#38: The man just oooooooooozes awwwwwness

[Iseeme]

One thing about HP - their technical HelpDesk is in India!!! "Bob" or "Steve" may answer the phone but you'll be talking to Ranjit or Vinod and they're very difficult to understand. I spent nearly 3 hours one day talking to various departments, repeating the same information over and over - just to get a blown out monitor replaced. They kept asking me what the error message was and I kept saying the screen is black - there IS no error message! I must have given the serial number about 5 times before I finally started yelling "read the trouble ticket!" But I have used HP equipment for quite awhile - even when I was working - and never had much of a problem with it. When I bought my home computer after I retired, I actually went through CostCo and picked out the components. It was a pretty good deal. And you get the usual warrantees.

Scarlett - are you counting the ants or have you sent them to ant heaven yet?? And no, I don't line up my milk bottles because I don't drink milk. My wine bottles, on the other hand.......

[Gibby]

anna, I recently got a perfectly lovely new HP laptop at Best Buy. It has a purdy 17 inch screen so I can make Clay bigger.

See?

Scarlett, if Iseeme has someone in the wings, I don't know why you'd have to be faithful to her. Who knows what she's really been up to with this "someone in the wings." Must be rather serious if she is even mentioning the person!

Besides, there are LOTS of other people here with large tracts of photobucket pics. Ahem.

[justclay12]

Haven't been posting much lately because I think I was born without the chat gene but I have been enjoying reading. I've also been reading over at the CH because they are telling about their first tour memories. What touched me in reading the stories is how Clay has effected so many lives. There are so many people like me whose lives were completely changed because he came into our lives. I used to be afraid to drive by myself outside of a 25 mile radius from home and this year I drove to NYC several times to see Clay in Spamalot. There have been so many first for me, and hopefully there will be so many more. Hoping to meet up with all of you and maybe even get a chance to sleep with Scarlett someday.

[gbmifan]

I cannot stand ants!!!!! I walked into my kitchen a couple weeks ago and there were ants all around the baseboard and under my table. I went out and bought traps, then left on vacation. When I got back I still had ants but they had not migrated any further. My hubby went out and mowed the lawn and discovered the base of the house had huge ant hills. He sprayed those suckers, and I have had no further ants. We have been in this house for 20 years and that was the first time I had ants inside.

I gave a Dell laptop and so far after only 2 years have had no problems. Mine is XP and I really do not want to try Vista. I am told you can still ask Dell for XP for awhile yet. My husband work laptop is also a Dell and he is on it for about 10 hours a day with no problems. He recieves alot of his work via the computer such as product prints, many tables etc.

I hope that all of you who got tickets today have just a great time. Take some awesome pictures or video if allowed. Will be anxious that night till recaps are done.

[Chardonnay]

Can't believe how fast this board moves!

My notes should just probably be archived already, but anyway...

laljeterfan... measure... multifacited... headline... Clay... making... man. Well I would have probably had a heart attack too!

RIFAN... Thank you for that very sweet comment. The whole thing was a joy!

Iseeme... I hope so too (that fans don't knit or purchase a bunch of redundant stuff for this babe or send copius amounts of what they think to be cute and adorable.) There's enough waste in this world. Much better to channel it towards a more needy cause.

cha cha trusty... How funny, Mama Mia had never even been on my radar... but now I'm becoming all obsessed with it and all. Kind of like one of those books that sits on your bookshelf for years and then one day you read it and say... "Where have you been all my life?!!"

Iseeme.... Thank you for the revisit of "Let's Play!" I swear, if I had to pick a top 10!... Because sometimes the colors can make all the difference!

I just noticed that Iseeme is trying to be a fame-ho in my notes tonight....

[claygirl9131]

congrats to all of you who got Gala tix. Please bring back LOTS of clack!!!!

[Scarlett]

I was going to render more clips tonight but y'all are having too much fun here! And besides, Gibby's luscious pics have grabbed hold of me and won't let go!

Before I forget... Bella, thanks for identifying Meryl's Shawl. Yes, it was gorgeous wasn't it! Didn't it look similar to Nefertiri's shawl in the Ten Commandments?

FromClaygary, only a fiber person would notice all those details, huh?

