Adventures of a Tofu Slut

I REALLY HATE COMPUTERS.

So, my DVD drive hasn't worked in ages, since they had to send me a new thingy that I've forgotten the name of. Which meant that I couldn't use it (the DVD drive) for back-up, like I'd been doing before. Because of that, and because I was running out of room on my hard drive, I bought an external hard drive. Great, fine, I backed everything up, everything was good.

Now I decide that I really need to get the DVD drive fixed, so in preparation for taking the laptop in, I go to back everything up on the external, and...it doesn't register on my computer at all. It's not the USB port, because other thing work there, so maybe it's the cord? I don't know. All I know is that I was berating myself for putting things off (like getting the DVD drive fixed) and now I know why - because something goes wrong every time I try to do anything around electronics. So frustrating!

Argh.

I'm going to bed.

I could have sworn I posted yesterday with the computer update (which I know you are all DYING to hear...heh). But, nothing. Ooo, phantom LJ posts! Creeeepy!

...sorry, wrong season.

This morning I had an email from someone saying (among other things) she missed my LJ posts (and my tea reminders, amazingly enough). I FEEL TOTALLY LOVED. Therefore I am going to attempt to update more regularly. Which means I will have to leave the house more often in order to have something to say. Oh the pain.

Anyway, computer update! It's all good. Isn't that exciting? There was a second disk I needed to install, with drivers and settings and the like, which fixed any number of problems including the display, and then thanks to the amazing magical wizardry of sanity_clause, I have all my files back. Seriously. I am still amazed - I had totally found a place of zen about losing everything since June and then! He somehow dragged them all off the dead hard drive! s_c, there is a prize for you coming at some point when I have enough time to actually get it.

Here are my ruminations about safety for the day. Car alarms and fire alarms have both kind of hit that point where people don't pay all that much attention to them, except to be annoyed about the noise. I personally think car alarms are ridiculous, unless the owner of the car is within hearing range and is willing to go sprinting out to the car to deal with whatever is happening. Otherwise? People assume that either a) someone walked too close to the car (and oh, this is why car alarms should not be allowed in cities, because if your car is parked beside the sidewalk, someone is going to walk too close to it!), or b) someone (aka the driver) accidentally set the alarm off and can't figure out how to shut it up. Which is what I assumed on Friday when I passed a car with the alarm going off and someone sitting inside. It didn't even OCCUR to me until three blocks later that there might be some other reason, because car alarms go off all the damn time, for no good point.

Fire alarms are kind of the same way. At work, we assume it's a fire drill. And it always has been. At home, only once out of all the times the fire alarm has gone off in any of my apartment buildings has it been an actual fire. Last night the fire alarm went off, and half the people I saw just looked out their doors, and then went back to what they were doing. Of course, we couldn't smell any smoke. Personally, I went for coffee. I figure if it is a real fire, it's going to burn down whether I'm there or not. But no-one ever rushes anymore. No-one ever panics (which is probably a good thing). Everyone takes the time to put on shoes and coats and scarves (which is also a good thing, because it was crazy cold last night).

I was going to end this with a carefully thought-out and detailed moral, but then realized that it's really just the boy who cried wolf as applied to inanimate objects. All the good morals are taken, yo.

Question: if I have a funky t-shirt that I totally love but it's too small now (like all my funky t-shirts), how lame is it of me to buy the exact same one again in a larger size?

Finally, mystery_diva's birthday brunch this weekend reminded me of how awesome brunch is and how it's really one of my all-favourite socializing venues. Something about the combination of breakfast foods, being early in the day so no-one is cranky or exhausted from work, a recognition of the weekend, good venues for talking, no clean-up after. Whatever it is, it totally works.

Okay, for real. What did I do?

My computer is dead. I spent Friday night with a bottle of wine and the Compaq tech support guy on the other end of the phone, attempting to get my computer to load up Windows. But no luck. Luckily I'm still on warranty, so they're sending me a new hard drive. I still don't know why this happened.

The ironic thing is that last weekend I attempted to back up all my files to DVD, but the DVD part of my burner/drive wasn't working. I was going to call them this weekend anyway. Instead, the whole thing is dead and I have potentially lost everything (although I'm going to take it somewhere after work today and see if my information can be magically retrieved).

On the plus side, I read A LOT this weekend.

