WTF?

I had to have the screen replaced on my nearly brand-new laptop a couple of weeks ago. Actually, it got broken in January, in a toddler-related incident: Borg Boy and I decided to dance to the sappy children's music on the television, and I left my shiny two-month-old Vaio on the footstool. Unfortunately, the impact from our dancing on the wood floor made it vibrate right off the edge. Even more unfortunately, Acts of Barney are not covered by our renters' insurance.

Being the workaround maven that I am, I immediately hooked it up to the flat-screen Dell monitor that belonged to our desktop, and resumed working on it. Every once in a while, in a leap of enthusiasm, I would make a few phone calls with the intention of getting it fixed.

Three months and $300 later, I had a new screen on my laptop, and a Blue Screen of Death every so often. When I was finally able to copy fast enough to get the error from the BSOD (I know there used to be a way to make it pause there instead of restarting, but couldn't figure out how to do it in Vista), I Googled it and found out that it's probably a result of an incompatibility between the driver for the new screen and a recent Windows update... but since it hasn't happened since the last Windows update, I think it's probably no longer an issue. However, as of yesterday, I have a new problem. Every time I set the computer down, it makes its dock/undock sound, and I get a little balloon that tells me that my USB device could run faster... but there are no USB devices currently connected to the laptop. Weird. I think it's time for my tried-and-true troubleshooting technique: When in doubt, reboot.