after one long season of waiting

My computer's back and, though I've broken it now (today) about five times, it seems to be in its usual happy condition (ie, capable of being broken and springing back to life, though that bit where it wouldn't give me enough authority to log off was kinda... strange and scary). But it's hooooome, and omg what a relief that is. I feel like a normal college student again. Not like I'll get anything done, but at least like the option is there without having to deal with cranky people in the computer lab. (Goshdarn cranky people, making my life uncomfortable!)

So, my most recent breaking has involved not dragging and dropping 5000 songs into iTunes (which is what I thought would break everything), but updating my iPod. I should've known this would break things, though, because things always break when I have to do a full update on my iPod. That's just how things work. But iTunes not breaking when I did that to it? Really, really impressive. And right now I'm kinda proud that I've actually gotten things working almost exactly as they were before in only about five hours. That's not bad when you consider how picky I am about how my computer works. (In fact, I am picky to the point that it's a severe annoyance that when the tech people reformatted my computer they named the user account "user". Even "User" would annoy me less, because at least that has a capital letter. But nooo, it's "user", and goshfreakingdarnit that annoys not only the anal-retentive computer geek that wants my computer to known my name, but the fascist English major as well. Grr, tech people, grr. This is like haunting me. It's bad enough that my computer now has this strange, light, baby-powder kind of scent (mixed with old man), the origins of which I simply cannot fathom. I mean, seriously. What self-respecting tech douses a computer in something that smells vaguely perfume-y?

But I'll try to keep my complaining to a minimum, because there are months of things I need to catch up on. The only thing I've got on my computer right now is Torchwood, and I haven't even gotten around to watching that yet. Oh well! Tomorrow will be the day, I suppose. Since it'll be the weekend and all. Provided I actually get my response paper done. It's not a good sign when you're about to start re-reading something by Virginia Woolf, get distracted by something online, get distracted by a computer error, then look at the book and wonder where you left off with what you were reading online. And it's especially bad when what you were reading online is about the farthest thing from "Kew Gardens" you can get (being something involving Silent Hill 4 and Doctor Who).

For now, though, despite, or perhaps as a result of my clearly addled mental state, I will be dancing the happy computerful dance.

World still broken. I guess I'll check in again later.

Freaking English department, I swear I walked in there and immediately afterwards the person I needed to talk to shut her door and left. Oh, and my plan to ride my bike to campus so I wouldn't have to worry about the buses? Both of my tires are flat. What gives, world? Seriously. This is unfair. I am being oppressed! I had to pedal so much I could barely walk when I got to campus! I hope everyone else is laughing at this as much as I am, because goshdarnit everything the world is doing to me and I'm still laughing at it. Out of spite. Take that, world! Ha! But if that was my computer that came in with the FedEx guy today, which I thought I saw as I was leaving the building, and I don't hear about it... oh, how you will pay, world. Oh how you will pay for teasing me. In fact, if that wasn't my computer, it counts as teasing me. Because now I have hope.

Dear Computer,

I love you to death, but you have to understand that, as your master, I sometimes have to make a decision as to when it's best to put you out of your misery. I'm touched that you care so much about me, really I am, but there comes a point where the master has to pull the metaphorical plug (because you're a laptop with a battery, and the physical one won't do the trick). Seeing you in pain like this is making me sad, and you have my permission to just let go. Let the harddrive die. I appreciate your valiant efforts, but I promise I have everything essential to you backed up on your friend the external harddrive, and the brain transplant should be even more seamless than the brainwashing we did this summer. Trust me. You will come back stronger, better, faster. I've been working on my mad scientist cred, I know these things.

