My computer finally died last night.
Many of you know, because I've been bitching about it since last year, that my dying computer really reduced my blogging. But it just kept chuggling so I kept putting up with it. What finally killed it was a citywide power outage. A transformer at the local substation caught on fire and that was all she wrote. Even though our house is surge-protected out the ass and nothing else was affected, my old computer decided it was good time to go "pining for the fjords".
note: in last night's little drama, *I* would be the michael palin character, hoping that the computer was somehow still viable, while the husband would be john cleese, showing me over and over that we are dealing with an ex-computer ... at one point, he actually opened up the dead tower and yelled into it, helloooooo!
Whatever! It was not a pretty death. But I have accepted that it is time to move on.
Of course nothing this important ever happens at a good time. Houseguests arriving tomorrow so no time to go computer shopping for awhile. It'll take research and a crash course on what is currently available before any purchase decision is made. Not to mention paying a professional nerd to transfer everything from my old computer ... including finding those 5,000 photos that disappeared a few months ago.
Could be weeks or even a month before I am fully back in action.
In the meantime I'll have some limited access to the husband's new laptop, but that's gonna get old fast. He doesn't like me "clogging up" his pristine set up. Yes, it's about time I publicly confessed ... I am a desk pig ... oink oink!
I decided to post this to let you know what's going on, maybe get some feedback on what computer features I should be considering, or just give you a place to vent about any topic you want.
So, here's your OPEN MIC. Go on, say whatever you want, tell me what's on your mind! I'll be checking in often and should be able to comment if blogger recognizes me.
Have you guessed what the top image is? Here's another view:
Additional clue: his species nickname has been chantingly appropriated and abused by the tea party crowd.
But he's really quite handsome, don't 'cha think?
Maybe Mr. Drill should sue Sarah P for wrongly associating his nickname with her personal agenda?
Well that's all that's on my mind for now. What's on yours?
20 comments:
R.I.P. old computer. Then again when you use a newer computer & it's lightening fast features, you will be amazed. Well EK's computer is probably mesmerizing.
Nice of him to give the desk hog access, so you don't go into cyberspace withdrawal.
Jonsin' for some access.
AS for the critter, I want to guess a baboon?
hi fran! yes the laptop is super quick. makes my old thing seem positively sloth-ish.
I am taking extra care not to pig up EK's area so he won't cut me off before I get a new computer. don't want to suffer complete withdrawal.
The critter IS a type of baboon. It is a male mandrill. Check out the link in the post to see how colorfully handsome he is. Primates are not usually into that much male color. That's usually more of the male bird domain. I was amazed that his colorful puffy cheeks around the nasal ridge are actually BONE! maybe I am easily amazed?
Mandrills are affectionately called "drills" ... but sarah palin has forever polluted that word for me!
Hmmm, can't connect this guy with the Tea Party. But might his name have begun with a "C" and ended in a vowel? (Hint: one of the vowels between U and I?)
OK...what's on my mind? How about juxtaposing two stories in the media yesterday?
1. In the EP Times, an article on our $2.1 billion/throw state-of-the-art ("best technological break through since the A-Bomb") B-2 bombers to bomb the shit out of Afghanistan (which has $1 trillion worth of scarce/valuable minerals like lithium, etc. Amy Goodman is telling us this morning) versus the other story from 60 Minutes last night,
2. the horrendous risk the U.S. faces from a handful of a few good programmers and/or hackers who could bring down electrical grids, crash stock and super markets, close banks...effectively bring the nation to its knees, living (or should I say "dying") in darkness.*
This latter form of terrorism seems like the better bargain (oh, I'm sure we have our own, but I'm wondering how much damage it could do to a non-digitized nation like Afghanistan. OK,never mind, maybe over priced, overly expensive to maintain (1 hour of B-2 flight requires 50-60 hours of ground maintenance) bombers are the way to beat a Stone Agers, I guess.
But why am I not comforted by our fragile, vulnerable technologies?
*Ooh, my favorite part about crashing the entire US system? Well, most of our chips are made overseas with the potential for all kinds of harm built into 'em and infrastructure parts they could destroy are no longer made here in the U.S. - outsourcing you know - taking up to months to restore!
