Todd Stadler's blog

back again, for now

You know, it was almost cute when my computer decided to, um, "take a break" last Thursday.

I told everyone that "the network was down at work" and went off and did productive things that I don't normally do because I'm sitting in a chair all day.

For instance, I cleaned my room. It's a lot less cluttered now. I also hopped on a bus to go buy a new ribbon for my typewriter. It was nice to get out in the city.

It was even nicer when my computer came back alive the following day. Of course, I spent most of Friday running scandisk and defrag. Large hard drives are not quickly fixed or cleaned up.

Saturday was nicer still, with my computer working perfectly in that ironic portent sort of way. It should be noted that, having concluded that I had fixed my computer on Friday, I did no backing up of files on Saturday.

Which made things all the more annoying on Sunday, when my computer decided to take a break in a much more palpable way. Apparently, all the ennui had come to a head.

I won't go into the details, but suffice to say that as of this posting, my computer seems mostly fine, with the exception of an annoying, if seemingly innocuous, error everytime I start up Excel (cue ominous music).

But it occurs to me that I shouldn't have to spend two days every several months or so bringing my computer back from the dead. I shouldn't have to know what I had to know to fix this beast. It should work a lot better than this.

The only thing that keeps me from switching to a clearly superior operating system is the money I have invested in software and hardware that won't run on a different platform.

And thus do I propagate the mediocrity that runs rampant in the computer industry. Sigh.

At least I find the defrag utility to be pleasantly mesmerizing to watch. So I've got that going for me.