I just reinstalled Windows XP on Calvin (my computer has a name, I keep forgetting that… which makes me a poseur nerd, I know )… after putting it off for about a year. Wiping a hard disk clean and doing a fresh install is a great way to eliminate problems and excess junk that's built up on one's computer, and mine was no exception… hell, I think I still had Kazaa installed on it.

As nice as it is to have a speedy, minimalist computer running, it's still a pain in the ass to do this. One, I had to figure out which programs I still used and if I still had the installation programs stowed away. Two, it took me 6 CDs to back up my mp3 collection. And three, I completely forgot to save my bookmarked websites, so I'm now stuck trying to remember what obscure sites I had bookmarked for one reason or another. (For example, the original chronicles of the Redneck Neighbor.)

Oh yes, and four - 94,572 Microsoft updates, since apparently Service Pack 2 didn't cover all of them.

For the few of those who actually read this (and I'm pretty sure it's closer to 1 than 2), excuse the occasional blips in layout going on… the theme I used is from Wordpress v1 and a lot of the functions used are deprecated, so I need to go through and replace 'em with the new ones.

…stop playing hardcore rap and salsa music on my damn internet radio!

Seriously. I have a "plus," subscription, which means I'm paying money to use this service… so please stop giving me "Yahoo recommended" and "this song is in your key genres" as your reason for playing crappy music. (Actually, that's not entirely true. I don't pay for Launchcast plus because it comes free with my Verizon DSL account.)

And seriously, I do love Daniel Powter but "randomly" playing "Bad Day" every hour is not very inspiring.

If you must know, one of my greatest pet peeves is a crappy website. I'm not talking about just content and aesthetics, but functionality in general.

For example, take the Washingtonian's website. The magazine itself is great, but in all honesty, the website sucks. To give them credit, they're in the midst of rebuilding it and will launch the new design on October 30th.

However, the Washingtonian didn't exactly make it easy for readers to find existing content. In order to get to the old site, you have to click on either the cover of the current issue on the left (no way of knowing this will take you to the home page of the old site) or one of the articles listed on the landing page. Otherwise, there's no real way of knowing that you can still access old material. In addition, there's a completely broken link on the bottom of the landing page - in this case, the guide to "Great Hair" (e.g., hair salons). Click on it, and you get a cold 404 instead of being redirected to the subscriber login.

I try to circumvent this by clicking on a random article link on the front page to get back to the old site, and then click on "Shopping" in hopes that it will come up with the link to the "Great Hair" feature. Nope - another cold 404. Same thing for the "Education" section. Apparently they've both gone AWOL.

Seriously, if you're going to reinvent a site, either a) provide a link to a completely functioning existing version, b) at least remove links to sections that seemingly have been misplaced, or c) all of the above. Broken links are frustrating and downright useless, and rank right up there on my list of daily annoyances. (#1 would have to be stupid drivers - in particular, those that cause slowdowns because they're unfamiliar with the process of merging into traffic properly.)

(Can you tell I'm peeved about my lack of a hair salon guide? The Hair Cuttery just doesn't cut it anymore. (no pun intended) The ladies don't seem to understand what I’m saying ("Just half an inch!") and I end up with 3 inches hacked off.

The anti-spam plugin works! No comments were in the moderation queue, so I hope this is a sign that it's actually working.

Of course, I never really get legitimate comments on my blog (probably because no one reads it), so I'm not too concerned that the validation word will prevent people from commenting on my posts.