I'd Write More, but the Forces of Evil are Jogging My Elbow

[strange_aeons]

I have had a fucking spectacular month, let me tell you.

Please. Please let me tell you.

Allow me to follow that desperate, wheedling note with a defensive one. I haven't posted to my journal in a month and a half. It's not because I don't love you. It's because I'm insane. I've been using my roommate's computer all this time, which is a torture that has robbed me of SAN points by the bucketful — it's running Windows XP Home, a seething nightmare of bright friendly graphics and forcible handholding in precisely the places where I want neither — and my OCD has prevented me from posting to my journal or reading my email from The Wrong Computer.

I kept no journal of my time in that silent ... okay, that beeping, blinking, Clippy-infested hell, but now that I have returned to the relative comfort of my computer, a chair that doesn't make my ass numb, and cold, hard, beautiful Windows 98, I shall attempt to reconstruct the events of the last whatever. Which should be pretty easy, actually, because I've got logs and things, and in fact I intend to pepper this account with funny quotes from them.

It started in early November, when roimata sent me her old GeForce4 MX. There was some wheedling on my part. I debased myself. I think we both enjoyed it. Anyway, she sent it. And not a moment too soon, because a couple of days later my machine pretty much stopped working entirely.

When my left arm stopped tingling, I rebooted.

I traded some emails with keeps, using my roommate's computer, but didn't log in anywhere because I hate raw telnet and getting MUSHClient would have felt too much like piling my stuff in someone else's territory, even if that someone else was unlikely to ever notice, or care if she did. That didn't stop me from complaining about her email client, which encourages top-posting.

Which makes sense, because you usually answer before people say things.
>This is.
>> What's top-posting?

Anyway, we flailed around for a while — at some point I gave up and just downloaded MUSHclient, because an occasional need for human contact + self-imposed exile = if not misery, at least a whole lot of boredom — and tracked the problem to my video card. I was using a Biostar motherboard with onboard video and sound, though I wasn't using the onboard sound because it was broken and the retarded hyenas at Biostar were of no help whatsoever, so I was sedate about having to do the disable onboard video dance, having done essentially it before.

Vinci the Magnificent says, "He gets gayer every time I click on him and he says something."

Except it was undisablable. Did I mention retarded hyenas? So I had to get a new motherboard. At this point, I was beginning to consider breaking into Biostar HQ with some kind of large exploding thing. Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure Biostar HQ is in Taiwan. The motherboard I ordered was made by an entirely different company, didn't have onboard anything, took a week to arrive and, as I discovered when it arrived, would not accept the AMR modem I was using at the time, nor the ISA modem I had had to rush-order said AMR to replace the last time I upgraded, because my friends at Biostar had contientiously neglected to include an ISA slot.

Whitney says "Incidentally, would you like the hard drive that tienedreugan can't make work in his machine, to add to your Elephant's Graveyard of wayward hardware, or possibly even to see if it loves you?"
Tesla says, "What flavor is it, and is there any apparent reason why it isn't working? Which is to say, yes."
Whitney says, "I believe the apparent reason for it to not work was that it took a disliking to his nose."
Babbage, reading Polymer City Chronicles, looks up Stevie Case. Huh. I'll be; a game designer, or something, was in Playboy.
Tesla says, "... temperamental of it."
Whitney says, "That's what we thought. It's a Western Digical EIDE drive, apparently 18 gig."
Babbage observes, "She's got some really huge boobies."
Tesla says, "That's not bad. I think the hard drive I have that /isn't/ dying is a Western Digital."
Babbage says, "Western Digital drives are usually pretty good."
Whitney says, "So if it likes your nose better, bonus."
Whitney says, "And if it doesn't like your nose either, you have more supplies for that epic work of modern art."
Tesla says, "Seriously, at some point I should spraypaint all this stuff gold and take it on tour."
Tesla isn't entirely certain when he became the sort of geek who has the husks of old computers lying around on the floor, but kind of likes it.
Whitney keeps the husks of her old computers in the built-in china cabinet in her office. :}
Tesla laughs.

So I had to get a new modem. At this point I was fucking sick of waiting, so I ordered a nine-dollar modem and spent another sixteen on shipping, which would have been stupid even if what happened next hadn't — namely, I got everything up and running (except for the modem, because it hadn't arrived yet), was still experiencing crashes and the disconcerting long file name errors I had been getting when all this started, and scandisk informed me that there were surface errors on drive C:.

