This rain is starting to grate on me. On weekend it rendered my beloved pair of jeans wet beyond salvation, barely minutes after I had taken them out of the closet. Hours later it soiled my expensive Shangri-La Peking duck. It had been warm when I left the restaurant, it was as aqueous as a living duck when I got home. I ate it, but, kids, please don't try this at home.

Then just now, I was happily preparing my yummy instant noodles for dinner when suddenly it poured like crazy. Look what it's done to my guitar! To my previously snug bed! Friggin' rain, what's wrong with you? Gosh!

What's even more irritating is that it doesn't pay to blame the rain. It's even worse than God. At least when you blame God, He'll be the first to forgive you. Rain? It can't be bothered -- I wonder if it's a citizen of this city -- and just keeps pouring. And pouring.

And pouring.

And now I am grating on you. Sorry 'bout that. Blame it on the rain. Whoa, what's up with the Gita Remaja flashback? You guys, what about some Gita Remaja rewind? Gita Remajaaa... Acara kitaaa...

Remember my grudge with Micro$oft's KB896688? Well, if you need another good example of what could've been, here's one.

On Monday I went to a client's site to help with Hyperion -- yup, can never run away from it -- installation. I'll spare you more grudges; suffice to say that at about 5 we were finally done with the installation, the lady client was happy.

Next, she asked me if I could spare some time to look at some users' puters. They had been having problems installing Hyperion's Insight plugin on IE. Not in the scope, but I thought, what the heck, it was pouring outside -- surprise, surprise -- and one of the IT ladies was kinda cute, so I stayed.

The problem was, Insight plugin refused to install itself. It did prompt to install, but immediately said installation was successful. And never was it. So I went to Control Panel to see if Insight was considered installed there (it wasn't,) clicked on IE's "Managed Add-ons" menu to verify it wasn't there (it wasn't,) checked the "C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\PLUGINS" directory if it existed (it didn't,) even removed all entries in the registry that contained "brio" or "insight" (one puter didn't even any such entries.) Nothing. The problem was still there.

Then I remembered *if this were Monk, there would be a previous, sometimes unseen, scene playing now* my struggle with Windows Update ActiveX thingy. So I thought, no fish, could it be... *insert some suspense tune here*.

And it could, Ladies and Gents! I removed the so-called security update -- using Control Panel's Add and Remove Programs with "Show updates" checked, in case you're interested -- and voila! Friggin' Insight installed successfully! Woohoo! BTW, for those keeping the record, yes, I used the same expression before. What can I say, I'm so original.

So where's the "what could've been" stuff? Well, I tell you, if Micro$oft hadn't been kind enough to pick me as a victim for their latest hotfix goof -- not everyone experienced the problem, mind you -- I could've stayed until 9 or 10 there. As it happened, I left happily at 7.

Oh, BTW, if I had stayed until 9 or 10 there, I might've had the cute IT lady's presence for a few more hours and would've arrived at home dry.

Funny how life is. It's like a box of chocolates. It's like a game of pool. It's like a wheel; sometimes you're up, sometimes you're down. And now I say life's like the weather; sometimes it rains heavily outside...

...and sometimes the rain sneaks into your room and leaves your beloved guitar soaking.

Current music: The Killers - Jenny Was A Friend of Mine
Current mood: happy