Or better yet, on a weekend.
My laptop does that. It crashes and almost exclusively on a damn weekend. Late on Friday is particularly dicey. So, as a rule, I try to avoid using my computer after 4:00 on Friday afternoons.
I just can’t afford a crash, you know? They’re expensive. Not to mention frustrating and time-consuming and heartbreaking and chaotic and messy. Crashes are a loathsome, horrid business. And I hate them.
You see, in my experience, life doesn’t imitate art. It imitates a game of Whack-a-mole. Seriously. You just get one problem under control and, boing, up pops a new one. You wrestle that one to the ground and, boing, here comes another. Whack-a-mole, right?
A couple weeks ago, for instance, Apple interrupted my online activities with a message: software updates awaited, they chirped. That should’ve been my cue to shut down the old MacBook and run. But, no. Like a dope I downloaded the updates. The updates, in turn, downloaded a crash.
Google Chrome went toes up immediately. Then QuarkXPress — followed by Firefox, Word, the DVD drive. The whole shebang went down like a ton of bricks within hours. Nothing worked but the spinning beach ball doohickey. Gah.
It was, what else?, a Saturday afternoon.
Now, granted, computers are fine inventions; lovely, efficient devices. But, come on, they’re time bombs. Touchy, ill-tempered, and ready to blow. Do I really want one of those in the house? Yes. Yes, I do.
What in the world would I do without a computer? Would life even be worth living? I need the internet, man. I need YouTube videos and email and iTunes; I need Google. Then there’s the whole blogging thing — I can’t go back to a typewriter or, ye gods!, handwriting my posts. I can’t. I won’t.
It’s been an unnerving week, ladies and gentlemen. I worried and fretted and imagined the worst. How could I ever finance a new system on my income, that’s what I wanted to know. Instead of needing a miracle, though, turns out I only needed a new hard drive. Yay. And phew. I can afford that — barely.
I’m back in bidness, folks. Give me a few days to get everything re-loaded, then we’ll be off on all kinds of new and exciting adventures. Until next weekend, anyway.
Copyright © 2013 Publikworks
the whirly girl 
8 responses to “: things that go crash in the night :”
When a computer crashes in a forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?
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Hey, nc! How are you? What’s new and Happy Fourth! It’s so good to hear from you. I’ll be visiting soon, when I can read again : )
To answer your question: No, they don’t, the sneaky bastards.
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I wondered where you were! Not that I’m stalking you or anything…well, maybe just a little…but I’ve been missing my Publikworks fix. Happy to have you back, Lisa.
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Hey, Jo, I’ve missed you, too. Crashes are so disorienting, your entire world is affected. Not that I’ve been doing much of value here lately — my vision is still totally wonky. I can see things at a distance with amazing clarity, but anything closer than two feet? Indecipherable. Gah. Early next week I hope to get a prescription for reading glasses. I hope, I hope.
How are things with you, my delicate flower?
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I wondered about your vision just a couple days ago when I took my eye test to get a WA drivers license. I could see nothing on the left side of the screen thanks to my constant companion, Ms. Cataract. Thank goodness for small town DMV workers — she passed me nonetheless. I should probably apologize in advance to anyone sharing the road with me.
Good luck with the reading glasses. I intend on insisting I continue to need glasses even after I have Ms. Cataract sucked out. Specs help hide the wrinkles and are one heck of a lot cheaper than plastic surgery.
Have a wonderful Fourth of July holiday, even if you have to squint.
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One of the good things about having cataracts? Well, the only good thing, really, you couldn’t see the wrinkles. I was shocked when I got a good look in the mirror. Shocked and deflated. I’m still not over it.
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Reblogged this on Snoochie Boochies and commented:
We can’t live without them, even if they’re not fool proof! Computers eh?! Who’d have em?!!
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Isn’t that the truth? I worry more about my computer’s health than my own. After all, a simple virus could kill it — they’re such sissies.
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