One thing about HP - their technical HelpDesk is in India!!! "Bob" or "Steve" may answer the phone but you'll be talking to Ranjit or Vinod and they're very difficult to understand. I spent nearly 3 hours one day talking to various departments, repeating the same information over and over - just to get a blown out monitor replaced. They kept asking me what the error message was and I kept saying the screen is black - there IS no error message! I must have given the serial number about 5 times before I finally started yelling "read the trouble ticket!" But I have used HP equipment for quite awhile - even when I was working - and never had much of a problem with it. When I bought my home computer after I retired, I actually went through CostCo and picked out the components. It was a pretty good deal. And you get the usual warrantees.

Scarlett - are you counting the ants or have you sent them to ant heaven yet?? And no, I don't line up my milk bottles because I don't drink milk. My wine bottles, on the other hand.......

LOL on your HP experiences! I can vouch for HP's servers though in that they come with 5-year warranties and most of them last way beyond 5 years w/o needing repairs.

I only send off the ones that absolutely need to to ant heaven. Wine bottles? Time to write about my favorite wine... <next post>

anna, I recently got a perfectly lovely new HP laptop at Best Buy. It has a purdy 17 inch screen so I can make Clay bigger.

See?

Wheeeee!!! It would be great to roll around in your photobucket account!!!

*sigh!* Unfortunately, I'm the sort who won't change who I am (a hopeless one-Bucket gal) because others are into multiples. [see siggy]

But drooling looking is ok, isn't it?!!

There have been so many first for me, and hopefully there will be so many more. Hoping to meet up with all of you and maybe even get a chance to sleep with Scarlett someday.

ETA:

I just noticed that Iseeme is trying to be a fame-ho in my notes tonight....

Are you the one waiting in the wings?

[annabear]

anna, I recently got a perfectly lovely new HP laptop at Best Buy. It has a purdy 17 inch screen so I can make Clay bigger.

*crumples up list of school and/or work related requirements and looks for laptop with BIGGEST high res screen....*

[Bookwhore]

Ooooh, I'll weigh in on the ant discussion. Every spring I have an ant infestation and have never found a good remedy for keeping them out of the house until this year. I've tried Grants traps, sprays and half a dozen home remedies (they don't work). This year an elderly lady told me to try Terro ant bait. They carry it at WalMart. I got some for indoor and outdoors and for 12 hours afterwards I think every ant in a 10 mile radius came into my house! Whatever was in those traps was apparently very appealing to ants, but then all of a sudden they were gone. ALL gone. And they haven't come back.

Um, as for the hamburger covered with ants, you know there's no oxygen inside a ziploc bag? Put it in there, seal it, and eventually they'll suffocate.

[Iseeme]

Scarlett - do not listen to those wannabes. You know my photobucket is yours.....all yours!

Chardonnay said:

I just noticed that Iseeme is trying to be a fame-ho in my notes tonight....

Then Iseeme said: What in the heck are you talking about?

[Chardonnay]

Chardonnay said:

I just noticed that Iseeme is trying to be a fame-ho in my notes tonight....

Then Iseeme said: What in the heck are you talking about?

Sorry, that probably didn't sound quite right. I just meant to say that you said alot of things today that grabbed my attention. All good...

We really DO need to expand these emoticon options...

[Iseeme]

Hee - okay! :F_05BL17blowkiss:

Scarlettttttttttttttttttttttt.....................must I come looking for you?

[Scarlett]

Hee - okay! :F_05BL17blowkiss:

Scarlettttttttttttttttttttttt.....................must I come looking for you?

I was just desperately trying to compose my ode to my favorite wine but I gave up and will quote a lot of wine lovers instead...

(with apologies to Char -- references to Chardonnay are about the wine, not someone as nice as you)

Winemakers the world over get themselves in an almighty tizz over how their Pinot Noirs should taste. Is it pale, ethereal, with a scent as sweet as half-forgotten childhood summer memories? Is it sensual or heady, swirling with the intoxicating excitement of the super-ripe cherries and strawberries and blackberries of the gardens of Paradise? Is it bitter sweet as black cherries and licorice and yet invaded with an insidious exotic scent? While it's relatively simple to put a stylistic straitjacket on Chardonnay and Cabernet, putting a stylistic harness on Pinot is as tricky as wrestling with an eel.

While a host of talented but mainstream producers are perfectly happy to excel at Cab and Chardonnay in accepted styles, Pinot Noir attracts a much wilder bunch. A crowd who don't like being told what to do, a crowd who don't like a marketing manager to have more say in a wine than a winemaker. A self-indulgent crew of men and woment who love flavor, who love perfume, who love the silky tactile expereinces of a wine like Pinot, seductive, sultry, steamy, sinful if possible.