In a word, argh.

John Leguizamo says, "So we had to move again...."

I stressed. I looked at the money I had. I stressed some more. Maybe 'despaired' would be a better word. There was lamenting. I imagine it was incredibly annoying to watch. To shut me up, lilairen offered to buy me a new hard drive. Well, she said something about not liking to see me in pain, but really, trying to shut me up is a perfectly natural and sane response to that kind of situation. Come on, own up. Anyway, I was very touched, and I told her that at the time, which means you're all spared having to watch me fumble through trying to express a genuine emotion. I chose that moment to have a surprise attack of financial solvency, so didn't take her up on the offer, but did I mention I was touched? Because I was. Oh, I said I wasn't going to get all mushy, didn't I.

Tesla says, "I have a serious problem with people who would volountarily follow an all-knowing all-doing all-loving deity who is less laid-back than me."
Whitney says, "You paragon of peace and tolerance and loving fuzzybunny kindness."
Tesla smiles beatifically.
Whitney says, "Saint Squid, governing righteous throttling."
Tesla howls.

I wound up buying a Samsung to replace the (as Keeps dubbed it) spazzy drive, which was an infuriatingly young Maxtor of some model or other. Now, I did have another drive, a thirtysome-gigabyte Western Digital whatever, but moving everything from the Maxtor to the WD wasn't an option because there was maybe a gigabyte of space left on said WD, and twenty-eight or so full on the Maxtor. I was due for a new hard drive anyway. I just hadn't planned on getting one for a while, and certainly not under such traumatic conditions. The Samsung took a week and a half to arrive, presumably having gotten waylaid in Kentucky, and when it did arrive I spent another week trying to get it to play nice with the WD — I'm pretty sure the problem was that I, being an idiot, had forgotten I had the WD set master. Can't have two drives set master on the same cable. They don't like that. I was sure I'd set it slave, too. Anyway. I got everything up and running, and began copying things over, and while I was doing that, the power went out.

For three days.

Greg Behrendt says, "I'm going to say that again, because I don't think you're taking the journey with me."

THREE FUCKING DAYS.

Three days of no heat during the subzero nights, no light in this nigh-on-windowless house, and no water, not even to flush the toilet with, because we don't have reservoir water, which comes with built-in pressure; instead we have wellwater, which requires a pump. (We bought bottled water and poured it in the toilet tank to flush it, before you ask.) On the plus side, I got two enormous breakfasts at a local Perkins out of it, because there is nothing more depressing than sitting in a freezing house in one's pajamas and a down parka, eating cold food from a refridgerator that isn't significantly warmer than it was before the power went out. Which is what I did the first day of the blackout, except for the pajamas, because my roommate was at work and I, a non-driver, couldn't even call her to tell her to bring food because ... yep ... the phone was cordless, and required power.

Whitney is still confused as to why that fanfic help community is interested in limes.
Tesla says, "I'm pretty sure it's a lemon joke."
Whitney says, "A lemon joke."
Tesla says, "Indeed."
Tesla says, "Okay, now I'm just being a shit. Lemon = underageish porn."
Whitney says, ". . . why?"
Tesla says, "I have no idea."
Whitney says, "Damnit, you're my window of understanding into pop culture! Don't fail me now!"
Tesla says, "God, if I'm your window of understanding into pop culture, you've got more problems than a little obscure porn terminology."
Whitney says, "So?"
Tesla says, "You ruin all my dramatic moments."

We live a bit outside of Bumfuck, and only a few houses in our immediate vicinity were effected by our particular blackout (though there were others all over the state, I'm told), so when we went into Bumfuck for breakfast, there was power. For a bit. It went out just before we paid, plunging us into a Mad Maxian post-apocalyptic nightmare of anarchy and really big shoulder pads, because, like our water, traffic signals run on electricity. We ran errands in Columbia, which hadn't had a blackout in all the fifteen years that I lived there and clearly wasn't about to start, including but not limited to the purchasing of a whole lot of candles, and of a cordful phone.

