Yesterday was COMPUTER ARMAGEDDON. I turned my computer on in the morning, and went upstairs to get a glass of water during the machine's five-minute boot up cycle. When I came back, the four horsemen had arrived. A blue-screen message told me that ScanDisk had found something out of the ordinary, but, Oh, it's OK, we fixed it, just reboot now.
So I did. This time when it booted up, the resolution had been set back to 800 x 600, all my theme customizations were gone, and a desktop wallpaper illustration I hadn't seen in OVER TWO YEARS was on my screen. At this point, I began to get a little nervous, but that's OK, it's just a setback, as long as I can open Outlook ...
click, click ...
BEEP!
"This application has not been installed. Please select setup for this program to reinstall."
Um. OK. Email might take a while, but at least I can run Excel and do some wor...
BEEP!
Oh, drat. How about Word?
BEEP!
At this point I just sat there, flabbergasted, staring at the 10 pound chunk of plastic, metal, and glass on my desk that used to be a functioning computer. Unbidden, the word REGISTRY went through my mind. It had to be the registry. Windows had restored my registry to some unbearably old version, and now nothing I'd done or installed on my system since that version was saved would work until I re-installed. I tried to remember if re-installing would overwrite my email. I tapped a finger thoughtfully on the desk. I called the computer what it was, and pulled out my system discs.
Now I've got the basics up and running again. I didn't lose my email. I know why this happened; I got tired of doing the necessary Windows maintenance. The necessary Windows maintenance, in my case, involves completely reformatting your hard drive and reinstalling the OS and all other programs every year or so. If you use your computer the way I do, then digital "plaque" starts to build up on the drive and in the registry that no amount of defragmenting can get rid of. Eventually it will cause you trouble, trouble of the kind that I went through yesterday. Actually, I got off easy this time. I just had to reinstall programs. The computer is even running quite a bit better today than it was before Friday (no more skipping in WinAmp, for instance).
I love Wintel machines, I'll freely admit that, but I should also point out -- I never had these problems with my old Macintosh.
So it's time to completely reformat, which is a pain because I'm in the middle of a contract job and my Labor Day weekend is already filled up. We'll see what happens.
Just picked up a five-week writing gig! I've joined the ranks of the employed once again. I start tomorrow, working from home. This will be fun; contracts are enjoyable.
My sis-in-law, niece and nephew just left town after staying here for a week. It was good seeing them again; we went to the beach, where I introduced Dan briefly to surfing before he decided he'd rather just wade for now, thank you very much. Then we went to Knott's Berry Farm. More on that below. Then I got a nasty cold, of course, and sat out the rest of the week in bed. Nuts. But it was nice having them here. Maggie's talking quite a bit now, and I was able to teach Dan a few board games. By the end of it, he was beating me a few times in Mancala.
Knott's Berry Farm has been officially crossed off the Brian McGovney List of Approved Southern California Attractions. True, it has a few nice rides (The Jaguar, the Perilous Plunge, etc.), but for each good ride, there are about 15 cash-only attractions or booths. The Farm needs to decide if it's a carnival or an amusement park. If the former, charge $2.00 at most to get in. If the latter, get rid of all the pay booths. This is especially noticable when you're there with kids. It's like this to some extent with all the SoCal amusement parks, but it progressed to a disgusting extent at Knotts. I won't be back.
Tina and the rest went to Universal Studios yesterday, and had a wonderful time. It was quite a contrast to the experience at Knott's, with plenty for the kids to ride and do once inside the park, with no extra money required.
I was reminded today of something I hadn't thought of for a long long time; the stories, some might say koans, of the Mulla Nasrudin. I loved running across these as a teenager, and now of course they're on the internet. Here's a sample:
Nasrudin is with his cronies drinking coffee: they are discussing death. "When you are in your casket and friends and family are mourning upon you, what would you like to hear them say about you?" The first crony says, "I would like to hear them say that I was a great doctor of my time, and a great family man." The second says, " I would like to hear that I was a wonderful husband and school teacher which made a huge difference in our children of tomorrow." Nasrudin says, " I would like to hear them say... LOOK!! HE'S MOVING!!!"
I'll be making a Trappist ale tomorrow with dad. My most recent pale ale didn't turn out too well, so this one will be my fall ale. I'm hoping to enter it into the Pacific Brewers Cup competition, if it's bottled in time (it never is). After that, I may go out to Malibu and see the Perseid meteor shower tomorrow night.