I'll be honest: I appreciate many of the efforts in Vista to simplify and improve the operating system and the users' access to and interface with it.

That doesn't change the fact that under the hood it runs my hardware substantially more inefficiently than XP did on its worst days, and that it's spitting BSODs like 95 on a 486 that's been run through the dishwasher.

As a side note, after the reboot this morning post-overnight-BSOD, ICQ stopped working. I don't know if this is due to the BSOD (I don't see how it could be, but it's what correlates) or an unknown problem on ICQ's end, but if it's the former I have no idea how to repair it, and if it's the latter I have no POWER to repair it. I can always switch to another client and see if that fixes it... otherwise I may need to harass a couple of people for their ICQ numbers.

After I got a clean bill of health at my dental appointment in April, I decided that the stress of worrying about what would result demanded a lifestyle change, and as a consequence I started brushing more, flossing regularly, and being more religious about my use of fluoride rinses etc. A month of that was all I needed to develop a nerve-threatening cavity, such that I have to take a couple of days off work and run the risk of needing a root canal. I don't believe it's *possible* to more clearly hammer home a message: "The harder you try, the worse your inevitable failure will be."

I'm about at my wit's end from stress.