AaronGleeman.com

But everything was going smoothly yesterday. I was on my laptop that I've had for several years and there hadn't been any problems in months. Then, wouldn't you know it, the screen blew out. Now, I don't know enough about computers and laptop screens to know exactly what happened, but I do know that anytime something is wrong with the screen, you're basically screwed.

I had a problem with the screen on a laptop I had about four years ago and was told, basically, that it would be cheaper just to buy a new computer than to try to fix it. I remembered this as I stared at the blank screen in front of me.

With this most recent screen catastrophe, I didn't really have the option of just buying a new one since ... well, that takes a lot of money. So like any enterprising, poor laptop owner, I found a screen from a PC and just plugged it in.

It works, of course, the same as batting Jose Offerman in the cleanup spot works. The actual spot is filled and someone with a bat in his hand will come to the plate after the #3 guy hits, but it's not a situation that can go on for very long.

But okay, I was dealing with it. Then, just a few hours later, the connection to the internet stopped working. Just stopped, out of nowhere. Actually, I was in the middle of typing up an article for later this week.

I tried all sorts of dumb things to "fix" it and then finally called Road Runner. They told me "the modem is broken" and that "someone can probably be out there later in the week."

Keep in mind now that this is a fairly new modem, since we had to replace it within the last year as a result of the last one dying a similar, mysterious death.

So, as I type this sad tale to you, I am working on a laptop with a completely black screen, plugged into a PC monitor that sits atop a TV table in my room (thus ruining the entire point of a "laptop"). My connection to the internet is dialup AOL, which is just as awful as I had remembered it. As I told my mom last night, "It's like 1996 all over again."

I'm not quite sure how I am going to fix this problem. The Road Runner person showing up at some point in the next year would be nice, but I won't count on that. How I will go about getting a new computer is even less certain. I looked online for prices and they went from "Man, that's a lot" to "I want to kill myself."

Anyone feel like getting me a new computer?

Today's picks:

Florida (Beckett) -120 over Cincinnati (Wilson)

Los Angeles (Ishii) -110 over Milwaukee (Santos)

Arizona (Fossum) +195 over San Francisco (Schmidt)

Oakland (Hudson) +140 over Boston (Schilling)

Texas (Rogers) +130 over Chicago (Schoeneweis)

Detroit (Maroth) +115 over Kansas City (Gobble)