If it ever were to all come crashing down, it would make for an interesting history lesson (of course, there won't be any presses to print history books, will there?)
dada, now I'm lost ... can't think of a tpartier beginning with "c". Cheney? Too diabolical for mere tpartiers. Condi? does being the perfect yes-man-woman qualify her for tparty status? hmmm ... I will ponder further ...
oh but about your other thoughts, dada .... veddy eenteresting:
1. In reading about the heretofore unsuspected lithium bonanza in Afghanistan, I was perplexed. I didn't realize it was also a valuable mineral. I thought it was merely an anti-anxiety drug. So now I'm wondering if the REAL plan behind our new liberation effort there is to unleash vast quantities of this prozac-like drug and bliss out the whole world, thus bringing about mindless global peace. If only!
2. having just suffered a miniature version of computer deprivation, I can reassure anyone who is skittish over the thought of cyber-terrorism knocking us back to the stone age, that it's not so bad. anyone over the age of 30 can also tesify about the pre-computer dark ages. it wasn't so dark. of course it would really put a crimp in complicated war machinery. we may be able to rough it without our electronic thermostatically-controlled air-conditioned houses, but how could we effectively wage war without instant communication and digital smart bomb abilities? would it end war? naaah, we'd just regress back to machetes and swords and other primitive killing methods ... because that's what humans do ...
jeez! we better get that worldwide supply of lithium quick! mandatory doses for all tpartiers, double doses for war hawks, triple doses for world leaders who write peace with one hand while the other hand is ordering smart bombs.
houseguest gone. computer shopping next week.
Deke: Congrats on what was, no doubt, a proper hosting of your house guest and now being able to anticipate the search for a new computer! (Life is like a series of '100 meter high hurdles,' no?)
With apologies to my oblique reference re the character giving you so much difficulty identifying. (My hint oblique??!! -- how 'bout your hint of a Tea Party connection to *manDRILLS* - vbg -- argh!!)
No, mine wasn't a hint to a Tea Partier, it was a clue to your mandrilled illustration, i.e., an ancient ancestor of ours who in the book, "Evolution" was named Capo! Ah, mysteries solved!!
Dada, omg, now I get it! sorry for being so slow on the uptake ... much like my ex-computer!
Capo was my favorite chapter of "Evolution". Much more evolved than a mere tpartier, more of an archetype of some of mankind's most basic traits (emphasis on MAN). Besides, he doesn't even have "drill" in his name, which I thought was pretty obvious ... perhaps only obvious to a mandrill-lover who HATES what has become of their nickname, baby!?!
a 2nd favorite chapter comes toward the end, when some refugees from our era are ffwded to the future.
Let the 100-meter high hurdles begin ... now that the houseguest is safely gone, I can conquer anything!
Deke: Hahahah! (Company has a way of making [for the Dada's, at least] smaller such things as dental crowns, major surgeries, onslaught on our dwindling retirement incomes, etc.) Yes, now you can "Go forth!", equal to any challenge presented you. Why you could probably be T. Woods tee partner at the U.S. Open on Pebble Beach this weekend! ("Oh wait, that wasn't such a gleeming example, was it [?]" Dada thinks, "reminding himself Woods is but a shell of his former self..." [a has-been in the making?].
Anyway, during a walk a few months back in one of the most beautiful spots within 50 miles or so I was watching Sam mark his territory in an especially lush and peaceful spot, letting all who followed know, "Sammy Cincos was here!" I later confessed to Sam as we were getting in the car to return home at my envy of him; how I had been sooo tempted to follow his example. QED: "Man" is a descendant of his Capo-like ancestors. (Ha! One only need look at today's corporate head pimps and their congressional whore reps to realize all we weak subordinate pack, herd, family members inhabit the limbs closest to the ground!
(But honestly, Capo turns out to be the source of much of modern man's more dominant traits.)
Looking forward to Evolution's *the future*.
Dada: yup, the pain of a few dental crowns, even a root canal, would've been preferable to the uprooting of our comfortable cocoon by, dumm-dah-dumm-dumm, the Houseguest from Hell! not that we weren't ecstatic to see the ancient auntie ... but perhaps if she'd warned us she is now in a wheelchair, the week might've been a bit easier for all.
"Go forth" ... as in, "Fore" (your T. Woods ref?) ... let's just say I resolved many decades ago, while still in my 20's, that I would NEVER play golf. My practice drives back then broke windows of many (un)fortunate homes along the greens. I'm sure my control of balls would be impossible now, not to mention the elitist factor that I resolved back in those idealistic years would never become a part of my lifestyle. As Geo Carlin once said, golf courses are a waste of good greenery ... turn 'em into public parks or tent cities for the homeless thereby freeing up some valuable space in those crowded underpasses. I think Carlin also said, watching golf is like watching flies f*ck. Sounds like something he'd say anyway.