Aaaaand it's the weekend, so therefore I must be having computer problems. This time my wireless doesn't seem to be working anymore - it's all good if I'm connected directly into the cable modem, but not when I'm connected throught the wireless, despite my wireless connection being all "you're good, you're great!"

I bet I screwed it up when I was trying to protect the connection. That would be so very me.

I'm totally giving up on technology. All y'all will come visit me in my cabin in the woods, right?

Ages ago (like, last year), I decided to join the 21st century, so I poked and questioned and finally figured out this whole "downloading" thing that people keep talking about. And through the magic of torrents, I found the missing episode of Kitchen Confidential, the one with Michael Vartan that never aired. Except when I tried to play it, I only got sound and swirly things. No chefs. Sad!

All that keeping up with the times nearly killed me. I had failed, so I gave up. But then a random comment last week led me to realize that I could probably make things better. Woo! So I searched around and found that I needed a codec, and then found the codec that I needed, downloaded that, and la la la, picture!

And then I had to remind myself how to use uTorrent so that I could download Torchwood. Which took all night. But now I have tv on my computer. It's a little exciting.

Why do I have so many problems with iTunes?

I opened it up this morning, and everything is suddenly playing with this weird crackle, almost -- like it's jumping around all over the place. I tried re-installing iTunes, and clearing all my files out and re-loading them, but it's still there. And everything plays fine on Media Player, so it's not my files or my sound card. WEIRD.

Meanwhile, I am trying to convince myself that vacuuming and buying groceries are terribly exciting Saturday afternoon plans, and that lunch does not equal cookies. Yeah right.

Oh, also, in another installment of Rachel is a dork, I went running this morning, and managed to rip my mp3 player from my earphones and drop it...in the sludge. I'm amazed it still works.

ETA: and now it works again. I don't know either.

I have recently been the target of much mockery because I use Windows Media Player to listen to music. Of course, the person doing the mocking is a certified Apple freak, so it's not surprising that he would prefer iTunes.

But now I'm curious. Is one player better than the other? What about other things that are out there? I use WMP because it was there, but now I have piles of music on my computer at home and I'm thinking about playlists and things like that, and I don't want to build them all on one system only to change my mind.

So, Wise and Wonderous Interbets, pick a system for me! I am at your disposal.

Birthday: It's notmonochrome's birthday! Have a fabulous end to your month of birthday celebrations!

Cards: Thank you, tinkerer and globetrotter1, for your very cute cards. I also got a card from building management. Thanks? But really, I'd rather you replace the lights in the foyer.

Perfume: Yesterday I tried the last of my most recent purchase - Siren:

Bewitching, tantalizing and dangerously seductive. A thrilling, exotic blend -- deceptively sweet, but spiked with malice. White ginger, jasmine, and a touch of vanilla and apricot.

How disappointing! It just smelled like incense on me; I didn't get any of those individual scents. Not that it was unpleasant - and at least it didn't smell like pot, like it did for sh1mm3r - but it really wasn't for me.

Movie: dramaqueen_23 and I watched The Hebrew Hammer last night. So fucking hilarious! And entirely seasonally appropriate, although we didn't know that when we picked it. Definitely my new favourite irreverent holiday movie.

Music: I'm finally really listening to Wicked. I'm so excited it's playing here next year!

Computer Solitaire: God, someone please take it away from me! People who are coming over, if I don't answer the buzzer it's because I'm trying to decide where the King of Spades will do the least damage, ok?

Help!

I have two stupid questions about IE that maybe someone can answer:

1) Is there a way to set it so that the default is that links, when clicked, open in a new window?

2) Is there a way to designate it so that any new windows automatically open up maximized?

I suppose I should be thankful that these are my most pressing problems this morning, but it's irritating me that I can't figure them out myself.

So I may have been overreacting slightly with my computer angst. Hey, I was upset! Anyway, the laptop is still dead, but my files are in the process of being retrieved, and I have a loaner laptop from a wonderful friend of vestra's. I even managed to get it connected to Sympatico, despite my initial reaction of *blink, blink* when I discovered that it didn't have an Ethernet card.

It's a little weird being on someone else's computer, though. Nothing looks the same (although she did say I could do whatever I wanted, so I could change things around, I suppose).

Now I just need to start saving money so I can get a new laptop. Whee.