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I’m ready to become a technological hermit but I have one more beacon of hope to try before I give up entirely.
Earlier this year I shifted my CPU at work and completely killed my computer dead. Late in the spring my laptop decided to die 1,000 deaths. And last weekend, after my house got hit by lightning, my router died and subsequently my computer as it crashed trying to reconnect a new router. Three PC deaths in the span of seven and a half months. Mother’s ass.
So I say fuck it. I’m getting a Mac. But Macs are expensive. The tower I wanted starts at $2500 new. So I decided to go refurbished. My dad does it all the time and it’s been a win every time. So with his help I picked out a worthwhile Mac tower, buy it now off of eBay and it’s delivered 2 days later.
In the few days I’ve had it, it shuts down into sleep mode at random while I’m in the middle of using it. Fun times working like that. Can I or can I not get through doing something before it shuts down? The ROM drive is jammed shut. Considering the box it came in is spotless, I’m hazarding a guess it was like that out of it’s mother ship. When I eject, I can hear it struggling to work, but no drive pops out. Healthy. And I can’t upgrade my software. I tried. It was a large download and took a while so I figured it would take a while to install so I left it overnight. Did it install? No. It stalled out right where I left it the night before. Tried it again and again. Same thing. Because I can’t upgrade the software, I can’t use certain programs, like iTunes. Yeah. I can’t use iTunes on my Mac. WTF?
So I gave up and I’m returning it. Their return policy is a little strange. They do exchange returns but you know what? If this is what I’m getting out the door, I don’t want anything else. Just give me my money back. But they offer regular returns if you just don’t want it. You just have to pay a restocking fee. I’d better get my money back or someone’s getting reported. I genuinely don’t think they provide bad stuff. They don’t have a bad rating at all. It just figures I get the total lemon of the bunch. I just want my money back.
So frustrated to the point of tears I just head right to the Apple Store at my local mall and end up buying a Mac Mini. The thing’s about the size of a hot plate and had easy insert memory upgrade. So far, it’s worked beautifully. Aside from the fact that I’m working off of a router that’s about half my own age, I have no complaints. The only downside is I had to go out and buy a new screen. The one I was working off of before, while perfectly fine, was totally ancient. Square. Not widescreen. Square. They don’t make those anymore and Apple doesn’t make an adapter for them either. So new screen it is. I love honest sales people. The Apple guy I worked with actually advised me to go across the street to Best Buy and buy a monitor since their’s started at $800, $100 more than the computer I’d just bought. So once I get the money back from my eBay computer, the only difference on my card will be about $150 for the new monitor.
This is my luck with computers. I’m so freaking jaded right now. I can’t use my Photoshop anymore but my dad has the Mac version of a similar program so I’m going to nab that from him. And it’s definitely taking some getting used to, just the overall set-up of the Mac itself. But I like it so far. Here’s hoping it lasts me a while. It’s funny because the only computer I’ve ever had that hasn’t actually died was my Dell which just got too old to use. And the laptop my mom’s using now. Probably because it got away from my hands.
And on top of all of this, I’m suffering from a Borders fail. Mockingjay came out on Tuesday. I pre-ordered my copy back in April. I still don’t have it. Last I checked, it was hovering somewhere in between New Jersey and Connecticut. Thankfully Suzanne Collins was signing (well, stamping, as it were) up at UCONN (on move-in weekend, thanks, Scholastic promotions) so I nabbed a special copy and I’m reading it now.
It’s kind of sad, though. She’s a NYT best seller and I didn’t have to wait in line for a signed copy. I think Scholastic was banking on it being move-in weekend so they didn’t have to promote because the business would come to them. Wrong. She didn’t get an ounce of promotion here and just from what I saw, her signing was lackluster on a college campus as it’s opening for the year. I’m not sure whether that’s a commentary on bad advertising or the lack of reading youth in the state of Connecticut. Or both.
I’ve come to the harsh realization that I can’t go two years without a vacation. Oh poor me, I know. At least I have the ability to actually take a vacation, right? Well, I’m utilizing that while I can. I need my vacations.
By the time I’m leaving on a jet place in September, it will have been two years since my last vacation. Didn’t take one last year because I used my time preemptively for a vacation the year before. I used a day here and there from what I had left but it wasn’t much. So I’ve been pooling my time off since and it’s time for a nice long break in 60 days. Two 30-day months.
For a last couple of months I’ve been noticing that I’m losing my patience with people a lot quicker than what I normally do. And ever since I started noticing, it’s been getting worse. I’m equating it to getting a hair cut. When I know I have a haircut coming in like a week, it’s like every day leading up to that week is a bad hair day because the thing’s turned into a mop and just needs to be cut. So basically every day leading up until my vacation is going to string me the hell out until I can actually break away and then my biggest worry will be what shall I eat next? Here’s hoping I have a few stress free days in the next 60 because I would really like to go to California with a full head of hair and/or without a court date.
