Staying Alive (So Far)

I was hoping to post something, anything noteworthy to reassure (?) you all that I haven't died yet, however, nothing much has happened. We are both still sick. I have missed church two weeks in a row and today was my first attempt at going back to work since the Saturday before Easter... and I am paying for the effort dearly. I have not had to go back to the hospital, but this past Friday was the first day I didn't need my rescue inhaler at least once. We are both still coughing quite a bit.

 

The only thing that has really happened is on Saturday a friend and I drove to the nearest city to wait in line for Record Store Day -- my first ever. I wasn't really interested in any of the official RSD releases, but I'm always down for the opportunity to go to a record store. We had planned this months in advance, and it turned out to be my first real excursion since my asthma attack on the 7th.

 

I left with four vinyl albums and nine CDs (plus a tenth CD that my brother wanted). None of it was stuff I had been looking for for decades or anything, but I knocked a couple of songs off my iTunes wishlist and got some 'starter' albums for the Beach Boys and the Supremes (both artists I have long been interested in learning more about but never pursued). I also added to my late '90s/early 2000s dancepop collection.

 

Also on the music front, I've also lately discovered the wonders of the Internet Archive and been using it to find new music to love. I found some '80s/'90s Japanese jazz fusion and a treasure trove of Christian alternative and rock albums that have been on my wish list for DECADES but remain elusive even on Discogs.

 

I've been going through the to-listen pile as well. Even though my music habit slowed a LOT during the years I worked in fast food, apparently I managed to accumulate a few titles from the local thrift store that went straight into the box with the other records and never actually got played (some of them were still in the original shopping bags with the receipts). So far I've imported heavy hitters like Servant's Light Maneuvers (can't believe I've been sleeping on this album for five years -- this one was an immediate favourite), Paul Clark's Aim For The Heart (which is perfect for my recent love of early '90s jazz and weather channel vapourwave), Leon Patillo's Dance Children Dance, and David Edward's Get The Picture from this 'source.'

 

I haven't 'synced up' my computers yet with all the new music, but my guess is I'm closing in on the 6800-song mark.

What I mean by 'synced up:' I import CDs and vinyl directly onto the MacBook Pro, which has a CD drive and Audacity but is too old for internet; and I download new iTunes Store/Bandcamp purchases onto the MacBook Air, then use an external drive to manually shuttle music and album artwork between the two.

 

I have a Smart Playlist on each computer called 'Updates,' and it's set to include all songs added after a certain date. Whenever I want to 'sync up' my music library, I start by going through that playlist on one of the computers and adding those tracks to the external drive. Then I go to the other computer and copy over the tracks from the first computer, then copy new tracks from the second computer onto the external drive using the playlist. Then I go back to the first computer and add the new tracks from the second one, referencing the Update playlists on each computer to ensure I've got all the tracks. Once I've got all the new tracks on both computers, I change the date on both Update playlists to that date, so all new music added after that goes on the playlists until I start the process over again.

 

It's a bit complicated and time-consuming, but to me it is absolutely worth it to keep things organized and to ensure that all my music is readily available on both my main devices. Mirroring my music library in this way also ensures that 1. I have downloaded copies of all my music, they're not just on some cloud somewhere where they could be deleted at any moment, and 2. I have a full, up-to-date backup of my music library in three places: the Pro, the Air, and the external drive itself. I have heard far too many horror stories of people losing decades of rare music to drive failure.

 

I've also been reading quite a bit, since my lungs are too easily exhausted to do much else. I dug back through my childhood and read some old obscure mysteries that I used to borrow from the library all the time as a kid. It's been a very enjoyable experience so far.

 

I don't know how to wrap up this post. My ear is killing me and so is my throat. No amount of tea is helping. I'm just so tired of being sick. But so far I am breathing okay.

A Friend Restored

Anybody who's still alive from the olden days of this blog may remember me referencing Lila, my Neo 2 portable word processor.

Lila died after a brief illness in June 2019 -- the day I met my husband, actually. And while some depressingly poetic souls might try to turn this into a 'death to the old to make way for the new' story, I disagree. Lila was my friend. I couldn't bring Brittney or M back, but maybe, one day, I could bring Lila back.

She languished in my closet for three years as I waited for the day. My brother gave me his own Neo 2 that he wasn't using (a slightly newer model who I affectionately if somewhat awkwardly called 'Lila 2'). Lila 2 suffered an even more brief but similar illness in November 2021 and died on Day 17 of NaNoWriMo. Luckily I was far enough ahead by then to absorb the blow of not writing an extra thousand words during my lunch break, but I did feel the loss deeply.

As the world begins to open up again and I begin to travel more for performance training and opportunities, I miss being able to whip out that little device on the bus or in a guest bedroom between classes or rehearsals.

Months ago, when I was bemoaning the loss of the Lila twins in a Discord group, somebody sent me a link to a tutorial for changing the little button cell battery. Suddenly there was hope. The symptoms they both showed during their illnesses could very easily be explained by a dying backup battery, and both units were old enough to conceivably have this issue. (I had also been hyperfixating on The 8-Bit Guy's restoration videos during most of the pandemic and wanted very much to try doing a simple repair of an electronic device simply because it looked so satisfying.)

There was nothing to lose. Both machines were unusable in their current state anyway. I bought two CR2032 batteries, popped out the AAs and cracked open Lila 2.

