never tested with two of them hooked up to the same machine. Instead of showing both, it showed neither.
  
  
• In the midst of plugging and unplugging them, I hit the one major bug in the product: if you unplug it at just the wrong time, it wipes out the device's hard disk. You guessed, poof. There goes 30GB of music.
  
  
• On the other hand SpouseKitty's loaded the audiobooks just fine, so she'll be giggling to Dave Barry when she wakes up.
  
  
• Went home and dug out the USB hard disk I was using to store my music files prior to loading them onto my player. Windows Media Player 10 got to a certain point and blew up. Restarting it caused it to blow up 5 seconds after starting. This was my first sign something was bad.
  
  
• The second was when the USB hard disk started going "click," "click," "click."
  
  
• The third was when I couldn't browse to the folder with my music on it.
  
  
• After struggling with it for a long while, I point chkdsk at it, which promptly says, "I can't let you do that, Dave." Oops, wrong computer. "I can't fix errors while you're using the drive. Please reboot." Ah, gotta love Windows.
  
  
• Actually, this machine is an abomination. It's running Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition, a license from work. That means, if ever I leave my job, I have to pave the laptop, but that's what I do anyhow. I take off my personal files, then blow away the hard disk so I don't accidentally retain installations of software or copies of sensitive data.
  
  Only problem is, Windows 2003 is not supported on laptops. "Not supported" is not the same as "won't run." It, however, is the same as, "you're on your own."
  
  Worse, WMP 10 is not supported on Windows 2003. It won't even install -- you have to look on the web for the magic chicken dance to get it on there at all.
  
  So, I guess I should be grateful that I can see my Gigabeat at all. =)
  
  
• Anyhow, this takes us to midnight or so. The chkdsk required a reboot. It then required all of the computer - no login, no desktop, nothing. Just a litany of "this file is bad, fixing it" and "that sector is bad, replacing it."
  
  
• And blowing away a file here, a file there. Two of my favourite Cirque du Soleil soundtracks, Alegria and La Nouba, are both missing the first two tracks.
  
  Yes, I do have the CDs. Most of the music on that player is legit. The only problem is, the CDs are in one of the bedrooms in my condo. If you've been following this tale of woe, you remember that getting to boxes can be problematic.
  
  Oh, well.
  
  
• And that, ladies and gentlemen was my evening. Sorry I didn't have time for Sian. I'll make it up somehow.