I just reserved the final portion of the trip, the car. I checked about 6 months ago and prices were looking really good. I wanted to get the balance down on my credit card before I reserved so instead of booking then, I held off. Fast forward 6 months and I’m about ready to punch myself in the face. The prices freaking doubled. Add another 5 days onto that and they went up another $200. Mother’s ass! I was able to secure a compact SUV for $275 a week. That was the cheapest car across about 8 different rental companies. Yes, even cheaper than an economy. The economy with this particular company was coming in at $299 a week. The cheapest out of all of the economies on all the sites. The rest of the cars on the rest of the sites were averaging about $500 a week regardless of the size. Shoot me. Here’s hoping I won’t need a booster seat to drive the car. I drive a Honda Civic now. Make that a booster seat or need a step stool to get into the thing. I’m thinking it’s going to be something the size of a Rogue. Isn’t ‘compact SUV’ an oxymoron?
So now it’s just the little things. I’m going to be ordering a new luggage set from Overstock.com because London ate my last one and I’m sure as shit not packing in 2 weeks worth of stuff into a carry-on. I need to get another memory card for my camera so I can have the extra space and then a car dock for my iPod. It’s an hour and a half each way from San Francisco to Santa Cruz. I don’t want to spend most of the time hunting for a radio station. Other than that, I’m hitting up Plato’s Closet on Saturday to look at purses and I’m pretty much good to go.
Just counting down the days. 60 . . .
So I turned my car on this morning and it roared a little louder than usual. Initially I thought it might have been the radio so I turned it off and listened to my car. Nope, not the radio. My car was running louder.
Awesome, I say to myself. Another muffler is going. My car’s eaten through mufflers for as long as I’ve had it. Including this one, that would be 3 in the last 6 years or so. But I figured I’d drive on it today and take it in for repair tomorrow and it’ll be fine.
I get up to the light at the on-ramp near my house and I’m stopped at a red. The light turns green, I step on the gas and I hear a jumbo jet flying by. For a nanosecond I think it’s the giant Mack truck behind me but the harder I accelerate, the louder the noise gets. Crap!
I pull over because that noise is way too horrifying to drive with. I get my mechanic on the phone and initially I wanted them to come and tow me. If you’ve ever driven a car without a muffler/one that had a giant hole in it (of which I’ve had both, the first time the muffler literally fell off the car), you’ll understand just how insanely loud it can get. But I have them saying just drive it in and my mom next to me saying just drive it in. So I drop her off at work and drive the damn thing in slumped down as far as I can. Did I mention how embarrassing it is to drive a car that loud? And I’m not talking lawnmower engine suped up loud either. It was like a cat roaring like a lion. WTF?
As I expected, I had a hole in the pipe because it’d rotted away. Apparently the age of the car is a factor in how often you go through mufflers. $500 and seven hours later, I get my car back sounding like normal. Oi. Mufflers. You slay me.
I didn’t just realize it but it just hit me that I’m kind of flaky when it comes to my features on this blog. Write It Wednesdays, Poetry Hits and Writing Rules have all kind of farted out with hardly anything fueling them to begin with. Which then led me to re-think just what it was I was posting on this blog. I don’t want people seeing this site thinking that I can’t commit to anything which is just not true. Check out my book blog if you want consistent meme-ing. But what I might consider doing is re-organizing all of my posts, at least so it doesn’t look like I have some dead categories hanging out in the sidebar there. I have a nice long weekend coming up that I think I could fill some of that with. Next to restuffing a site that I accidentially deleted. Awesome.
As for the moronic, I just found out that in SMeyer world, Rio de Janeiro has a west coast. Don’t believe me? Check out the Twilight Lexicon’s description of where Isle Esme is. The western edge of Rio where the nards boarded a yacht. Was the yacht trailered on a truck because that’s the only way you can get on a yacht on the western edge of Rio. Did someone fail cardinal directions class?
I know this wench has already come out and said she was too lazy to research anything. Yeah, at least she admitted it but I’m surprised there wasn’t a rash of writer suicides across the planet. But really? Western edge of Rio? I quick look-up on Google maps can tell you about the glaring error in that statement. Come on. Okay, you’re lazy. But that’s like not wanting to get up to get the remote when it’s in your own lap.
And sad thing is, when the Twitards try to defend horsehit like this, it’s usually done with a thorough rape of the English language and/or a dismissive “who cares about that stuff? just enjoy the story” statement. They claim she’s such a better writer than JK Rowling but can’t actually substantiate those claims without making death threats to the people questioning them. Or claiming said questioner is lacking a life when said person is exhibiting an equally lifeless position.
I’m sure I can dredge better quality work from the anals of fanfiction.net. At least those authors have the decency to utilize Google if the situation calls for it. Sure, they say fuck it to the spell check function but at least they are smarter than fifth graders and can tell you where the oceans are.
My brain, she hurts.
A sad but true state of publishing affairs. While I think it may be a touch exaggerated and somewhat a better fit for the movie business, I do think it speaks to the crunch of buying only something “guaranteed” salable. And, sadly more, something like that would have broader sales appeal than your standard “teen stuck in an attic” story. Appealing to the masses and all.
The sad thing is, I’m sure some of the advice given in the piece is actually given in writing classes. Ah, you’re so young! Maybe wait a few years to gain some more perspective on things. And just what happens after your last entry? Conclusions, please! Gah!
But Megan Fox? I don’t get her appeal. I think she looks greasy.
