When brand new really means pre broken
Where to start….
I plugged my 160 GB Seagate into my on board IDE bus and fired up my computer. No good. Sees nothing. Further research informs me that my computer can’t have a drive that size. Fuss. Fume. Get over it and drop nearly the same amount as the drive on a controller card.
Controller card arrives. Install. Drive. Still. Not. Showing. Up.
Finally dawns on me that the drive is DOA and needs to be swapped out. Go to Walmart. Not being a veteran of the return line scene, I walk right past the lady at the front door and neglect to get my sticker. Stand in line for eternity. Get to the counter. Did I not get a sticker? No, I didn’t. She turns the box over and over about 50 times, yet never actually inspects the contents of the box. I could have stuffed it with gummy bears folks. So she finally gives me the OK to get another one. I walk alllllll the way back to electronics, get the drive, walk alllllll the way back to Customer Service. Stand in line. Get to counter. She looks at the box looks at me. Hands me my receipt and tells me to have a good day.
o_O
No clicking of keys in the computer or anything. I just like to wait in line, actually, and i’m sure they could sense that about me.
Get home and I install the drive first onto my onboard controller. It shows up but as a 128gb drive. Hallelujah. Slap it on the controller and it’s all there, first try, thanks for playing.
Enter Brilliant Idea of 2005 â„¢ #3. Lets install OS X 10.4! Fresh drive, all my data backed up. What could go wrong?
I installed this bleeping OS on a fresh drive THREE TIMES and it finally took on the 3rd try. The controller card was having a hard time staying awake, apparently, and I do have a tendency to walk off and leave computers chewing to do something else. I had to sit with it through the entire install and keep it awake. So, like some detox patient, I had to poke it and make sure it took plenty of fluids and didn’t drift off into la la land.
So here we are in 10.4 and I’m happy with it actually. It has a neat feature in the installer where it will look at your old OS and import all your programs, settings for those programs, and remember your environment variables. SWEET! I didn’t have to import or set up my email or reinstall any programs or dig up any old serial numbers.
That’s the thing about having a Mac. You curse it and curse it and swear you’ll use it for a boat anchor then it does something so spectacular you wondered what all your fussing was for.
Going to do a Neato Thingies of Tiger post sometime this week. There’s lots to gush about.
when nothing anyone says will ever make you feel better
when the smallest thing makes you feel like dying
no matter how silly or stupid or guilty you feel for feeling this way
just so you know…
i hear ya
I read somewhere once that the first month after a baby is spent getting used to things and doing baby stuff like eating and sleeping. And that after that initial month is when the baby really opens their eyes and sees the world. I guess I opened my eyes in October and fell in love or something because SHEEZY I’m so happy.
I’m sure that made no sense but I shall not apologize….if you’re looking for sense, best to turn around and head for yonder hills because there isn’t any here.
I bought an Ultra 100/133 controller card for my mac yesterday. As soon as it gets here I’ll be able to use my 160GB drive. Happy day. Right now I have absolutely no back up. If my computer takes a shit between now and when that card gets here, I’ll be in so much trouble.
I also called the Palm Store and ordered myself a Z22. It’s a little PDA with a color screen and a white face. $99 o0o I need a simple PDA with nonvolatile memory in it (ie. the battery dies but your data is still safe). My old palm (ancient is more like it) would lose everything if the battery came a little loose. It was very aggravating. The treo was like….beautiful and I miss having a palm but i’m not going to shell out $700 for the new Treo 700. That and it’s running Windows Mobile which is good but makes me sad.
Oh, and I just downloaded Fiona Apple’s newest CD. I love her. She makes me feel a little more ok with being neurotic.
Currently reading the South Beach Diet book. Not a good diet for a “vegetarian” but I am told that I can make it work if I apply myself. I am currently wondering why I should bother applying myself to something like putting food in my mouth. Isn’t that what i’m supposed to try to get away from?? Blah. Have new shoes, no more excuses for not going to the gym.
Going to take Yoga classes with my Mom in the spring as soon as her Chiropractor gets done with her adjustments and the homeopathy. Dr. Sunshine (I shit you not, that is his name) is an incredible healer and has done things for her that we didn’t think were possible. My mom has Multiple Sclerosis and since I was a little kid she’s had trouble walking, reading, being in the heat, talking, hearing, and had to give up a lot because of it. (In case you don’t know, MS is a neurological disease that trashes your nerve coatings so your wires short out a lot.)
She’s a different person now. She is off her injections. She’s doesn’t hold onto things when she goes through the house. Her eyes have stopped twitching back and forth. Her balance has improved tremendously. Incredible really. Have I mentioned I love my mommy?! Cause i do.
I finished fixing Amanda’s computer last night. She’ll be back online soon, so YAY.
Monday.
I‘ve got a few minutes to whine…so I’m going to take my opportunity to do so.
This past Thursday I wrote on the white board in the office five things I wanted to get hugo to help me with this weekend.
- Oil Change
- Clean LCD Screen
- Go See Serenity @ the theater
- Scrub the grill on the porch
- Buy a new drip pan for the grill
Doesn’t sound excessively painful, yet we only accomplished one thing.
