Well, as I said before, I got a new mobile phone for Christmas, and it's nice; works great, good sound, good cameras, etc.
I also got a new stereo for my car, which is low-budget for these days but still has more features than I usually care for (CD, USB, Bluetooth, and an auxiliary socket - wow, 4 additional inputs than the radio AND a way to talk on the phone hands-free). I tried wiring it myself, but misunderstood the instructions and had to take it to Soundwave Car Audio & Security to get it properly installed at a great price and very quickly done (1 hour). Once I did that, everything there worked like a charm.
However, there was absolutely no way that I could get a bunch of hot new electronic equipment without an attack from...
THE GREMLINS!
Yep, so there I was watching and reading stuff on the Internet, when BNNNNNNK my old Windows 10 desktop computer decides to die. I try CPR and all other resuscitation techniques, to no avail. I left it sitting there, downfallen. After a day or so, I remembered that I had a Linux (Linux Mint, the closest distro to Windows that I know) computer in the back bedroom, mostly unused but functional. I swapped the two computers out, thinking I could at least get on the Internet and mess around there.
BNNNK. Nope. The gremlins had jumped on it as well. I cursed and ranted and went to watch some TV with the Crazy Duck & Morkie Lady.
She wanted me to buy a replacement, so I went to Tigerdirect and ordered a cheap, yet decent, refurbished Windows 10 machine that was less than $300, even though it had an Intel i5, 8 GB of DDR3 RAM, and a 2 TB hard drive.
The next day, I figured I could get the Linux box to run and possibly save us the almost $300 that the gremlins tried to rob from us. I opened up the Linux computer box (since the freakin' CPU fan bracket broke on my Windows 10 machine) and I started trying to properly diagnose the problem. I found some sort of strange problem with one of the RAM sticks. I salvaged the good RAM (Crucial brand, the best I've used) from the Windows 10 machine and put them into motherboard slots that I knew were working on the Linux motherboard. BAM! IT WORKED!
I tweaked it for a day or so, and now I have an interface that not only functions like Windows 10, but it looks practically identical to it.
However, no matter how much I tried, I could not get my wife to stop paying the ransom to the evil machine spirits. I hope they take their money and leave the rest of my stuff the hell alone, the little malicious bastards.