Back up, back up, back up…

Once a month I back up everything I can on my computer.

This is actually quite a bit since I have 3 cds alone filled with pictures.  Pictures from an old program called Palace and pictures from my blog / journal (53 folders of pics from the blog alone) .  I also save my paint programs in a zip because they are so easy to put on another computer when this one decides to go asta la bye bye.

Of course I also back up the trilogy I wrote, my blog/journal that i copy and paste to Word and who knows what else.   All this takes about 2 hours to do.

Most of that time I am huffing and puffing and bored and the occasional curse word slips through my lips…

So how come when I’m done… I feel so much better?! 

This is the third computer I’ve had.  I know they don’t last much more than 4-5 yrs before I get the shock of a blue screen or worse.  Then I panic because I don’t know a tech anymore.  And I panic because my computer is my link to any life at all.   I also panic because I know that sooner or later I have to deal with wires again.  Not only am I not a tech… but I’m lucky if I put a plug in the wall correctly, let alone the mass of wires going from the tower to the surge protector to the monitor etc…. It’s a test of my stupidity! 

Then there’s the other panic.  This one occurs when we first turn on a new computer, and things I don’t even want show up on the Windows bar.  And no matter how much you pay for the computer services, you will NOT find someone to talk you through getting them OFF the bar, or how to delete all the crap they put on that you don’t want!  Ya know I’d be more than willing to pay an extra 100.00 just to have it formatted they way I want it! Which is without all the junk they put on it and all the stuff they put on the start up bar that you don’t need starting up when you boot up!

Since I am on a roll here… tell me why I can’t buy a new computer with only an 80 or 125 G hard drive??  Why do they have to be so HUGE??  And why if you even ask for a smaller hard drive to they say it won’t be any cheaper when it costs a lot to add to a hard drive??    I’ve been “on line” for 11 yrs now.  I have folder and folders and folders and folders of pictures.  I have 3 paint programs.  I have Word 2000.  I have Roxio Media and Print Shop 21 and out of the 125 G hard drive on this machine, I haven’t even used 20 gigs!!  Hello?   Tell me again why I need a 300 gig hard drive!   Oh I know the Game folks need it, don’t get me wrong… but they sure don’t want to bring the price of a new computer down when you want LESS than they are offering.

Ok.. I’m sorry.. I got off on this subject and I didn’t mean to..  hard to believe when I started this I felt fairly good about backing up all my…. stuff.

It’s pretty sad that an “object” can come to mean so much to me.  I don’t own a cell phone or an Ipod, and I doubt I ever will.  But somehow I managed to ask enough questions to learn just enough to make me feel like I need a computer. 

I don’t want to jinx myself and say this one has not been a lemon, so I won’t say it.  I just hope it lasts a few more years before i have to get a new one ..  I really, really, REALLY do NOT want Vista.… and I don’t care how much anyone else likes it!  I like XP!

Ok… I’ll get off the soap box now!

Read Full Post »

When You Are Engulfed in Flames

When You Are Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris

Hardcover: 336 pages
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company (June 3, 2008)
ISBN-10: 0316143472

Amazon Product Description
“David Sedaris‘s ability to transform the mortification of everyday life into wildly entertaining art,” (The Christian Science Monitor) is elevated to wilder and more entertaining heights than ever in this remarkable new book.
Trying to make coffee when the water is shut off, David considers using the water in a vase of flowers and his chain of associations takes him from the French countryside to a hilariously uncomfortable memory of buying drugs in a mobile home in rural North Carolina. In essay after essay, Sedaris proceeds from bizarre conundrums of daily life-having a lozenge fall from your mouth into the lap of a fellow passenger on a plane or armoring the windows with LP covers to protect the house from neurotic songbirds-to the most deeply resonant human truths. Culminating in a brilliant account of his venture to Tokyo in order to quit smoking, David Sedaris‘s sixth essay collection is a new masterpiece of comic writing from “a writer worth treasuring” (Seattle Times).

Life, as seen through the eyes of David Sedaris…  If we all saw life in such a way,  depression might be a cured disease.

Book quote about wearing glasses:  High school taught me a valuable lesson about wearing glasses:  don’t wear them. Contacts have always seemed like too much work, so instead I just squint, figuring that if something is more than 6 feet away I’ll deal with it when I get there.

His view on the spiders that his sisters were afraid of:  Come bedtime I’d knock on my sisters door and predict that the spider (that dad let loose) was now crawling on the top of the house, where he’d take a short breather before heading down the chimney.  “I read in the encyclopedia that this particular breed is known for its tracking ability, and that once it’s pegged its victims, almost nothing will stop it.  Anyway, good night.”   

Something like that would be equivalent to signing a death warrant!

It seems that everyone who has read this book mentions the chapter where he sneezes and a lozenge he has in his mouth flies out, bounces off of the back seat in front of him and lands on the lady next to him… the then tries to figure out the choices he has…  I’ll admit that I think that was the best chapter in the book.

This is a good book when you want something lite to read.  Each chapter is a different “essay” and so one chapter does not necessarily  lead to the next,  yet they all (comically) tie into his life.

Read Full Post »