Of all the things you do NOT want to see pop up on your computer screen, any of these are high on the list:
Two weeks ago our trusty iMac wore out. We still think of it as the "new computer" so it was quite a shock—and I am not making this up—to us, that our "new computer" was 4.5 years old. Which is exactly the point we've replaced other computers in the past. But somehow when your life feels like it's constantly running at the speed of a bullet train, details like 4.5 years of hard use simply creep up on you.
In a last ditch effort to save our trusty iMac, I drove it to Longmont, CO, home of 9 billion strip malls, to a computer lady named Raven who operates a Mac repair shop that was highly reviewed online. Raven did her very best to give me better news, but narrowed down the problem to two things: a worn out graphics card or a worn out logic board, both of which would be foolish to toss money at when a 4.5 year old computer is at stake. So I drove back to Longmont, CO, home of 9 billion strip malls, to collect my poor and broken computer. A new one was ordered nearly immediately, because even though a new computer was most definitely not in the budget right now, not having one? Not an option.
In the meantime, here's a little sampling of what I did while computer-less:
1. Imagined a story about Steve Jobs secretly placing a piece of my soul in the old iMac prior to his death, kind of like a horcrux. (I have an active imagination, especially after watching all the Harry Potter movies in quick succession in January)(That and a catastrophic crash of the computer containing all music, photos, and documents I've ever created sure felt like a small piece of my soul was missing)
Aside: I had no idea you could actually buy horcrux replications online. Huh.
2. Cleaned up my craft room from that book I wrote. In 2007. Three houses ago.
3. Watched lots of Portlandia with Matt. Good distraction. Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein, you are hilarious.
4. Was increasingly unpleasant to live with.
5. Played a lot of Words With Friends. It doesn't matter whether I'm playing Scrabble face-to-face or Words with Friends on iPhones/iPads, I cannot beat Matt to save my life. Actually, I haven't beaten anyone yet. But I hold out hope that someday I will.
6. Got momentarily super-excited for a snowstorm, finally, until said snowstorm coincided with Fed Ex delivery of new computer.
7. Cursed snow.
8. Obsessively followed tracking information. Cursed Fed Ex for playing a game called "we're going to let you think we're going to deliver that computer right up until the end of the day, when we will then CHANGE THE STATUS." Fed Ex played this game Friday, Saturday, and again on Monday. I can live with Friday because there really was a lot of snow in Colorado, but Saturday and Monday... hmph. Computer was delivered today via Budget Rental truck. Fed Ex will not be receiving chocolates from me this Valentine's Day.
I'm nearly up and running again machine-wise, though no one told me that my FireWire external hard drive cord would now be obsolete (it won't fit into the new and improved FireWire port). A while ago we bought a USB external hard drive for cheap to use as the Time Machine backup, and though it took six hours to transfer everything, everything appears to be here. WHEW.