Much Love,
Hippo

Ahoy, me friendslist. I've 'ad meself one o' them days what's not quite right fer livin' in, bein' all grey an' cold an' unwelcomin'. Tis makin' me feel that winter's already settin' in on me happy shore's 'ere on the Lake. Ain't right, far's I'm concerned. An' if that weren't enough... ye know those days when ye wake up an' it ain't quite worth it te get out o' bed, on account o' you feelin' a mite out-of-sorts, but not enough te justify layin' in yer bed an' disregardin' the day in its entirety? Tis one o' those, fer me an' me computer, it seems. Fer it's gone an' betrayed me again by suddenly gettin' it into its 'ead it'll spite me by workin' again. If throwin' it o'erboard wasn't an action dead-set in writin' against me warranty, I'd do it. Or make the deviant thing walk the plank. But no, the scallawag 'as got te make me look a fool in front o' tech support. An' if they refuse again te be fixin' it fer me, 'twon't me much stoppin' me from takin' me cutlass te whatever man heads the outfit an' an wavin' it about til things get fixed up shiny-like.

An' if the men what be in charge o' keepin' this dorm ship-shape don't haul themselves up te me cabin 'ere an' fix me stove, I ain't ever bringin' meself down to the depths o' their maintenance rooms an' fixin' their printer.

Time it took me to break Knoppix: approximately 14 hours. Weirdest brokenness I've caused in a computer, too. Seemed to be having some amazingly bizarre issues with the caps lock key. I feel like, since I'm stuck with this until the end of the year, I should at least learn Linux properly... (but it's so easy to just be lazy and use Knoppix like Windows!) I've determined that, until I can play the version of Tetris on here, I cannot possibly claim to know anything about the OS. This would seem simple... except there is a trick to this Tetris I haven't figured out, in that you can't use the arrow keys, nor can I summon the help file, and thus I remain Linux illiterate. I kind of miss being able to have settings that are, you know, permanent... which is more the fault of running the OS from a CD than anything.

Somehow, I've been getting far, far better download speeds on here than usual. I don't know whether it's some sort of network preference against people running Windows, or... what. Not going to complain, though, because I've been able to get things in about ten minutes that used to take half an hour.

I finished a slight outline for my Modern Fiction final paper today... looks like I'm going to be spending quite a bit of time going over Cane and pulling out references to dusk, but with luck it'll be a decent enough paper. That class is almost certainly going to be my lowest grade this quarter, but as long as I don't kill the paper entirely, I should have about a B in there. That's just... wow. This is honestly the first quarter in forever that I haven't been terrified of getting a C in. Nevermind that I'm aiming for a 3.5 in my classes right now and can quite easily still fall quite short of that, at least I'm sitting in a decent spot. I should really put some thought into my Shakespeare paper sometime tonight. I'm not sure if I want to write on King Lear or the Tempest... And I haven't the slightest what I'm doing for my film paper. I should probably stop ignoring that class.

Oh, and in honour of getting some work done and not having to slave away in the computer labs and, most of all, persisiting at finding a way to boot my computer so I wouldn't have to borrow Skirtpants' laptop, I indulged myself in the other thing I was holding off on. Even if it eats my time... I missed it, goshdarnit, so there. Hopefully they'll take me back.

All right. I got back today, hoping for something interesting in one of my e-mail inboxes. Turns out my recovery CD has arrived. I guess I've had good luck with electronics-related things being shipped quickly. So I went "yay!" and went downstairs and picked it up, brought it up here, stuck it in my poor unhappy laptop...

At this point, words don't even explain my utter confusion and frustration. You see, I was rather amused that, despite the fact that I spelled my name for them, I still somehow became Terry on the envelope. Okay, I can see that... if I hadn't spelled it. Heck, I could see it even if I had spelled it, if they'd managed to end it in an ie. Who knows what my bank will do... hopefully they'll figure out the charge. Though, the receipt in the envelope said I hadn't been charged anything... even though they claimed it'd be $40. So, you know... confusion. Slight bemusement, because, really, can one triad of tech support, computer company, and repair places be that utterly stupid consistantly?

Yes. Yes they can.

They sent me the WRONG recovery CD.

Not only that... when I tell it to reformat, it comes up with WRONG MACHINE. In that obnoxious each-letter-is-giant-and-made-of-that-letter, isn't-this-cute? way that you used to see on like, old ATM machines. Like it's mocking me.