The next day we ate breakfast at Perkins again, and afterwards I waddled into the bathroom and was greeted by the sight of a child, naked from around the bottom of the ribcage down. It was probably a girl, unless they've changed the rules recently, but honestly I wasn't paying very close attention. I, immediately feeling (in my twee scarf and disreputable-looking frayed trenchcoat) like a pedophile, raised my arms to block out the searing light reflecting off her hairless body, and scurried into the unoccupied stall, where I hid until my roommate finished eating and came into the bathroom. I related the story to her, whereupon she laughed until we got out to the car, the bitch.

Tesla splutters. http://www.polymercitychronicles.com/archive/20001211.html. This joke you will get, because it has nothing to do with the punchline.
Whitney says, ". . . k."
Whitney says, "Giant Flying Squid? You remember that guy I bounced you a post from off alt.callahans, months and months ago?"
Tesla says, "What, you expected me /not/ to?"
Whitney says, "Expect you not to remember something? How unreasonable of all right-thinking individuals!"
Tesla says, "Nono. Expecting me not to remember something /irrelevant/ is unreasonable."
Whitney snrch. Ah. "Did you connect that up with wanting to show me the giant flying squid comic, or was that just fortuitous happenstance, then?"
Tesla showed you the giant flying squid comic just for its giant flying squid content. :)
Whitney says, "Okay, good. ;)"
Whitney says, "I find it amusing that we just spent five minutes negotiating about what the joke was."

The power came back on a couple of hours before noon of the third day, after I had brushed my teeth and washed as much of myself as I could manage with the coldest water I have ever felt, which meant I didn't even get another decent breakfast or a few hours' reading in Borders for my trouble. On the other hand, it also meant I got to finish beating my computer into shape, which I did. That was Saturday, and it's taken me this long to get around to posting mostly because this has taken me a fair bit of time to write.

At some point during this whole ordeal, I discovered an enormous cavity in one of my back molars. I mean, gigantic. I could have fit that kid's head in it, if I were the sort of person who would do something like that, which I most certainly am not, flasher coat or no flasher coat. It completely snuck up on me, and my roommate, who is rather more versed in this cavity thing than I am, speculates that I had a large cavity with a small aperature, and that a bit of tooth fell out and exposed more of said cavity. This is disturbing but plausible. So I needed something done about that, before I entered root canal territory.

Tesla says, "I can't stop tonguing it. And it's so /big/. Which would sound pretty suggestive out of context."

Last year around this time, I was doing very nearly the same thing, only with more pain and more playing in traffic. I had my wisdom teeth removed, because they were impacted and beginning to ruin my five years' worth of orthodontia, which was unacceptable. Except, on the way to the surgeon's, there was a kitten on the road who I was compelled to navigate about three lanesful of honking, speeding lorries to get to safety. There was no such excitement yesterday, but I admit I was a little jumpy on the way to the doctor's office, which does not explain why, when he started drilling, I fell asleep. He kept having to open my mouth for me. This happens to my mother too, so I assume it's hereditary. Most reclining chairs -- hair dressers', for the most part -- do that to me, too; it's like flipping an alligator on its back. Later my roommate treated me to lunch at the Nordstrom's in Columbia. While she windowshopped, people kept coming up to me and asking me if I 'needed any help'. I was wearing my molester coat again, of course, and there was the small matter of the visible swelling on the side of my face.

Today, everything is reassembled (except for the sides of my case, which I've yet to put back on), everything is installed (except for my tablet, which has annoying screws on its plug, and I haven't rebooted yet anyway), and I'm having only the usual intermittent Opera crashes and the occasional disturbing DMA problem, but the latter seem to have stopped. I owe a great deal of thanks to keeps for his infinite patience and two-years-out-of-date knowledge, to lilairen for her generosity and subtlety, and to roimata for being a smokin' hot turbo babe. ... I mean, for her generosity also. And to lstone, of course, for keeping me entertained by talking about boobies at odd intervals. Did I miss anyone?

And, of course, when I showed up on San Diego again, I had the sweetest conversation with caltan and annwyd:

Runar, reminded, passive-aggressively slobbers all over Magneto's cape until somebody asks him what this sanity-destroying revelation was!
Vertigo edges fearfully away, then quietly, nervously asks, "What was your sanity-destroying revelation about Runar?"
Runar says, "Runar ... has a heart-shaped face."
Runar dissolves into tears.
Magneto ...laughs out loud.
Vertigo says, "..."
Runar says, "And I can't put that in a desc, but I don't know how else to describe it! I'm going to go on for fifteen lines about how he's all funny-colored and underweight and shabby and has no taste in clothes, and then smack in the middle there's going to be the phrase 'heart-shaped face', which is going to stick out like an enormous WILL SUCK COCK FOR TS sign. People are going to think Runar's a long-haired angsty gayboi! He's really a long-haired angsty asexualboi!"
Vertigo dies.
Magneto says, "Runar?"
Runar twitches. "What?"
Magneto says, "There are no words for how very much I missed you."
Runar says, "Awww."