Pinot Noir requires a slow cool growing season. Plant it on a warm hillside with endless sunshine and you'll end up with a mess not unlike flat cherry coke. The best season for Pinot is when there is just barely enough sunshine each day to coax just a teeny bit more growth and ripening. During vintage years, it could be late in August and the grapes are still a long, long way from harvest and then everyone in the area will be wringing their hands, praying daily for sunshine, looking at the sky every so often and just willing it to warm up. Then come September there still hasn't been much improvement and people will be tearing their hair in frustration, swearing that next year they will plow the vines under and plant summer squash instead, shaking their fists angrily at the stubborn clouds and despairing that all is lost -- then, at the last moment, right before the harvest is declared a total disaster, the clouds break and 2 weeks of gentle sunshine follow, just enough to get the grapes to that perfect point of ripeness, no more no less. And every drop of wine produced that year will be of the sweetest perfection that people will speak of it for years to come.

Pinot Noir reflects the terrior more than any other -- the grains of sand, the bits of crushed limestone, the gentle spring rains, the number of foggy mornings in the summer, the occasional bird or butterfly -- the sum total of its environment is reflected in Pinot Noir. Great Pinot Noir is impossible to pigeon-hole but google for descriptions of wine and you'll find that more than any other wine, Pinot is described in sensual terms. Pinot Noir's association with sensuality derives from the remarkable supple, silky textures and erotically earthy aromas that great Pinot Noirs display. When people speak passionately of wines that they would take to a dessert island, Pinots are usually at the top of the list.

Of all the classic grapes, pinot is the most difficult to make into wine. It is highly sensitive to climate changes and variations in soil composition and is unstable during winemaking. All this makes Pinot Noir a riskier proposition for the winegrower, the winemaker and the wine drinker, than say, Cabernet Sauvignon. But it's precisely this enological gamble that makes Pinot Noir all the more fascinating and irresistible.

Pinot Noir breaks the rules. Red wine goes with meat and white wine goes with fish but the perfect match for Oregon Pinot is wild Pacific Salmon, the kind that scales waterfalls to return to their breeding ground. The rich fattiness and light char of grilled salmon could have no better partner than an earthy Oregon Pinot Noir, with its relatively high acidity and low tannin -- thus it doesn't interfere with the beautiful flavors of the fish.

[Iseeme]

Oh be still my heart................my sweet babbooo loves red wine!!! I just helped a man pick out olive trees yesterday who's Pinot won a Gold Medal this year. Unfortunately my brain was sun-addled and I didn't hear where the competition was. His winery is in Summerset, however, which is in El Dorado County.

There are many, many, MANY wineries within an hour's driving distance of my house in 3 different counties. Amador County is especially known for it's Sangioveses and Zinfandels and some of the grapes used are from 100 year old Mission vines. The white wines up here aren't too terrifical but when desperate - they taste okay!

[Claymatron]

Hey...you wanna talk wine! Busman's holiday for me, talk about a great job!

[Scarlett]

Iseeme, Well not all red wines, Pinot Noir especially the Willamette Valley ones though Monterey and Santa Barbara are great too!

I like Sangioveses but Zinfandel is too much for me, unfortunately. 'k? :F_05BL17blowkiss:

The thought I was trying to convey here is that Josh Groban is like Cabernet Sauvignon -- good and expensive and nice to name drop: "I got this spectacular Opus One" or "I took her to a Josh Groban show". Pinot Noir and Pinot drinkers seem to be a lot like us/someone, somehow -- the part where no one is really sure what Pinot is "supposed to be like", how it can be different year after year, how it can be touch and go a lot but when it's great it's wonderful beyond all reason, etc. (ETA: I'm sure that Josh's core fans are like any fandom; I'm talking about non- or casual- fans)

Claymatron, Pls. tell us more!!!

Did we just kill the thread? Copying pics from previous page...

[merrieeee]

Anyone have experience with Dell laptops? Good? Bad? Suggestions? Thanks! :F_05BL17blowkiss:

I love love love my Dell! They had a great offer on one already built which was exactly what I wanted. It is a great sleeping companion (see previous posts by the eHP)

I will never set foot inside a Best Buy again! The store manager told my husband that someone his age wouldn't understand these things .......meaning computers! Err that's my husband's business and has been since 1965. They also charged us $800 to fix a laptop..didn't fix it and replaced the Hard Drive which in capital letters at the top of the work order specifically said not to! Also because my DH would not sign a piece of paper that said the work was done to his satisfaction they refused to give him his machine even after we had paid them and had the receipt in our hands! Oh, that is just scratching the surface. I could go on and on about a lot of other things said and done but the rest would bore you! Needless to say we were not happy. They just didn't seem to care and this was at two BB in two different states over the course of 3 months!

