Friday Five--A Bit Late

1. Is your hair naturally curly, wavy, or straight? Long or short?
Naturally wavy. I get it cut infrequently, and one of the signs that it needs pruning again is when the wave reappears.

2. How has your hair changed over your lifetime?
It was once very dark brown. Now it is salt-n-pepper, moving relentlessly toward a state of all silvery-gray (we start graying early in my family). In the 70s (God help me), it was...massive is the only way to describe it. Not especially long, mind you--but very, very thick.

3. How do you normally wear your hair?
Moderate length, not quite long enough to require a part (like the wave mentioned above, one of the signs that I need a haircut is when my hair gets long enough to require parting rather than combing straight forward.

4. If you could change your hair this minute, what would it look like?
I have no particular desire to change it. Trying out a new color (for a few minutes) would be amusing, but I have to desire to change it otherwise.

5. Ever had a hair disaster? What happened?
Since I get my hair cut infrequently, whenever I go to the barber, I make a point of telling them to cut it short, not just to trim it. I once went to the same shop I'd been visiting (infrequently) for a few years and discovered that it had been taken over by someone new. I gave my new barber the "cut it short" spiel. Unlike every other barber I'd ever had, she took me quite literally. By the time I realized how short she was cutting it, it was too late to do anything but sit back and let her finish.

When she was done I looked like I'd justs gotten out of Marine boot camp.

AKICIF

That's an acronym on rec.arts.sf.fandom. It means "All Knowledge Is Contained In Fandom" and it's used as a shortcut to identify messages in which you're asking for advice or suggestions or help. Rasseff (as rec.arts.sf.fandom is often called by the denizens thereof) is a melting pot of people with a huge array of interests and skills, and thus a great place to ask for--and get--help.

A couple of weeks ago snippy and I bought a new digital camera (a Canon Powershot S45, to be precise). The tale of my tribulations is two entries down the page. Eventually I'd tried everything I could think of and my system still wouldn't work.

So I posted to Rasseff with an AKICIF request for help and advice. I got a number of responses, many of which gave suggestions for things to try. None worked. snippy and I went on our long-planned family vacation for 10 days, leaving my malfunctioning computer behind (her description of our travels is available on her livejournal, if you're interested). We got back yesterday and found a few more responses to the two-week old cry for help.

Including one from Lenny Bailes. He gave me a detailed, step-by-step procedure for purging any possible incorrect driver info from the system and then reinstalling the correct video drivers. I backed up all my data files and install files (if it didn't work, I was going to take the machine to a shop to have them fix it, even if it required formatting the disk and reinstalling from scratch).

Lenny's prescription worked like a charm. My machine is fixed and working normally again. I love Rasseff.