Dear Toshiba, If you are going to have a seperate recovery CD for A25s and A25-S207s, freaking make sure you can distinguish them by their serial numbers. Or, you know, ask. And kindly make sure your sales people are capable of listening to people's names. Omfgwtf, srsly. I just want my computer to work again.

Honestly. I would like to hitchhike to wherever these people are and just... I dunno, maybe it'd freak them out if I just glared at them from outside the window for a while. Or very loudly faked my own death. Maybe performance art. Performance art is fun. Honestly, wtf. How can I have so many problems getting this fixed? My goodness.

(Yes, this is hilarious. Though, if this were fiction, I think I'd have to tell the writer that they'd already passed the point where the joke was pushed too far. Because really, the only reaction you're getting out of this character now is slightly stressed-out, I can't believe this is still happening laughter. And what fun is that? The audience has got to be bored by now.)

I know it would be totally useless to call some poor tech support person and just scream at them for the next fifteen or twenty minutes... but I think it'd make me feel better.

You see, there's a point, about three months before the harddrive dies completely (usually without much warning). Weird noises, slowness, the like. Kind of like what happened to my computer, oh, three months ago. I am a lowly, underqualified random fix-it girl and I know this. I told them "replace my hard drive" and, as elated as I was for them to send it back to me in one piece, they should have done what I said and replaced the freaking hard drive because, despite my optimism, this is just what happens to most laptop harddrives when they're three and things start going wrong. GAH! Of course, this is totally forgivable because at the time, nothing was technically wrong. What isn't forgivable, however, is the fact that most of the rest of the stuff that was broken that I asked them to fix also came back not-fixed. The hinges? Fixed, but broke again about five days later. Was I being evil to them? No! Just installed wrong. The sound card wonkiness/headphone jack fiddlyness? Also not fixed. The CD drive problem? (And here is where I explode out of anger) "Don't worry miss, the lens was just dirty." Oh, okay... don't see how that was causing it to freeze things and not boot from CD, but all right, no big deal, at least it reads CDs most of the time now. You're the techies, you know what's going on. MY FREAKING COMPUTER STILL WON'T BOOT FROM CD YOU FREAKING NERDTARDS, AND NOW THAT THE HARD DRIVE HAS REALLY GONE, LIKE I TOLD YOU IT WOULD, I CAN'T DO A FREAKING THING ABOUT IT BECAUSE THE CD DRIVE IS STILL NOT WORKING CORRECTLY WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE THAT YOU CAN'T FIX THINGS WHEN I SPELL OUT WHAT'S WRONG AND SAY "FIX THIS"??? I CAN'T EVEN BOOT INTO LINUX AND USE MY FREAKING COMPUTER ANYMORE BECAUSE YOU IDIOTS DIDN'T LISTEN TO ME WHEN I TOLD YOU SOMETHING WAS WRONG. SOMETHING IS WRONG! SOMETHING CONTINUES TO BE WRONG, AND I HAVE THREE MORE WEEKS THAT I NEED TO GET THROUGH AT SCHOOL AND I'M STUCK WITH NOTHING I CAN DO ABOUT IT. OH, AND YOU ALSO LOST MY RESTORE CD, AND WHO KNOWS WHAT KIND OF HOOPS I'LL HAVE TO JUMP THROUGH TO GET THAT BACK, THANK-YOU-VERY-MUCH. TURDS.

Actually, I feel better now. A little.

Er... so. You know that theory I had about a fan problem with my computer?

...

.......

I hate tech support.

I love the guys who actually fix things.

Even though it really has nothing to do with them that my hard drive is fine. Or at least they haven't found anything wrong with it that wasn't on my longer List of Problems. In fact, the guy I talked to blamed it on the fan. Noise? Fan. Vibrations and general nastiness? Fan. Slowness? Overheating from fan and (this is my own speculation) the fact that having a screwed up fan Messes Other Things Up.

I feel somewhat vindicated.


I knew it wasn't the hard drive once the noise quieted down. I knew that was a fan noise. Goshdarnit, tech support, why don't you believe girls?!