The hardest part was getting the old battery out. All the objects with skinny pointy ends in the entire house seemed to be made of metal and the last thing I wanted to do was short out the motherboard for good, as fixing that is definitely beyond my abilities. After trying my fingers, wooden knitting needles, and the hard end of a shoelace, I finally cut a fuzzy end off of a Q-tip and that did it (no, we don't have toothpicks in the house).

The next hardest part was getting twelve very small and fiddly screws back in. I spent six years in construction and screws don't scare me, but one was a particularly stubborn little thing and I had to enlist my husband's help in the end.

I put the AAs back in and tried to power it on. The screen remained blank. My heart dipped a little, but I plugged it into the computer, whereupon the screen lit up and asked if I had changed the internal battery. I pressed Y and it told me to press Enter to restart. I did, and within seconds it appeared to be ready. Of course everything had been wiped, as I had expected. When Lila 2 started showing symptoms of the same illness that had taken her predecessor, I had backed her up immediately (unfortunately I had not been so proactive the first time around, but I have come to terms with the fact that everything on the original Lila is now irretrievable). After a few minutes, I unplugged it from the computer and tried again to power it on.

Nothing.

I began to panic slightly more. The entire point of having a portable word processor is so that I don't have to carry my laptop around. It's no use to me if it only works when connected.

But in the spirit of trying everything, I raided my husband's remote-battery stash for more AAs and tried again to power it on.

It worked.

I almost screamed. I typed a few sentences, turned it off and then on again, typed some more, ran into the room where my husband was live-streaming and danced excitedly by his desk until he looked at Lila 2's screen.

One down... one to go.

Lila the original is in a bit rougher shape. I had a sibling dump a Tim Horton's frozen lemonade into her keyboard many years ago. Her motherboard seemed unaffected, however, quite a few of the keys stuck, especially on cold days. Not only that, the Caps Lock key came off right around the time of her death. I remember saving both the key and the scissor mechanism, but I've moved three times since then and could not begin to tell you where that key and the mechanism are now. Could I still use the button without a proper key? Yes -- the plunger's still there -- but if I'm going to restore her, I would like to restore her to her former glory.

I'm just happy knowing it's possible and that I have one of my buddies back with me for November. I already have a plot that I'm very excited about, and I feel much better knowing I'll be able to write on the go both during the event and in the pseudo-planning time leading up to it.

For once in my life -- a friend died and it wasn't permanent.

Yay

So the power just flickered (again... for about the ten billionth time this summer and there isn't even a storm...).
As usual, I was on the computer. But I didn't lose anything.

I love having a MacBook.

I know, a PC laptop would have switched to battery power right away also. But I don't have a PC laptop. It's not a slight against PC users, it's just a fact.
Also, in case you're wondering, I already did an hour of choreography today so yes, I can be on the computer now. It's the novel I need to catch up on, but I need the computer for that.

A Mini-Rant

You know, when you have found one program -- one single, solitary program -- that actually works on a PC (as long as the PC is in a semi-cooperative mood), you expect the Mac version of the same program to work just as well, right?

Fat chance.

I can't believe I'm saying this, but if you want to use the sound recording/editing program Audacity, find a PC. The Mac version is not only a major pain in the neck to install, it crashes every five minutes and heaven forbid that you might want to save your project.

And while you're using the program on one of those lowlife PCs, take the time (perhaps while it's spending two minutes to export a two and a half minute song as an MP3) to find a way to contact Audacity's people and demand that they fix their Mac version.

Because maybe your PC is like mine and it takes forever to do anything, never mind coordinating sound and graphic rendering, and it also has like ten gigabytes of remaining space and that's after you clean off all the junk.

And maybe you have a super fast Mac with several hundred gigabytes of storage for the sound files and it also happens to be the computer you sync your iPod with.

And maybe, like me, you would really like to do your importing into the Mac for the aforementioned reasons.

And if the Mac version of the program sucks, there goes an increasing number of your downloads (on Audacity's part) as the number of people buying Macs increases. Macs may still be in the minority for now, but they're gaining steam fast. If you as a software producer don't keep up, you might as well go take a job as a burger flipper. Sure, Audacity is open source and free and therefore nobody's making a profit from it, but if you can make it work almost flawlessly on a system as deeply flawed and persnickety as Windows, you can most likely make it work almost as well on a system as smooth and well-thought-out as Mac OS X.

But even though this is all immensely frustrating, I have to give Apple credit for one thing: if Mac OS X (or a program it's running) is going to crash, at least it does it quickly and gets it over with. You don't sit there looking at the 'busy' cursor for an hour while the hard drive churns and rumbles and strains before finally coming to the conclusion that the program is not responding.

Welcome, Successor To The Zombie's Throne

Yesterday I welcomed a new addition into the family of technological devices that are quickly taking over my house (not to mention my life).

Yes, I am now the proud owner of a 13" MacBook Pro.

Four gigabytes of RAM, a 2.3 GHz processor, and three hundred and twenty sweet gigabytes of space for my music, photos, and writing. Portability so I can work on my writing whenever I want, not whenever I manage to wrestle the desktop PC from my sister. And (obviously) it has a battery so if the stupid power decides to go out for sixteen straight hours I can still get things done.

