Days of Shades

I still don't know how much if anything I lost from the harddrive that went kaput. My dear emony42 advised against trying it with another drive as boot until she, her recovery software, and her computer named Gandalf were in town (which is tomorrow).

So I gave Gonzales a lobotomy.

Oh, lower brain-stem functions were still there, but with both his hard-drives sitting on the desk he wasn't doing much thinking.

Today I tracked down a new 500 gb drive. This was harder than expected. Because of the flooding in Thailand, drives are hard to get and way more expensive than they were six months ago (which is why I bought a 7200 rpm and not 1000 -- that would have set me back over $200). The local computer store didn't have any internal hard-drives in stock, period.

The plan (again, with the advice of my dear Lyns. Some people don't have a Lyns*. I don't know how they get by) is to use the new one as the system drive and set up two matched drives in RAID for data... once the prices drop a bit. This should be an excellent work around for my "Skellington is too scatterbrained to back things up or remember to set-up a program to do so" problem.

So, I've just convinced Microsoft I didn't steal windows 7, and downloaded Firefox so IE can sit down and shut up. I think I'll save all those updates for tomorrow.

*When I mentioned this to my housemate madalchemist, he said "But did you ever work out the joint property agreement with her husband?"
Skellington: "Yes, the last time it came up R said he always knew she was just on long-term lease from me."
MadAlchemist: "Huh... y'know, 'long term lease' is a healthier view of marriage than some I've heard..."

M, L, and I have been friends since we were 7 or 8. What's a few years of marriage compared to that? :P

Last night I hit a real low -- my shop-vac wasn't working despite being taken apart and put back together, my PC wasn't working, the PC not working resulted in a game not working, cleaning and organizing definitely wasn't working, and there was evidence that my brain wasn't working, either, in that I finally realized that I double-booked myself in early October. I'm supposed to play a gig in Olympia during the same time I'm supposed to be in southern Oregon visiting my grandparents. Uh. Oops?

Anyway!

Shop-vac: IT'S SUPER EFFECTIVE! I was a total dork about the shop-vac, and the one thing I hadn't checked was the hose, which is just after "plug it in" on the trouble shooting guide. SO! Shop-vac is fixed, using the high-tech technique of shoving a 1x2 down the hose to dislodge the clog.

PC: IT'S ALIVE! I'd *correctly* guessed that the video card was fried, and was able to confirm that by scavenging the video card from madalchemist's unused box, which is currently purring away in Gonzales now. It was about time to upgrade my machine anyway, so a brand-spanking new video card is on it's way from newegg, along with 4 more gigs of ram. Gonzales shall live up to his namesake once again!

Game: the PC crash corrupted files for ME2, but I was able to put 'em back where they belong. Energy Drain shall be mine, darn it!

Cleanliness: Because I didn't have the lure of a PC this morning, I cleaned my room. With dusting and vacuuming and organizing of three months of mostly non-important mail and everything.

Still Unresolved...

The fact that I was a total flake who doesn't know how to read a calendar is still icky, but I talked to Erik and we worked out some options. Namely, he'll try to switch his vacation days so we can spend the earlier weekend in Oregon and then do our gigs (Oh, did I mention he didn't realize he had a gig that day either? And these are two separate gigs, not one we're doing together). Plan B is that we ditch the gigs and run away where no angry co-musicians can find us. Plan B is not a good plan, but they're both really short, non-paying gigs, and for me it's one where another fiddler can fill in (if they want. There are three fiddlers, so they don't need another).


So. I may not be bound for total misery and squalor after all.

Someone on designrants linked to a straightforward essay on why designers are still needed.

I flipped back through a few of the blog's previous posts, and found a rant about tools and the replacement cost thereof.

I'm pretty sure it makes me a geezer only one step away from telling kids to get off my lawn*, but little fishies, how I feel this rant.

The current** fiscal situation of Skellinton Art is, er, negative, due to last year's planned purchase of Adobe CS3 and totally unplanned emergency purchase of Gonzales. I freelance for extra cash to buy my design and art toys, mostly, so that's to be expected, but still, it's amazing how much we all spend on things that we expect to replace within five years.

Vis a vis computers, this is in large part because of the speed of technological innovation, and the speed of technological innovation is honestly pretty cool. When it comes to my cell phone, I'd rather I hadn't had to replace it after two years, considering that the new one does basically the same shit as the old one, and that shit is all I need (to be fair, the call quality is marginally better, and it's, er, lime green, which is a plus). Once you get into the average purchasing habits of cars, you get into the truly ridiculous.

Just things I've been thinkin' about.

EDIT: Forgot that though I'm using Open Office now, I'm considering shelling out for MS Office. I don't love it, but everyone uses it, and it's getting awkward. Damn.


*I'll get tips on proper lawn-clearing technique from duffy61.

**I originally spelled this 'currant', an understandable slip-up considering my last few posts.

My creation, it lives! It purrs! It's going to take all morning to configure it's hard drives because they are the SIZE OF THE INTERNET.

While it configures hard drives the SIZE OF THE INTERNET, I need to decide what to call it other than it. My favorite name, Heironymous, I'm saving for my next small fuzzy animal. I considered Lucien (the librarian from Sandman) but I'm leaning towards Gonzales, named after Speedy. Arriba, Arriba! I bet politically correct kids channels today don't air Speedy Gonzales. Do they? Is it culturally insensitive to name a 3.16 Ghz Dual processor computer with 4 gigs of ram after a small cartoon mouse with a caricature of a Mexican accent? Do I care?