Computer is Fried

So, someone upstairs is throwing me yet more interesting complications in my life.

I'm in New Jersey, with no tv, no cd player, no entertainment. I figure, I have my computer - I brought cds/dvds, and I have access to unsecured wireless internet in my apartment building (thanks to some unsuspecting neighbor, for the time being). So I figured I'd be okay.

Then on Wednesday night, I was rushing to get a project done for my graphics job, and without warning my screen goes black. Lately my LCD has been having trouble coming out of power save, and I've had to simply restart it, so I assumed that was what it was. But after restarting, the screen remained almost black - I could just faintly see the Intel and Windows logos, and then a log in screen - but I couldn't read anything, it was so black. I could just tell what was there. So I logged in (unable to read whether or not I mistyped anything, but I didn't). At least being logged in, I could stick in a dvd to keep me company and listen to, but not watch. I called Dell about it, and they told me the backlight probably burnt out from overuse. Okay. So I called my boss and alerted her of the situation, and hoped someone else could finish my project (which was what ended up happening). The next morning there was enough backlight I could read the files, so I quickly sent my boss the work I had already done, and they got someone else to finish it. To preserve the backlight, I decided to turn the computer off completely till I got home.

I have to wrap this up, because I'm at the library which is now closing. But essentially, I brought home a monitor from work yesterday to hook up to the laptop, and long story short, I discovered that sometime in the process, maybe through too many force shut downs, I have crashed my hard drive and there essentially is no computer anymore. So, I'm off now to walk around New Jersey and maybe see a movie. More on Monday. Wish me luck.