And... I can now sync the iPod touch! (Well, I can as soon as I email myself all the notes I've written on it to back them up.)

Only one more thing remains to be done... to get a wireless Internet connection of some kind in the house so I can officially blog from it. Blogging on a PC just doesn't have that same... allure. (That's why this post seems so scattered.)

It's still rather surreal. When I woke up yesterday morning, I had no idea that it would be the day. I'd thought about the possibility of buying it the night before, but I thought 'Yeah, right. Not for a while yet.' I knew I had nearly enough money, but I didn't think I had enough.

Regardless, Saturday morning I counted my money (there was slightly more than I thought) and went to the Apple Store and asked the staff a few fairly minor questions I still had. (Shout-out to Jenna at the South Common Future Shop if you ever happen to stumble across this -- you were a great help! Thank you so much!)

I was still fairly certain I wouldn't be getting a MacBook that day, but then she mentioned that the Macs were actually on sale until the 17th of June.

It wasn't much, just a hundred dollars or so (not much when you're talking about a $1300 computer), but as she pointed out, it's a big deal when anything with an Apple logo is on sale. She also offered me a twenty dollar discount on iWork, which I was also planning to buy whenever I bought the MacBook.

Then she gave me a few minutes to think about it.

I had no idea what to think. Suddenly I wasn't sure exactly how much money I had on me, I couldn't remember, but I would almost certainly be able to make it work.

So I could actually get my dream computer today?

The thought was so radically different after months, nearly a year, of telling myself 'Eventually, eventually, sometime you will get this MacBook. But first you have to wait.' I couldn't process the idea of the eventuality actually becoming true -- today.

She returned and asked if I'd come to a decision yet. The truth was, my brain had frozen. I hadn't expected to actually be considering the idea of purchasing one that very day and therefore my brain had refused to entertain the idea even though it was now within my reach.

I took a breath. I still had no idea what to say.

I heard my voice say, "I think... I'll take it."

She smiled.

"That's great! I'm so excited for you!"

She got me a MacBook and a copy of iWork. I paid for it and brought it home.

I spent most of this afternoon adding music and photos to it and it still doesn't quite seem real -- that this MacBook is mine, all mine. That I can customise and play to my heart's content because I'm not just drooling over someone else's MacBook -- it's actually mine.

The Blue Screen Of Death

I'm not afraid of the Blue Screen of Death. I never have been.
Oh sure, I heard the horror stories as a child of computers suddenly displaying this mysterious blue screen with 'gibberish' written in white text, then never working again.
I think the reason for my utter lack of fear (or even healthy respect) of the BSOD is because although I knew the stories, the first (and second and third and fourth) time I encountered one I didn't know what it was.
I was about twelve years old at the time and while listening to a CD on our old Windows ME computer I somehow discovered that I could import music off of it into the computer -- and only the songs I liked.
So I pulled a couple of favourite songs off of two or three CDs and was having a wonderful time listening to them when suddenly the music went into a loop about five seconds long and a blue screen with white text came up.
I read it carefully. I didn't understand most of it, but it said 'Press any key to continue,' so I did.
I can't recall if it rebooted or if the blue screen simply disappeared, but at any rate I found myself back at the desktop -- although all the running programs had been closed.
Thinking it was fluke or something (ah, how much I've learned about computers over the years!), I opened Media Player, found the songs, and tried to play them again.
About a minute into the first song the same thing happened -- the music suddenly went into an annoying loop and the blue screen with white text came up again. I read the screen -- in case it said something different this time -- and pressed a key to continue.
Again I ended up back at the desktop with WMP closed.
I was quite stubborn back then and opened Windows Media Player a third time and began to play the music. However, if I recall correctly I did choose a different song.
Once again the blue screen appeared. I was only slightly perturbed at this point (things really have changed since then...). I pressed a key and was dumped back to the desktop.
I decided to try once more. If it still didn't work then Windows Media Player just wasn't worth the time and energy.
So for a fourth time I launched WMP and began to play music. For a fourth time the blue screen appeared and I pressed a key and ended up back at the desktop. I simply chose something else to do and continued on my merry (if somewhat quieter) way.
It wasn't until several months later that I realised that I had seen the infamous Blue Screen of Death that day. That screen I had always feared and dreaded... that apparently heralded the computer's immediate and inescapable demise... I had simply blown past it four times in a row. I had conquered it. The computer hadn't succumbed.
In other words, the almighty and powerful Blue Screen of Death was not a huge monster that would ruin the computer instantly no matter what one tried. It was completely controllable and I was capable of defeating it.
No, the BSOD doesn't scare me.
This scares me:

My apologies for the glare -- my photo editing software is currently out of commission (again...). Photo by Kate.

For the reason, read this, this, and this (in that order). I suppose if you're in a hurry you could get off with reading just the last one though.

One Thousand

I started my first iTunes library in July 2007 on a computer that I'm not even sure works anymore. That music library has since been copied to two other computers (including the Zombie) to continue its expansion and (in part) to two iPods. I'm not sure what the first song was that I ever put into iTunes, but I've narrowed it down to one of three Michael W Smith songs (most likely).
However, I can now tell you what the one thousandth song is -- Do You Hear What I Hear? by Connie Scott. I copied it off the cassette tape and added it to iTunes less than ten minutes ago. It's actually quite exciting to reach that little milestone. Now if only I could get the Zombie working so I can sync the iPod touch and its many remaining gigabytes of free space... (the home of 693 songs; last synchronised on 23 August 2010).