Aaand even if these guys run their final tests tomorrow and find something wrong with the hard drive... well, it'll get fixed. HOWEVER, if I get my computer back and the hard drive dies... I will not be a happy girl at all. Really, at this point, as long as I get my computer back in working order, I will be happy.

But I am optimistic. Especially now. Because omg I'm not going to have to recreate my computer from what I managed to back up. This is the best news ever. Is it bad that most of what I'm really happy about, aside from not having to redo all my settings, is the fact that I'm not going to lose all of the song stats from my iPod? And all the tiny things that bothered me will be fixed! And maybe they'll figure out where part of my RAM went when they do the rest of their tests. (The guy on the phone? So much friendlier than those tech support people. Not sure if I trust friendly to be certain there wasn't a problem with my hard drive... but I will happily accept that there might not be.)

Oh, and I'm done with my papers until nearly finals week. That's also awesome news.

Oh dear. On the plus side of all this, I've been social lately. I can blame that on a lot of things, though. It's more of an effect from me being ahead on my homework. By days. I have two papers due next week... that I'm going to start on tonight. Because I have nothing else to do. But that doesn't mean you don't have anything to do, so I'll divide this entry up with cuts to make life easier on your friends list.

( Rambling and worrying on the computer situation )

( Oh! And I had a very epic dream last night, which is actually coherent and quite strange. And really the only part of this entry that might be actually interesting. It includes pop culture and the pouring of ice cream libations. )

( And a tiny FMA-related rant that concerns none of you, because you're sane )

Let's see if I can summarize this properly. I think the world has it in for me this year. Honest.

I think that should be good enough. But if you want more detail:

10:00 Couldn't focus on paper. Eyelids drooping.
11:00 Crap! Not done with paper! Eyelids drooping, but writing continues.
Noon: Turn in paper about a minute and a half late to no ill effects.
1:00: Doze off in Civ for about a minute, until catching self wondering why the professor was making a lecture on the 58 Sufjan Stevens songs he had downloaded.
2:00: Return to dorm. Discover new, large, rather maroonish-pink couch. Discuss Half-Blood Prince with roomie. Move computer from chair it was put on when couch back onto desk. Sleep.
2:15-6:30: Sleep, glorious sleep.
6:30: Wake up. Come groggily into living room. Greet other roomie. Tell computer it's okay to update Firefox. Wonder vaguely why it's going so slow. Notice a very unhappy grinding sort of noice. Frown.
7:00: Frantically try to figure out how to fix computer, which is running so slow it's basically unusable. Determine (by few leaps of the imagination) that something hardware-related has finally bitten the dust.
7:30: Discover warranty information is nowhere to be found. Call home. Wait for call back, and finally get CPU fan cover open.
8:00: Pull ridiculous amounts of dust from CPU fan, vainly hope that this it the problem. Computer still rebels against me. Mom calls back with tech number.
8:30: Call tech support. Get treated like an airhead. Cause the operator to freak out because I told him I cleanded the fan. He asks if I did it while the computer was on. (Yes, of course. I also used water to clean out the dust.) Long conversation in which I try to explain that, if it's not the fan (which it does not appear to be), then it is the harddrive that is finally on its way towards the great light beyond. He tells me that if it is not making noise loud enough to disturb a crowded room, it is not a problem, and gives me a case number to call back if anything "really goes wrong."
9:00: Finally get computer happy enough to run more than one program at once. Still painfully slow, and inexplicably using 100% of its CPU way more often than it used to. Much internalized anger and emo.

So yay, dealing with my computer finally giving out on me on only four hours of sleep after staying up all night working on the paper of DOOM. Oh, and it's a good thing I didn't skip Civ today, because yay, we got another paper assigned. The day we turned this one in.

Anyway, does anyone know if there's a second fan in a laptop, maybe near the hard drive? My computer's sad noises don't always sound like they're hard drive related, and the tech guy hinted that there was more than one fan (even though he was USELESS otherwise. Freaking actual American tech guy). If that's what's broken and it's just making the hard drive overheat or something, I sort of have hope. But, well, at least I've got everything backed up, just in case. Hooray for my externa hard drive!