I can’t change my oil. If I had to, I would, but i have a man around the house and he’s supposed to do that sort of shit. I have no problem taking my car to the qwik loob and having them take care of it, but previously mentioned man around the house takes offense to me paying someone to do the shit he’s supposed to take care of.
My LCD screen is a 21″ Apple Cinema Display. I’m not to touch it. I’m not to clean it. I’m to use it, and if i sneeze on it call Commisioner Gordon and let BatMan handle it. These are the rules of company owned hardware. I can live with that.
Serenity was an excellent movie. Went to the 9:40 showing at Foothills. I enjoyed it, couldn’t tell if Hugo did. Didn’t ask.
The grill is on the back porch which is 8.5′ in the air with no stairs leading to the ground. You have to get there by going out through the TV Room. Lifting the grill is a 2 person job. Grill is filthy. Have to move all furniture out of the way before you attempt to move it.
Not buying a new drip pan to put under filthy grill.
Ok fine so two days wasted, I didn’t get to do anything I wanted to do. Blah.
A few days ago I bought myself a new 160gb hard drive. My backup drive was only 30gb and my home folder alone is that large, not including the partition with my MP3s which is nearly filled. So a new big hard drive was much needed. I haul this heavy goddamn G4 tower out of the corner/hole its in and take the old drive out and install the new one. Restart. Doesn’t see it. Ask Hugo, he doesn’t have time to fuck with it. Will look at it later. Bug takes fuck me running attitude and runs with it and discoveres in apple’s knowledge base that her computer’s ATA controller will only recognize drives 128gb or smaller.
I am Jack’s white hot fury.
So I put it behind me. Oh well. Life goes on. I’ll just get a firewire enclosure and slap this IDE drive in there. Turns out for what that project will cost me I can just buy a 300gb firewire drive. For $310 I can get a 400gb (7200RPM, 8MB cache) external SATA drive + controller card. What does all that mean? Fast. Large. Light…at the end of the tunnel.
Was supposed to go to lunch with Hugo. Plans got mightily shit upon. I had Special K cereal instead. Went outside. Installed my door guard thingies so people will quit fucking up my paint when they open my long ass doors. Vacuumed the car, washed the windows, dusted the interior. Tried to leave to buy seat covers. Was told to do it later. Grumpiness part 3.
Have posters I need framing quotes for. All frame places close really early. Keep being told to “Do it later.”
I love it that we’re so busy we’re miserable and have no time to do anything…really…it means we get to eat. I just want a few minutes to breathe.
I feel better now. Thanks for listening webserver/database server/lj friends.
Today I did the most stupid of all most stupid things that are doable without getting shot or arrested.
I went to Wal-Mart on a Saturday.
People were either walking around like thorazine injected psych ward patients (and their little bastards trailing them screaming and covered in filth) OR they were twitchy metch addicted asshole SPAZ FREAKS (with their little bastards screaming and covered in filth).
There were a few citizens who, like myself, felt the intense urge to back into a corner and stare in slack jawed horror at the hell they were putting themselves through. For food. And sheets. And spatulas. And sneakers. STUFF PEOPLE USED TO MAKE AT HOME or carve out of rocks, twigs, dirt, and dead animals (I would prefer it to be made out of their screaming filth creatures, but we live in a litigious society).
I scored as much necessities as i could before I had finally had ENOUGH of smiling and saying excuse me and having buggies crammed up my ass by 12 year olds that have Great Value branded food stuffs piled higher than their little heads. Where are your PARENTS!?
Then i got to stand in line. Joy of joys. My rapture bursts forth in great streams. I was behind a family with 2 buggies full of …. everything in the world. Garden shears, giant trash cans, ugly rugs, 3 gallons of cooking oil and other unimaginable things someone would never just need to rush to walmart for.
Behind them, directly in front of me, was a young mother with a 3 year old daughter and a toddler son. Daughter ran around the buggy screaming in this frightening Hulk Hogan voice. Toddler son was screaming “momma” the entire time and was trying so hard to turn around to see her (standing at the front of the buggy) that I feared for the integrity of his spine. He was covered in, what i can only imagine, was once a powdered doughnut.
Something that kinda freaks me out about people and their shopping is they throw things in the buggy and leave them however they land. Bread? Eggs? Hah! The real prize is this giant 2 gallon jar of Mayo. Lets put it on top!
My stuff is always as together and organized as best as i can keep it while having aforementioned shopping cart anal exam. My actual checkout time is a cashiers dream. Frozen foods stay together, canned foods, foods in pouches, foods in boxes, all stay with their families. Why does no one else do this? I have seen few people keep their shit together while in walmart, not that it shocks me. I’m tempted to lose it in there myself.
I was trying to think of having my “child” with me. He’s 70 pounds and he sheds. He also has an affinity for peeing on things that he wants to belong to him. Aside from the peeing and the shedding, i think dub would act much like these kids do. Running around, not listening, yelling, pulling things, looking at everything, talking non stop, asking strangers for candy… I would throttle him in the parking lot and be arrested.
The point to all this? I’m going to call my mother and thank her for not taking us to the seedy part of town and selling us to creepy strangers. How she did that on a regular basis with 3 children under 10, I will never know.
