BLACK WOODEN KITCHEN TABLE

Narrows Gate

In the years surrounding World War II, a gritty Italian-American waterfront community in the shadow of New York City known as Narrows Gate is home to brutal wise guys, a gifted crooner hell bent on success and two young friends who have no idea what the future holds — or how it can rip them apart. Vivid characters driven by demons and desire clash with gut-wrenching force in Jim Fusilli’s violent, visceral novel as crime, rank ambition and the promise of the American dream battle for the souls of Bebe Marsala, the talented but compromised crooner; the happy-go-lucky Sal Benno, who is trapped by the mob; and Leo Bell, a newly minted member of the Office of Strategic Services, the predecessor of the CIA. A powerful epic in the spirit of such groundbreaking works as Mario Puzo’s The Godfather and Budd Schulberg’s On the Waterfront, Fusilli’s saga races to Hollywood, Havana, Las Vegas and the battlefields of Sicily before it explodes in an unexpected and unforgettable conclusion.

Haven't see the BSOD (the infamous blue screen which means your Windows is having trouble that it cannot handle) screen so often since the Vista days(but of course that doesn't mean Windows is getting better... there're even more terrible error messages within the desktop!) Unfortunately this "friend" visited me just before Chinese New Year at the end of January 2011.

At first my Windows 7 PC got a BSOD with error message MEMORY_MANAGEMENT. It appeared shortly after the Windows 7 desktop appears. As my Windows 7 machine is placed vertically in a very narrow space under my computer table in my small bedroom, moving it and associated cables outside is a cumbersome process, so at first I tried not to move it away or even disassemble its parts. Unfortunately after a few boots, Windows 7 can no longer be booted successfully. Instead, the above screen appeared halfway Windows 7 boots. I tried two days using many methods without changing hardware but no luck.

I Google'ed using other machines of mine, and found that it maybe RAM error. At first I was wondering why the RAM suddenly failed after years of usage, but I eventually opened the cover of the chassis, and pulled out two of the four pieces of RAMs out and retry. I pulled only two as the other two were stuck by the display card. Unfortunately I got the same error. I decided to leave it aside and enjoy Chinese New Year holiday.

During the public holiday I had a thought of the machine recovering automatically, as many of the search result I Google'ed about this error did say that. However, the same error occurred after two weeks.

Since I know that such error may also be some problem in motherboard apart from RAM, and actually some other parts have already been malfunctioned for a long time (my CPU fan have been stopped for over a year but the CPU is a really cool E4500 Core 2 Duo and it's still running fine!) I decided to build a new one if I move it to dining room and replace all RAMs in all four Ram slots but the same error occurred.

I moved it to the dining room, put it on the floor horizontally, connect it to my TV, take away RAMs in all four RAM slots, then insert spare RAMS in just the two RAM slots which are not stuck by the display card. Well, for unknown reason, the machine boots fine as if nothing happened before.

I placed the machine back to the space in bedroom, and it runs well as before. The first thing to do after it "recovered", is to make backups of the partitions and the iTune libraries.

When I thought the problem was over, something new happened - the USB ports no longer able to recognize anything except thumbdrives - it can't even recognize my USB external harddisks it used to transfer the partition backup images! I'm still thinking of solution which does not require re-installation and re-setup of Windows as it's a painful process.

When I thought the above BSOD problem was in either RAM slot or the old RAM, now combining to the USB port problem, I'm afraid it is the motherboard which makes the complain. I think it's time either I build a new machine, or buy a new one. Meh.

The waiter came up and introduced himself.
His name was Rodney. I introduced myself
as Philip, which is not my name. I introduced
my friend as Samantha—her real name is Gail.
Samantha asked what the specials were. Rodney
began his recitation. I drank some water and watched
a man at the next table chase vegetables
around his plate. The woman he was with
wore extremely long earrings. Her face was also long
and narrow and she wore a tiara in her hair. I asked
Rodney if he knew who these people were.
He said he did not know. I said that was okay,
it wasn’t his job; it was quite enough that he
know all the specials. Samantha/Gail tore off
a little piece of bread and put it into her
mouth. She did this with much delicacy. Later
I told her how proud I was of the way she did that.
She said she did it for Rodney and all he had to bear.
We left him a large tip and one of Samantha/Gail’s
business cards. She repairs motorcycles and leads
bad people back to a life on the straight and narrow.