It All Started With A Little Glitch...
A good part of last week was spent attempting to fix my laptop. (Much thanks to Marc and Paul who both offered direction and advice.)
Careful analysis built to detailed diagnosis. Detailed diagnosis to iterative investigation. Iterative investigation lead to extensive exploration which moved to heavy handed hacking.
Then with frustrated finality, we just ripped the sucker apart.
That lead fairly rapidly to the Staples Laptop Department. 
Okay, perhaps not "rapidly" since it actually took 6 days. Now I have a slick new laptop for my playful new eDot sachel of happiness, thanks to Katr... Look out world here I come. Well, once I figure out whether it's worth the time and risk to rip out Vista and install XP. 
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XP is installed and I'm ready to get back to work now... yes, after 2 weeks of technology hell. Luckily I'm in Ottawa so getting back to work is extra easy since I don't have all the distractions of home, my honey and taxes to keep me stressed and I can focus exclusively on getting my tech up and rolling, eating and finishing the content for Ottawa.