What is perhaps the funniest golf news today is GOP chair M. Steele opining Obama should give up golf while the oil spill is spilling. WTF? "W" supposedly gave golf up during Iraq (except for when he didn't, ala caught in Michael Moore's Farenheit 911, "now watch this drive"). What a useless gesture! I'd rather W had continued golf and left Iraq alone. Obama, too, for that matter. Under the medical imperative, "first do no harm", perhaps the golf course is the BEST place for any president!
Re: Capo (or as he was dubbed in the DK household, crapo) ... yup the shitty-brown-stain of oil sreading all over the G of M does indeed remind one of crapo's daily antics. The rest of us do indeed reside on the lower tree limbs under big oil execs, big wall street rip-off artists, big neocon dreams of PNAC. Though if I'm remembering correctly, even crapo lost control in the end, becoming the kind of acolyte he'd always bullied by fist or nasty emissions or plain old threat displays. hmmm, you are right ... sounds more and more like a template for the spill, baby, spill crowd!
Sammy V, besides following his own prime directive, was also adhering to one of LBJ's rules (never pass up an opportunity to piss). But of course, that's where any comparison of Sam and LBJ ends. Afterall, Sam would NEVER have used the Gulf of Tonkin "incident" (real or embellished or outright fantasy) to instigate our assault on Vietnam (which, regardless of what I read almost everyday to the contrary, did indeed last longer than Afghanistan has so far). I think that's what I love most about dogs ... they have no ulterior motives ... what you see is what you get (instant appropriation of whatever food falls to the floor is not ulterior)!
Today's rant brought to you by: this week's emergency DK vehicle repair overriding any new computer purchase! Damn %*^& power windows stopped operating (or worse, getting stuck in the "down" position) and that is downright dangerous in this heat! (sigh -- technology -- making life easier through being impossible to easily repair)
Tea Party? WE have a resurgence of our own conservative arseholes here; call themselves The Liberal Party. Never mind, the fight is perennial.
As to computers, I'm being forced toward a lap top, given the lack of ready power supply. But if I go in that direction it will need to be a Mac. I'm fed up with the windows crap.
So until I can afford the Mac my posts are Beverly truncated as well. At least I have my choocks (chickens) to discuss the various issues of the moment.
Hi Cart! So strange that what you would call Libs there we would call Cons here. Well they are only words, afterall ... better to judge the party by the actual people in it!
re: computer ... after using EK's laptop for a couple wks, I still want a desktop ... but have had to put off online search for now due to brown-outs which seem to happen whenever I get some computer time.
Choocks are chickens? Real chickens? Do they ever respond with useable advice or merely lay an egg in your path?!?
Interesting times here, the first female Prime Minister of Aust has just been installed.
I probably shouldn't talk about chooks after that comment :) My new chooks, Isa Browns, do try to give advice, and lay eggs. What a treat having real poached eggs with real fresh eggs.
Cart: I don't know anything about her except if she's the first aussie female PM, this is definitely the year of girl power in politics!
and yup, fresh eggs really do taste different. so much is missed by the citified.
Deke: within the past year my mother-in-law had a Mazda Malady Moment when suddenly her driver side window, instead of raising at the command of a forefinger on a button decided to give up the ghost and went crashing instead into the bottom of its window well inside the door frame some 5000 ft down.
Good as new after a trip to the repair shop. Now, those times when I occasionally drive that Mazda and raise or lower that window, I think of it as a very nice moderately priced (in the $700-800 range) desktop computer! Hope this helps?
hey dada, the problem with a no-power power window is it might as well be a fixed window. if you are fortunate, it gets stuck in the "up" position. there is no way to manually raise/lower it (except as we found out when the window stuck in the "down" position, the dealer can take the door off and use some kind of power drill to raise it back up -- one time).
yes it does help to realize you realize repairing a power window costs about the same as a moderately priced computer. it means we did not get ripped off too badly -- zoom zoom zoom!
Let's meet up with an Open Mic on Twitter. Anyone??
You are so social, B.E.! Some day I will try Twitter, I promise, but not now ... especially since I am stuck using the husband's laptop. Everyone tells me I will like it, so who am I to be contrarian. But at this rate, I'm afraid by the time I finally dip my toe in twitter, the online world will have moved on to the nextest bestest newest thing, whatever that may be. Whatever it is, I'm sure I'll "see" you there!
(shutting down comments ... asian spammers making life miserable) .... finally ordered a new computer .... expect to be back online soon!
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