He's such a dear, even if most of you haven't got enough context for that to make sense.

All this time with very little in the way of creative outlet has done wonders for my worldbuilding and random pondering, so you can expect to see a lot of rambling in this space over the course of the next few weeks.

It's good to be back.

Comments

[keeps.livejournal.com]

Can't have two drives set master on the same cable. They don't like that. I was sure I'd set it slave, too.

So was I, seeing as how I asked four or five times to make sure it was.

Not that I was bewildered and frustrated or anything. Just don't do that again, on penalty of torture. Or my being even more busy.

[tiassa]

When my brother-in-law was doing tech support a few years ago, he got a call from a woman who was having trouble putting in a new hard drive. He tried to explain how to set one to be master and one to be slave, but she got really offended by those terms and insisted he refer to them as the 'employer' drive and the 'employee' drive for the duration of the call.

[tiassa]

Y'know, it's kind of confusing - I want to sympathize with your awful trials, but I also want to giggle a lot because you make it sound so funny. Don't do that to me.

If you want another temperamental hard drive, my sister gave me one that I haven't had time to play with yet. She couldn't find anything wrong with it, but once she replaced the thing her Windows problems disappeared. I think it was just protesting the use of WinXP.

Actually, come to think of it, I have an awful lot of unusued hardware sitting around. I could build a new computer with it, if I had a monitor and the aforementioned hard drive would cooperate with Win98.

Also, you're lucky. My wisdom teeth grew in and messed up six years' worth of orthodontia, but the dentist says they're not impacted so I don't need them removed. If I don't need them removed, the insurance won't pay for it. So I can either have messy teeth or pay a crapload of money for the removal (since I refuse to do it without anaesthesia). Argh.

[kiya]

Gtst has been practicing how to make horrors and randomness hysterically funny with Rook.

[oneironaut.livejournal.com]

Y'know, it's kind of confusing - I want to sympathize with your awful trials, but I also want to giggle a lot because you make it sound so funny. Don't do that to me.

Which was, of course, precisely the effect I was going for.

Actually, come to think of it, I have an awful lot of unusued hardware sitting around. I could build a new computer with it, if I had a monitor and the aforementioned hard drive would cooperate with Win98.

I've got two processors, three motherboards (one of which has working onboard video and sound), a floppy drive, a CD-ROM, two modems, two cases and, arguably, a hard drive. (The broken one still works, just probably not for long, and not very well.) I could definitely build a computer from this, it's just that it would suck. All of this hardware is at least three or four years old.

Also, you're lucky. My wisdom teeth grew in and messed up six years' worth of orthodontia, but the dentist says they're not impacted so I don't need them removed. If I don't need them removed, the insurance won't pay for it. So I can either have messy teeth or pay a crapload of money for the removal (since I refuse to do it without anaesthesia). Argh.

Do you mean without general anaesthesia, or without anaesthesia of any kind? Doing it without the latter would be insane, but I got by fine without the former. It was unpleasant, but mostly because of the noises, though it's come to light that I may have been hallucinating some of those.

(Also, I read numbness in my jaw as tension, and tend to tense up as a result, because my jaw wouldn't be tight without a good reason, right? I think the oral surgeon got the impression I was scared, and I tried to explain this to her, except I didn't have a working tongue or lower lip and my mouth was full of those cotton things, so I'm not sure how much of the explanation she caught.

(Apparently I'm really funny right after I've been sedated.)

[tiassa]

Do you mean without general anaesthesia, or without anaesthesia of any kind?

General, definitely. I had some other molars removed when I was eleven or twelve, to make room for the wisdom teeth to grow in. It turned out that I'm allergic to nitrous oxide, so I was completely awake for the whole thing. It was a horrible, traumatic two-hour experience, during which I received no less than 32 shots of Novocaine and could still feel the grinding of the teeth being dug out.