In other news, The Late Great PFR on CD came in the mail today! (You know, the one I stupidly paid thirty dollars for.) Finally I was able to listen to the second half of the album. And I must say, aside from Pray For Rain and Merry Go Round, it didn't seem nearly as good as the first half. Perhaps it was because I was expecting more of the hardcore rock that had pretty well dominated Side A. It'll probably grow on me though; after all, I've only listened to it once.

The Birth Of A Computer Nerd -- Part Two

My parents acquired our first computer when I was eleven. We were visiting relatives and they had recently gotten a new computer. Therefore they had a slightly used Windows ME computer they were getting rid of. My parents, who had been sort of considering getting a computer, agreed to take it.

Again, I have no idea what the thing's technical specifications were (and unfortunately the tower is no longer in our possession), but it worked for what we needed. I was rather disappointed that I couldn't start e-mailing my friends -- my parents were dead-set against the Internet -- but I managed to survive by drawing things in Paint, occasionally doing some typing, and playing with display settings (my sister and I would preview the haunted house screensaver and spend hours pretending to sneak up to the house on the screen from the other end of the room. Whenever a ghost would appear or a noise was heard, we would freak out and skitter back to the opposite wall where we would catch our breath in the most dramatic fashion and then slowly gather the courage to make our way to the house again).

For several years nobody really used the computer for much -- the varying versions of Solitaire were the most often-used programs.

Then I got an iPod.

I knew next to nothing about iPods at the time. All I knew was that somehow you used a computer to put music on it and then you could listen to music all the time without the bother of toting along half a dozen scratched CDs only to find that two of the cases are empty -- twenty minutes into a three-day road trip.
For me, a music junkie, that was all I needed to know. We had a computer, I had enough money. No problem.

Alas, I was young, sheltered, and as such completely unaware that there were different kinds of operating systems. Neither was I aware of the term 'incompatible' in the computing world.

Long story short, I bought the iPod, brought it home, and after several hours came to the conclusion that the computer simply would not communicate with the iPod. Since I didn't have very much computer knowledge I initially chalked it up to my own inexperience. However, after I'd talked to a friend who also had an iPod, I read the iPod's packaging, on her recommendation. It was only then that I found that I needed something called 'Windows XP.' I also needed 'iTunes' which required... an Internet connection.

At the time a computer nerd relative of ours had just moved to our area. We telephoned him and asked what we could do. He said he would download iTunes onto a portable drive and install it onto our computer from there.

Several days later, he came out to do that... but the computer refused to read the drive. Nothing he tried worked.

Finally we had to admit defeat. The computer was simply too old. However, this relative -- who built and repaired computers for extra cash -- said that the next time he got his hands on an XP computer to sell, we could have it.

Seven months passed and I began to despair of ever being able to use my iPod for more than the Apple version of Breakout that came bundled with it (it was a pretty decent version, but even so...).

Finally though, the day came when he told us he had a computer for us. Since we still didn't have the Internet, he took the liberty of installing the latest version of iTunes on it before giving it to us. He showed me how to import my music and sync my iPod, and in doing so was the midwife at the birth of a more manic computer geek than anyone would ever have dreamed I'd become.
Not wanting to repeat the frustration of spending several hundred dollars before discovering an incompatibility and having to wait seven months to be able to use the device I'd paid good money for, I decided I would learn more about computers so I could avoid similar mistakes (but anyone who's read the story of The Zombie (as I've decided to call The Computer) knows that I still make that mistake. Occasionally. Once. And it did work out that time... for a month and a half anyway).
I went to the library and borrowed a few computer books that had 'Windows' or 'iPod' in the title, figuring that was as good a place as any to start.
Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your point of view), those beginner computer books led to more complex and in-depth computer books. It wasn't long before I was bringing home books and magazines with titles like 'Teach Yourself C++,' 'The Hacker Quarterly,' and 'Dreaming In Code' (excellent book, by the way, utterly fascinating. The author is Scott Rosenberg if you'd like to look it up).
My knowledge quickly expanded. Eventually I'd read all the computer books the library had and moved on to tinkering with our computer without any specific goal in mind. How it survived some of the things I (mostly accidentally) inflicted on it I have no idea.
Two years after we got that XP computer, my parents finally gave in to their offspring's pleas and got high-speed Internet installed. Around the same time our computer geek relative was given a newer, better Windows XP computer to sell and passed it along to us. I got the old computer (I was rather disappointed since I'd outgrown the hard drive before it even passed into my hands and had hoped to get the newer one since my parents and sister were perfectly fine with the old computer anyway. I still have that computer though... it's the 20 GB one mentioned in the story of The Zombie).
Despite all the reading though, I've done most of my learning through trial and error. To this day I have never owned a brand new computer, either my own or my parents'. Since used computers tend to come with, ahem, 'quirks' (some more severe than others), I've had to do a lot of experimenting and stabs in the dark, hoping for something to work. As much as I hate having to coax unresponsive computers back into existence, I've accidentally taught myself a lot of things (like never put the iTunes folder in another user's Documents).
The nine-year-old who spent a half hour in a dialog box trying to figure out how to shut down Windows ME seems so far away now. Especially considering I've hatched a rather elaborate, multifaceted, and probably-going-to-be-mostly-ad-libbed plan to get The Zombie operational again. (I suppose if it works I'll have to come up with a different name for it though... although really, computers are zombies to begin with...)

