success?

I'm always afraid of saying things like this, since I'm superstitious about jinxing myself, but it appears that my laptop issues have been resolved.

I found -- miracle! -- an eBay seller who just happened to live in San Jose and who just happened to be selling the exact floppy drive that had broken in my Sony a few weeks ago. No one had bid on it, so the Buy It Now option was still available. Sony's parts hotline had wanted $170 for the item (which is a substantial portion of the resale value of the entire machine at this point); this guy was asking $20. He had himself a deal.

Row and I popped down to SJ this morning to drop off the $20 and pick up the drive. Row's now at an airport hotel watching American daytime television and indulging in a pint of Chunky Monkey (unavailable in Australia) before her flight home tomorrow; meanwhile, with my husband's help, I got the drive working and managed to validate my version of SofTest.

Mild panic attack upon seeing the dialog box at the SofTest launch: "Please wait for proctor to announce that you may begin," complete with little red flashing STOP signs. My God, this is for real. I'm going to be taking exams with this.

The good news is, it now seems that I can.

thus spake /jca @ November 27, 2002 04:39 PM