Wednesday, October 31, 2001
Halloween. Upgraded James from Windows NT 4.0 SP6a to Windows 2000. Got the "Setup cannot locate the Windows installation you want to upgrade" error message (Q242066). Resolved it by examining the SETUP.LOG file on the Emergency Recovery Disk I had made just before upgrading to modify the C:\BOOT.INI file to strip out all the corrupted entries. (I don't know how they got in there.) So the installer ran, but at the end, I again got the "Driver IRQL not less or equal" error. Rebooting is okay, Windows 2000 starts, but after it starts, it won't shut down or restart. Trying to shut down or restart does nothing—the only way is to press the Reset button. After installing SP2, it's better—Windows puts up the dialogs saying it is shutting down, but at the very end the screen goes black and the IRQL error returns. At home, Patrick spent a long time on the phone with Pacific Bell. It's the usual story (the same as I experienced when I called in mid-October): he is transferred to a different department more than once, has to redescribe our situation each time, is somehow disconnected once or twice. They make an appointment to send someone today between 12:00 noon and 5:00 pm, but they never show up. We go to dinner at La Krewe, a New Orleans restaurant only a few blocks away. Patrick makes friends with the chef who is also from New Orleans. The chef gives us Jell-O shots and offers to bring us something that's not on the menu. It turns out to be one of his specialties: a large red bell pepper stuffed with a spicy mixture of rice, andouille sausage, and love. We go to Halloween in the Castro with Amy, who is dressed as "Pink Slip Pam," dressed stylishly with a real pink slip under her dress. Her schtick is to hand out slips of paper that tell people they are fired, and her accompanying witticism is, "But at least you have tomorrow off!" Patrick runs into two people he knows: Mike McGinty and Alyssa Blackman. We get caught in the crowd of people trying to see some naked people, and the thickness of the crowd is frightful for a few minutes. However, we manage our way out of it, then call it a night and find a cab for the ride home.