The Birth Of A Computer Nerd -- Part One

(This wasn't meant to be a two-part post, but it became rather long during composition...)

As you have probably figured out by now, I'm a bit of a computer nerd.
Okay, I'm a regular computer nerd.
Okay, okay, I'm one of the most obsessed self-taught computer nerds you might ever meet.
It wasn't always that way though. Ten years ago my family didn't even have a computer. To me, windows were those glass panes you look out of to see the boring treeline across the road, and an apple macintosh was the dyslexic term for that slightly crunchy reddish fruit. I would have assumed that Linux and DOS were acronyms for some political 'undertaking' or (in the case of Linux at least) perhaps a new brand of toothpaste. Computers were those little beige TV screens that apparently were madly intelligent and going to take over the world.
My only exposure to a computer before age nine was playing a side-scrolling plunger-shooting game on my best friend's family's computer. (It's aimed for the younger set, but it's still slightly addicting if you're not wanting to think much for a few minutes.)
When I was nine, my grandmother (always farther ahead of the times than my parents, whether she understood the technology or not) got a brand-new computer. At the time that meant Windows ME and probably at most an eight gigabyte hard drive (I don't know how much exactly, but the tower's in my possession now so I could look it up. Come to think of it though, I don't think it works anymore).
Probably one of my most ridiculous memories of childhood was when my little sister and I got to use our grandmother's computer for the first time.
We were enthralled by Solitaire and even managed to figure out Spider Solitaire. We also played a bit of Minesweeper, but we couldn't figure out the point of the game and therefore just kept clicking squares until one turned red and it wouldn't let us click anymore. We knew to click the face at the top to start over, but we bored of that quickly because of the seeming lack of purpose behind it. (Flash-forward: I didn't know what the goal of Minesweeper was until I was probably about fifteen. But I digress.)
We also discovered Paint. As a result of this, my grandmother's computer became inundated over the next several years with random doodles created in Paint by my sister and me.
However, we eventually got bored with the computer and wanted to turn it off.
There was, in Windows ME, a neat little button in the Start menu that said 'Shut Down Computer.' Perfect.
My grandmother and I (my sister had wandered off by that point) clicked it and a little box came up.
It read, 'What do you want the computer to do?' then displayed a drop-down menu with the options Shut Down, Sleep, Hibernate, and Restart. We didn't know what Sleep and Hibernate were, but we knew we wanted it to shut down, so that's what we selected.
Nothing happened. Several times we selected the Shut Down option, and the computer gave no indication that it was doing anything resembling turning off. We tried selecting Sleep and Hibernate, but to no avail.
Even with my complete lack of experience with computers, I knew that you never pressed the power button to turn it off. Never. Ever. I didn't know what would happen if we did, but I didn't want to wreck my grandmother's nice new expensive computer.
So we closed the dialog box, thinking maybe it didn't 'take' (or something) and tried again. We clicked 'Shut Down Computer,' selected the 'Shut Down' option, and waited.
Nothing happened.
The only buttons along the bottom of the dialog box were 'OK,' 'Cancel,' and 'Help.'
We clicked Help, and (as I've come to realise is typical of Microsoft's Help files), learned nothing.
Finally though, after quite a while, my little nine-year-old mind had a thought.
'If you click 'OK' to make the other boxes do something, what will happen if we click 'OK' here?'
Brilliant, I know. And it only took half an hour.
Anyway, I suggested it to Grandma, who, lacking any better ideas, tried it. Lo and behold the computer shut down.
From that day forth I never forgot how to shut down a Windows 95/98/ME computer.

How To Write A Novel: A Step-By-Step Guide

For anyone who might be wondering how to write a novel, here's a step-by-step guide to the process (updated November 2010 during the writing of my most recent novel).