I just spent many thousands of dollars on Home theater stuff and they lost that sale because of the treatment.

[Desertrose]

Hi Merrieeee,

Sorry you had two bad experiences with Best Buy. I have had pretty good luck with BB myself. I usually shop around for the best price and then get BB to meet it because they have always given me good service. What kind of Home theater did you get? I just did the same thing. Got a 58" Panasonic Plasma with all the Home Theater stuff to go with it. The best thing is that I got speakers installed in my ceilings, so now I can have Clay singing to me all over the house. That is my favorite part. Before I just had regular CRT TVs with just regular cable. Now I am re-watching Idol 2 Rewind so that I can see Clay singing on my big screen. He looks fine!

[Desertrose]

Hey, what happened to my avatar? HELP. I had my 12 year old grandson do it for me. I don't know how to get it back. I need a new one I guess. Mine was an early Clay one. I guess it decided it needed updating. I have always wanted one that moved but do not know how to get one. Grandson got mine from photo bucket.

[treenuts]

Oooh I had to jump on when I saw "wine talk".

Yup, it's my other addiction/hobby next to Clay. Well, ok I don't actually lust after any one particular wine but I can be just as enthusiastic over some. Having grown up just over the hill, literally, from the Napa Valley it has been a slice of heaven for someone like me. Although there are some great wines I've discovered from Argentina, New Zealand, Australia and even Washington state in recent years. Currently my favorite is something I never liked much...a Syrah. It's from the Longboard winery in the Russian River Valley. I swear on a stack of bibles and a Chateau Lafite-Rothschild 1969 that even if you dislike Syrah THIS will knock your socks off!

or were you guys talkin' about whiiiine? cause I may know a thing or two about that subject too cheese anyone?

Clay content: In the infamous Tangerinee zipper photo (with the blue shirt above)

he truly was/is a "Beautiful Disaster"

[jmh123]

Desertrose, Your avatar might come back on its own--could be that photobucket is down. Or if you want to change, what did you have in mind? We can help. Here are a few I have in Picture Trail:

You're welcome to use any of these, or if there are any pictures you like that have been posted here, you can quote the post so as to show us the one you like. Or link to a picture on another board. Once you pick one, we'll do the next step tomorrow. We can take any picture you like and resize it and show you how to make it your avi.

[playbiller]

I am so off topic, but I found this rather amusing

Ryan Seacrest Attacked By Shark!

Now he seems to have escaped with out stitches, so I think we can laugh at this - but haven't some called Ryan a shark? I find this story just a little har to believe, the shark took a bite, left a tooth behind in ryan and he didn't need stitches? That is a huge tooth he is holding there.

Fear and I were in the water as young teens and a shark swam past us. I could have reached out and touched it's fin, it was so close, but we did not move an inch and it passed us by, good thing it was pretty damn big.

On topic. Clay will never be bitten by a shark, he won't be in the water. But if he was, I am sure it would be considered another scandal some how.

[Desertflower]

Anyone have experience with Dell laptops? Good? Bad? Suggestions? Thanks! :F_05BL17blowkiss:

FWIW, I'm on my 4th, and my mother's on her second. I bought two of them used on eBay cheap, still under warranty. Have had very few problems. If you get the good service contract, you're golden.

My son works at Best Buy. He used to dispise DELL-woul I thought about getting a MAd not even sell one. Now he says they have improved dramactically and are becoming one of the best out there.

I just bought a Dell at Best Buy. The Salesman told me they were the best, now, of the low-end laptops (read cheap) I'm not paying $2,000 for a high end Lap Top. Anyway I got a two year Service Contract that covers everything, including accidental damage.

So far so good, except I hate Vista, but it seems everything has Vista nowdays. I thought about getting a MAC, just so I could avoid Vista....but they are a bit pricey.

[StandByClay]

I never bought a Dell. I'll have to try one next. I'm still not comfortable with Vista.

[ldyjocelyn]

The Broads have the next matchup of the challenge up: Back for More vs. Buttercup That one was easy peasy for me...Buttercup all the way!

I'm a Toshiba laptop gal myself, but am planning on getting a new Dell desktop here in the next month or so, mainly because I can order it online with the exact specs I want. I too don't really want Vista, but it costs much more extra to have them install XP instead, so I think I'm going to bite the bullet on that one.