Well, I’m back…Now Leo can putter around here and procrastinate all she likes. 😉
And now for the Way to Have a Stressful Weekend; or the Way to Make All Emotions Related to Money Flash Across Your Face in an Instant; or How to Feel Wonderful About a New Purchase But Dread the New Number on Your Bank Account.
So, last friday night (after seeing Constantine all by my lonesome, which wasn’t a bad movie, as far as that genre of movies goes…) I was working on the part of my orgo lab that was due the next day. (Boo saturday lab. :O ) I realized that I had to print it out (which, really, I discovered, I didn’t have to, but it made more sense to have it printed out) and not having a printer at the apartment, ran over to work and printed it out (and faffed about, of course). Now, I left the computer on as I normally would, as it has a nice Phantom of the Opera screensaver which works as it should. The monitor has been flickering a little bit, but it always goes away. I fully intended to get a new computer soon…I realize I’ve been saying this for quite some time now, but the flickering really got to me. So it wasn’t quite a surprise when I came back and the screen was dark. Not dark like the computer was sleeping…so dark it was like the brightness had been turned way down.

And of course there was no way to bring it back to normal. The video card or tube or whatever finally said to hell with this, fuck y’all AND this popsicle stand, and is kaput. Of course, to fix something like this, especially on a computer as old as the one I had (which I was sort of proud of…an original clamshell Blueberry iBook, the first of its kind) is heinously expensive and not worth it. So, I have now *paid for* a new iBook, but don’t have it yet, since the nice people at the Galleria Apple Store (thank goodness there’s an Apple Store at the galleria…used to be the only one in town was out in West County, where everything is hard to get to and mucho expensive) are supposedly transferring the goods from the old iBook to the new. Hope they could do it ok. I bet it makes things a little hard when you can’t see the screen. Too bad there was no deal for getting an iPod and the computer…there was one at the beginning of the school year, but of course, my trusty little computer was *working* then…I did get a printer, though. You could either get a printer for free or an all-in-one scanner/copier/printer/card reader (for the day in the sometime future when I have a digital camera) for $30. I got the all-in-one, since I’ve always wanted a scanner. Go me. Man, my bank account is hurting. I had to transfer money from savings. At least I know I’ll get a nice tax refund this year, it would have been nice had the computer waited until then to putz out on me, but I guess I’ll get a new bike when I get that refund instead. And here’s hoping that there’s nothing wrong with a two year old return like there was last year.
I surrendered my baby to the techs Saturday night. Tammy the saleslady (who was quite nice and gave me lots of discounts, as far as that goes) said they would try to get to it as soon as they could, maybe Sunday. Unfortunately no. My mother called yesterday to check if there had been a new addition to the family. Then she pointed out, “See how good a grandmother I would be?” Mmmr. I’m working on it. I’m a little peeved because I realized that instead of the work number, they have the number of the apartment and therefore if they *do* call I won’t know it until I get home, most likely after class because it’s a pain to try to leave early before class, especially with Luigi the Italian back and quite ready to do lots of experiments. Alas. And if I can, I’ll head over to the ‘rents and get gas at the ‘cheap’ Shell station, and see if I can find the *ahem* cd’s of things that I saved from the last OS X computer I had. Unless, of course, anyone wants to contribute to the ‘Get Jen Word and Photoshop for OS X’ fund.
(Side note: I’m quite happy to have OS 10.3.x, which is collectively known as ‘Panther.’ Yes, I know I’m a little silly. Sue me. I have a favorite animal.)
Hopefully when I write next, I can say it’s from my lovely little friend, which is thoughtfully pre-installed with a wireless card, so I can surf at the library without wires! Whee!
Hot damn! You actually read all that? wow.