1. Turn computer on. Wait fifteen minutes for the dumb thing to boot up.
2. Open iTunes, some kind of web browser, and Notepad (for plot hashing, of course).
3. Open several tabs in the web browser -- one for Facebook, at least one for your webmail, one for your Blogger dashboard, and anywhere between one and... dozens to catch up on your blog reading.
4. Read your email. Catch up on your Facebook news feed and read notifications. Ignore twelve FarmVille requests.
5. Look at list of twenty people that you really should email back.
6. Decide that you'll reply to those people later. After you've made your quota.
7. Read blogs for a half hour.
8. Refresh Facebook.
9. Get up and go to kitchen to get food. Find nothing of interest. Return to computer and refresh Facebook again.
10. Consider actually digging out flash drive containing novel.
11. Read more blogs.
12. Refresh Facebook. Write status bemoaning lack of inspiration.
13. Scroll through iTunes, trying to decide on music to listen to.
14. Remember you wanted to search for a song on the iTunes Store.
15. Search song. Add to wish list.
16. Click on interesting-looking album at the bottom of the page.
17. Preview entire album.
18. Add ten songs to wish list.
19. Click on interesting-sounding song nearby.
20. Add three more songs to wish list.
21. Check wish list.
22. Decide to buy some songs.
23. Check wallet. Find no money. Sigh and return to iTunes library.
24. Scroll a little bit more, looking for a musical selection of interest. Find nothing.
25. Go back to Facebook. Hit 'refresh.' Get no response.
26. Spin circles in desk chair for five minutes.
27. Threaten computer with hockey stick. Computer calls your bluff.
28. Bite back nasty words and check how much money is in the 'MacBook Savings' envelope.
29. Sigh. Pound desk in frustration.
30. Ctrl-Alt-Delete and kill off web browser program.
31. Wait ten minutes for computer to realise 'End Program' actually means 'End Program.'
32. Reopen web browser and all tabs.
33. Scroll through iTunes library a bit more. Narrow your current listening choices down to five different albums.
34. Get flash drive with novel out of drawer/bag/pocket/trash can.
35. Refresh Facebook.
36. Plug in flash drive.
37. Spin more circles in chair as you wait for computer to load flash drive.
38. Start playing a song in iTunes. Decide you don't want to listen to that song now. Start playing a different song.
39. Open file on flash drive that isn't at all related to novel.
40. Come up with brilliant plot twists for nine other stories you're putting off until the current one is finished.
41. Oh yes, the current novel. Go back to drive contents window.
42. Refresh Facebook.
43. Remember you wanted to update profile picture.
44. Open resource-hogging photo editing program.
45. Scroll through three folders looking for photo you have in mind. Realise it wasn't as good a photo as you thought.
46. Scroll through eleven other folders looking for suitable photo.
47. Stumble across those lovely family portraits you took three months ago and never did send to your grandmother.
48. Email photos to grandmother.
49. Do some light editing on about a dozen photos.
50. Get bored with photo editing. Decide to write.
51. Go back to Explorer window of flash drive contents.
52. Click on 'Screenplays' folder.
53. Open two screenplays-in-progress.
54. Reread them and remember why you abandoned them in the first place.
55. Correct spelling of main character's name in four places.
56. Close files.
57. Go to 'Novels' folder.
58. Open novel file.
59. Wait three minutes for Word to open and load file.
60. Refresh Facebook.
61. 'Like' two posts and comment on another.
62. Look at four or five profiles, chosen largely at random.
63. Read another blog.
64. Check email.
65. Refresh Facebook.
66. Get up and go to kitchen.
67. Look for food. Find nothing of interest.
68. Make stop at washroom.
69. Return to computer.
70. Refresh Facebook.
71. Think up potential simple math problem for a different story idea.
72. Write out problem in Notepad file, using spaces to line up columns perfectly.
73. Solve problem.
74. Forget what answer to problem was for.
75. Realise that computer seems sluggish.
76. Look at Taskbar to see what programs you can close.
77. See novel file. Bring that window to front.
78. Hit 'Enter - Tab' to start a new paragraph.
79. Watch blinking cursor for a few minutes. (Optional: Spin a few circles in chair.)
80. Decide to write blog post about lack of inspiration.
81. Refresh Facebook.
82. Write blog post.
83. Revise blog post. Extensively.
84. Publish blog post.
85. Notice typo.
86. Edit blog post.
87. Refresh Facebook.
88. Publish newly edited blog post.
89. Go back to Facebook. Realise the idiots changed the layout. Again.
90. Spend twenty minutes trying to figure out how to update your status.
91. Write angry status update about stupid Facebook developers.
92. Check email.
93. Add three sentences to novel.
94. Refresh Facebook.
95. Start playing a different album in iTunes.
96. Play air guitar, air drums, and/or air keyboard to seven rock songs in a row.
97. Refresh Facebook.
98. Pick a new album to play in iTunes.
99. Decide to actually take a stab at writing this time.
100. Start writing. (Hint: See if you can introduce a talking fish or a random fireball or something. That will help with this exercise.)
101. Get lost exploring random unrelated-to-plot thought in main character's head and manage to scrounge up 6,000 words by bedtime (meaning four AM, of course).

There you have it. Repeat this schedule every day or two and you're bound to come up with a novel eventually (as long as you work on the same file every time).
You're welcome.

Prodding My Memory

Computers really are smart, aren't they? The Windows ones are at any rate. They make sure you will never forget how much you hate them and how much more money you'll need to save before you can buy a Mac and actually get some work done instead of doing diagnostics on your computer every time you attempt to use it.

Today -- rather, yesterday -- the intelligent Windows computer must have thought I was overdue for this reminder. So, being the helpful device that it is, it... well, reminded me (as if I'd forgotten).

I had reached the end of my novel at just over 74 000 words. The goal is 50 000, so of course I'm far past winning.

However, the NaNoWriMo website requires that you upload the text of your novel for them to count so they know you have actually written 50 000 words or more and can give you access to a well-deserved winner's certificate. Verification, they call it.

It was 11.20 PM and I had just polished off my novel, milking a few extra words out of it here and there, and was finally ready to upload it to get it verified. So I went to the website, pasted the text into the 'verification box'... and Firefox froze.

Completely, totally froze. I know it's probably at least twenty below zero (Celsius) outside, but honestly, this computer has been on for a few hours now, it should have generated enough heat to handle a simple copy-paste operation.

