Disaster
Technology hates me.* Okay, technology hates me even more than that.**
I got down to the mews this afternoon in rather a good mood after a nice lesson on Connie***, pulled out my laptop and . . . discovered that the broadband plug wasn’t sitting in its socket properly. I had noticed, when I took it off its shelf, that the broadband lead seemed to be hanging at a funny angle. I wiggled it around a little . . . it definitely would not seat, and I was having helpful little pop-up windows telling me that my Local Connection is Unconnected. Eventually I pulled the useless lead out and had a look, and the entire frelling socket was bent inward and mashed back into the body of the computer.
Peter has a cleaning lady.† She has somehow managed to bash the thing,†† which is to say it was fine last night when I put it away and after she was here this morning the floor is clean but my computer is no longer fine. Looking at the wreck I already knew what he was going to say, but I rang Computer Man anyway. He actually came out and had a look at it††† and confirmed: Yup. B*ggered.
It is less than a year old. I bought it in January.
And yes, our household contents insurance will cover it–sort of–the deductible is nearly the price of replacement. Okay, the new model will have even more memory, but . . . the whole point about The Conversation tomorrow and, theoretically, the background to why I still can’t use my own forum is because lots and lots and lots of memory isn’t good enough.
Okay, this is a request for candles. I realise that in the grand scheme computer woes are the little stupid end but the little stupid end is right now driving me bonkers. I would like to solve world hunger, put a Democrat in the White House, find a cure for cancer and have my computers all healthy and cooperative. The dead computer‡ is the one with Finale on it, of course. Last night, trying to copy Song II, I’d run afoul of triplets and was planning on ringing Oisin today and asking if he could sort me and my software out over the phone. This option being denied me, tonight I started setting the Lyke Wake Dirge.‡‡ It suits my mood.
* * *
* I’ve just been trying to ask ‘help’ a question about adding words to the Word dictionary–so it will stop auto-capping every pegasus (there, I had to de-cap it again)–and got twenty hits on inputting Chinese and Japanese.
** Computer Man Central is still hip deep in the law, insurance adjustors, clients wanting to know where their (stolen) equipment is, etc, and our Conversation about the Future of McKinley Tech has now been put off till tomorrow. However we have a real live written-in-diary, I-get-to-yell-if-they-don’t-show-up appointment for tomorrow. Remind me to buy milk for their coffee.^ The perfect hostess. I suppose I need to clear enough space on, around and under the kitchen table^^ so three people can sit down too. Mind you three people is the limit in the cottage kitchen no matter how much clearing away I do. Them is walls. Also I only have three chairs. Where would I put a fourth? Hang it from the overhead pots and pans rack?
^ Here’s-the-jar, I-don’t-drink-the-stuff coffee. It’s finest organic instant, however. I make Peter drink it when he’s at the cottage.
^^ Before the blog this was barely an issue
*** And stuck around after and watched Jenny work Roland. Jenny was running late–usually she schools any horses she’s riding before my lesson–because she’d spent the grey hour before dawn tracking the sinister sound of hoofbeats on the lane. Roland had jumped over his pasture gate. Jenny said, if he’s going to be one of those I’m going to sell him sooner.
It worked for Snowman, I said. http://www.showjumpinghalloffame.net/inductees/snowman.shtml
Note that that ‘recognised his talent’ translates into ‘had to keep fishing him out of the neighbours’ gardens because he kept jumping out of his field’.
† Trust me, this is not a situation of Barbara Ehrenreich^-ish manifestation of pretentious effeteness. It’s necessary.
^ You haven’t read Nickeled and Dimed, Undercover in Low Wage America? Why not?
†† On application she says she was only using her feather duster. That must be some duster, is all I can say. Tempered steel, with shuriken. Peter did the applying. I was too busy baying for her blood. I know, I know, accidents happen, and I like her, but right at the moment I want her guts on a plate.
††† As a form of softening me up for tomorrow, this makes me nervous
‡ Okay, only its broadband connection is dead, but it is at Computer Man Central. And if they have another break in tonight and it goes . . . with all my data^ on it. . . .
^ Yes the crucial things are backed up. I carry PEGASUS around with me on a memory stick for example. Even so.
‡‡ http://www.duntemann.com/likewakepage.htm There appears to be a YouTube video of Pentangle’s version, but this (*&^%$£”!!!! computer has a permanent problem with Adobe FlashPlayer and I can’t check it out first.
. . . Right. Fast computer change: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CK8p6xZyMq4&feature=related I make no claims about what mine will eventually become in terms of artistic triumph, but I can tell you mine is bleaker.
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