I managed to close the stubborn thing via the Task Manager (the Windows computer user's best friend if you ask me) and restart Firefox (this takes twelve minutes). It allowed me to log back into the site, get to the verification box... and once again froze on the copy-paste.

I began to panic. I have less than a half hour until the verification box is closed to me, because then it will be 1 December local time and the contest will officially be over.

Once again I manage to force Firefox to close and get it to reopen. By now it's 11.40 PM. I have twenty minutes. Again it lets me log in only to freeze when I try to verify.

I'm in tears. That only happens once every six months or so -- I do not cry easily. I have worked so hard on this novel and now I can't even get it verified and get the official winner status that I so richly deserve?

The computer is moving more and more slowly every time. Recovery is taking longer and longer. I figure I have one more chance to get it right before running out of time and thus officially losing the contest.

I'm completely fed up with Firefox. I try Internet Explorer, but it freezes before it even loads the home page.

Fine and dandy. I've never particularly cared for IE anyway.

So I try Safari. I haven't the faintest idea why or how we've got Safari installed on our Windows computer, but it's my only hope now. I double-click it... and am pleasantly surprised.

Within seconds I am logged on to the NaNoWriMo website and at the verifier. I copy and paste my novel into the box. For a split second nothing happens and I began to panic even more, thinking the blasted thing's frozen again.

But then the pointer returns to normal and I am allowed to scroll down to the 'Submit' button.

I think I was happier when I clicked that little baby blue button than I was when I reached 50 000 words.

So I am now officially a winner of National Novel Writing Month for the fourth time in a row. The novel was 74 834 words and 247 pages long. Hopefully I can write the next one on a MacBook.

The Bitter End -- And The Ramifications Thereof

Part Three of a three-part series.

23 August 2010. 11.45 PM (or something to that effect).
I pulled my chair up to the computer, woke it up, and plugged in the flash drive containing my nearly complete novel.
I am practically giddy. I have already passed the 45 000 word mark, that being the goal for the 28th day. If my pacing keeps up I will easily finish by the 25th. My previous record is 29 days.
I am so excited I can hardly sit still.
I navigate to the folder containing my precious novel, double-click the file, and wait for Microcrap Word to spring to life.
After several (uncharacteristic) minutes of waiting, a dialog box appears, saying that Word is updating. This puzzles me, as this computer hasn't been on anything resembling an Internet connection for nearly a month. Where is it getting this 'update' from?
I hit 'Cancel,' assuming that will circumvent the 'updating' process and start Word so I can work on my novel.
'The updating process has failed.' Hmm, I wonder why...
I click 'Close' -- the only button available -- and wait for Word to open.
It doesn't.
So I go to the Start menu and attempt to open Word from there.
The dialog box reappears, and again I hit 'Cancel' and give it a few minutes to open Word.
You know what happens next -- absolutely nothing.
However, the computer is evidently doing some strenuous task -- I can hear the hard drive churning and gurgling, but the only program currently running is iTunes. It is by now at least 12 AM.
Once again I attempt to open Word. This time when the dialog appears I leave it and allow it to do its 'updating.'
After nearly fifteen minutes the progress bar disappears and another dialog box takes its place.
'The updating process has failed.'
I wait for Word to open, but it does not.
Rather disappointed, I abandon the novel for the present and open Notepad -- my writing warm-up tool of choice.
It takes a full five minutes for the most streamlined program on the computer -- perhaps in existence -- to load. This brings me to a conclusion.
This is ridiculous.
And that means a reboot is almost certainly in order.
I close Notepad (a process which takes another two minutes) and iTunes (three minutes). Then I select 'Restart' and sit back.
Because I have the attention span of a goldfish, I pick up a piece of paper or something (I don't even remember what) and read it while I wait for the computer to finish the reboot.
After a while I realise that it appears to be taking a rather long time for the blue login screen to appear. I look up.
The monitor is displaying an odd screen of text that I've never seen before. However, I don't get to read any of it before it disappears and the POST takes its place.
Strange...
The POST text finishes and the Windows XP splash screen comes up for an instant before the screen goes black and white text appears.
My heart sinks before I even begin to read.
'We apologise for the inconvenience, but Windows did not start successfully.'
It goes on to give a thoroughly uninformative 'possible explanation' for said failure and then lists several options -- start Windows normally, in Safe Mode, in Safe Mode with command prompt, Safe Mode with networking, and Last Known Good Configuration. A countdown clock is at the bottom of the screen -- 'Windows will start in 20 seconds.'
Odd. However, my previous computer would frequently go into a similar sort of boot loop, often fixed by a simple tug of the power cord for a minute or so. So I unplug the computer, wait thirty seconds or so, and plug it back in.
The POST runs, then the error screen appears again.
At this point I begin to panic.
I select Last Known Good Configuration. The Windows splash screen appears for a split second before reverting again to the POST, which then gives way to the error message.
This time I select Safe Mode. Same result.
I yank the flash drive out of the USB port, hoping it hasn't somehow been reformatted, unplug the computer again, and sit back. Tears pool in my eyes.
Then, after a few seconds, I reach into my book bag.
Lila, my faithful little Neo 2, had at that point been with me for a year and a half, the equivalent of one and a half novels, one script, and copious amounts of plot hashing and note taking. Never once has she failed me, even with the amount of salt water that's dripped into her keyboard.
I pull her out of the book bag and hug her.
It's just her and me now. Us against the world of Windows.

And that, dear reader, is why I have no money for writing music this November. MacBooks don't come cheap, and due to my utter lack of a computer that will at least start up, I need one as soon as possible. I was saving for one before, but not with the ruthless intensity that is now required.
I only hope that my lack of decent music and the inability to write during my best hours won't put me in a madhouse next month...

Subdued

Part Two of a three part series.

For the remainder of July (for it was July by the time I set the computer up), I added programs and photos with rather reckless abandon, and spent nearly every waking moment either working on my Spider Solitaire winning streak (it ended at 19 games, if I recall correctly), customising preferences, or writing.

Two rather good short stories were born out of this writing, as was the nebulous of a poem of sorts.

In late July, I got an iPod touch (an early birthday gift). After it was purchased, I read the packaging and found that as far as Windows XP goes, it was only compatible with Service Pack 3 or higher.

The computer I had been planning to use it with (the only computer in the house that had both iTunes and a working USB port) had SP2.

For a split second I was horrified... my (very generous) grandmother and I had just spent a collective total of nearly three hundred dollars on this and I couldn't even use it?

Then my mind flashed back to the System Properties dialog box on my new computer. If my memory was accurate, it might just have said 'Service Pack 3.' However, I wasn't sure.

So when I got home, I rushed to the computer and called up The Official Windows Box Of Nerd Stats.

Sure enough, it read 'Windows XP Home Service Pack 3.'

I was elated. All I needed to do was install iTunes, add my music, and hook up the iPod.

Six hours later I had finally installed iTunes and added (I hoped) every song I could think of that I might possibly wish to listen to (it would have taken far longer if I hadn't had a partial backup of the other computer's music files). Exhausted but excited, I plugged in the iPod. And got an error message from iTunes.

It needed to connect to the Internet in order for me to register the iPod and thus, sync it.

Due to lack of finances (or more accurately, laziness preventing us from researching the actual cost), there is no networking in the house. If you want to get onto the Internet, you have to get onto the one computer that's connected to it.

The SP2 computer.

Upon researching the potential pitfalls involved in upgrading that computer to SP3 I (wisely, as I would realise later) dropped the notion. However, it looked as if I would never get to use the iPod for anything more than note-taking.

That night, however, an idea came to me and the next morning I put it in action.

It took me a good half hour to rewire the Internet connection, moving it temporarily from the 'primary' computer to mine. With my computer on the Internet, I registered the iPod, bought a few songs, and synced it before moving the Internet connection back to its designated place.

I had been quite grateful for the computer before, and this only heightened my thankfulness. Without it, my iPod would have been the next thing to useless.

Then dawned 1 August (actually, it didn't even have a chance to dawn; I opened Word and started writing as soon as the clock read 12.00 AM), and I started my novel -- the one about the murder.

I quickly discovered that I do my best writing between the hours of 11.30 PM and 4.00 AM (something I'd suspected, but hadn't yet confirmed).

So, every night, as the rest of the family was falling asleep, I woke up the computer, plugged in my trusty flash drive, and wrote until I could no longer see the monitor for the black spots before my eyes.

The story took shape at a blinding pace, and the computer was quite patient about the whole thing.

For twenty-three days (rather, nights) we worked together, racking up over 45,000 words out of the goal of 50,000.

And then in the proverbial home stretch it choked.

The Beginning -- Acquiring 'The Computer'

Part One of a three-part series.

I suppose it started back in early June. My neighbour/friend was getting rid of her old computer because she was upgrading and asked if I wanted it. My primary computer at the time had a 20 GB hard drive, 256 MB RAM and a processor whose speed was measured in MHz, not GHz. Oh, and a nasty habit of restarting itself every time I tried to plug in my USB thumb drive.
Needless to say, another computer was quite an attractive offer, even if it was used. I reasoned that anything had to be better than the beast I was currently fighting with and a hundred dollars was a reasonable price to pay for something that should last until I could acquire a MacBook.
Alas, I underestimated the wrath of circuitry that has been forced to run Windows.
I bought the computer and toted it home. For several weeks the poor thing languished in a corner of my bedroom because its new owner was too lazy to set it up (that and there was no room on my desk for it).
Finally, though, I cleared off the desk, rearranged a few things, and set the thing up.
I was amazed when I started it up and looked at the System Properties.
It boasted nearly twice the RAM, three times the hard drive space, and a far more sophisticated processor. Not top-of-the-line, but certainly better than anything I'd previously owned. Further poking around showed that this was a well-maintained computer. The previous owner had obviously taken very good care of it and as far as I could tell it was almost like new.
Naturally, I was overjoyed and within a few days I was doing all my writing on that computer. This was for three reasons: one, it was far faster than either of the other computers in the house; two, since it was my computer, I could stay up writing on it as late as I wanted; and three, it read my flash drive without argument.
Over the next week or so, I developed only two complaints about it -- one of the USB ports was dead and it had an older version of Microsoft Word, meaning I couldn't read or edit some of my documents. (However, since I work primarily in Notepad, that wasn't all that much of an issue.) I kept my old computer only for my iTunes library and Microsoft Word 2007.
Ah yes, it was glorious. At last I had a computer that didn't look as if it would explode any day now. With my plans to write a novel in August, I couldn't have asked for more.