Entry tags:
Long time no...post
Well, it's definitely been a long time. I kind of got out of the habit of posting much anyway after that lousy experience with fanlore people combing through my old LJ posts and putting things up and labeling them "essays," anyway, but even within that framework, I haven't been able to find the energy to write anything up. It's just been...a time. So many things have gone wrong and life has been such a clusterfuck that it's sapped what little will to live I have had.
The biggest thing that went wrong is that in August, my main desktop computer died, right when I was due to get a book in from the publisher I haven't had much chance to work with the past couple years. It was pretty nerve-wracking, because due to some nonsense I don't fully understand and thus haven't been able to fix, the only computer my work email address will work on is the iMac, and I was fairly freaked out about getting access to the instructions from the production editor. I had to make a flurry of phone calls to find out a way to access it via webmail, which is a colossal pain but at least partially solved the problem. I contacted the tech guy who's repaired that lemon of a computer (seriously, it's died like four times; I've owned Macs since the '80s and never once had one break down, ever), but he never got back to me, and finally after a couple weeks of work hell, I called him again and he started working on it, only to find out that both the hard drive and the video card had died (again).
I usually work on my laptop when I'm copyediting, and then switch to the larger screen of the desktop iMac to go over all my edits where I can really see multiple pages at a time, and proofing the magazine is a lot harder on a 13 inch screen, so I prefer the iMac for that. But the tech guy, and other people, were trying to encourage me to get a new Mac Mini with the M1 chip, and I was kind of reluctant because they have no useful ports to me--none of my peripheral devices are USB-C or Thunderbolt, and the intel iMacs are still around, they haven't yet made the 27-inch ones with the M1 chip and no useful ports yet, so I kind of wanted my platonic ideal sized screen with the good ports. My tech guy just could NOT understand that; all he could say was "speed" and I'm like, shrug. Speed is of way less importance to me than convenience. I had to do multiple assignments over the pas four months on that little laptop screen and it was absolute hell on my back and shoulders and neck, squinting and hunched over to try to see every possible punctuation issue.![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
minim_calibre loaned me a monitor, but I still had to work around things.
So I kept dithering and dithering about what to do, because I knew I would need him to help me migrate the Time Machine backup onto anything new and try to futz around with an older OS so I could still use a couple of 32-bit programs I wanted to eke a few more months out of. This was such a huge unplanned expense that I just did not want to buy more expensive apps to work on stupid Big Sur. Anyway, very very long story slightly shorter, I finally broke down and got a refurbed 27-inch intel chip iMac, and it was very hard to find one with a hard drive the same size as my dead computer, which because it was my vidding computer, I didn't want less than a terrabyte so I didn't have to futz around trying to sift through what to throw away in the migration.
Typical Apple: the whole packaging setup was incredibly functional and elegant, and even by my decrepit, arthritic self I was able to get the whole thing unboxed and set up with ease. But of course, I've had nothing but problems since then, and the tech guy is not responding, he probably thinks I'm irritating and high maintenance, I don't know. I've spent way too much time on the phone with Apple Support, and Dropbox won't work (nor will some of my Adobe apps) but they refuse to allow you to speak with someone, you have to do everything via email. I have to use Dropbox because of my clients, but I'm really annoyed with them and with the money I spend on it for this level of crappy support.
Anyways, I can use some things, like my browsers, and most of my passwords and logins came over fine. So far the computer seems to function well, though I miss my DVD drive, and there were a couple moments with the Time Machine backup where the screen dissolved into millions of fragmented, pixelized colors and I thought I'd killed my brand-new old computer.
Which is also why I know I have to finally bite the bullet and get a new phone--this is my second iPhone 6s, they bricked my old one when they changed the battery and I lost a lot of my stuff. This one won't keep a charge, and I absolutely hate losing my headphone jack, but I can't even update the OS anymore, and since I am using it for work related things now too, I really need to keep more current.
Of course, right after the computer died, my car died. It turned out to be the battery, and thankfully died in my garage so the AAA guy was able to come jump start it, then replace the whole battery (thank god it hadn't died two days before when I was up north at a movie), but again, more of an unplanned expense. And he found a couple things that aren't immediate issues, but he said should be taken care of sooner rather than later because they will turn into bigger problems later. Then an appliance died, and let me tell you, things are crazy out there--it's hard to get hold of parts and stuff. In the time I was looking at computers, I saw at least half of the refurbs I was eyeing get snatched up--it's bananas!
There's also a couple of significant things going on with my house I have to get help for, if I can. It's just...a lot. I did find someone to help me with my yard upkeep, which has gone completely out of control because arthritis is just eating me alive. She's really cool but it's definitely an expense on top of everything else. Most days I just sort of want to hunker down and cry. But I signed up for Yuletide and am hoping this won't be the first time I ever have to default, even if my assignment is really confusing and has some conflicting information, making it hard to know how to proceed.
The plan tomorrow is to see Eternals withminim_calibre, god willing and the crick don't rise, because we've now descended into the Noah's flood portion of our fall/winter. We had a nice couple days this weekend, probably the last we'll have for months, and I got to take the water taxi across the bay and meet up with a friend from out of town, have fancy brunch and tour the Pike Place Market with her. She gave me a Sam Cap/Bucky arm ugly Christmas sweater as an early birthday present, and it's hilarious and I'll have to take a picture at some point.
The biggest thing that went wrong is that in August, my main desktop computer died, right when I was due to get a book in from the publisher I haven't had much chance to work with the past couple years. It was pretty nerve-wracking, because due to some nonsense I don't fully understand and thus haven't been able to fix, the only computer my work email address will work on is the iMac, and I was fairly freaked out about getting access to the instructions from the production editor. I had to make a flurry of phone calls to find out a way to access it via webmail, which is a colossal pain but at least partially solved the problem. I contacted the tech guy who's repaired that lemon of a computer (seriously, it's died like four times; I've owned Macs since the '80s and never once had one break down, ever), but he never got back to me, and finally after a couple weeks of work hell, I called him again and he started working on it, only to find out that both the hard drive and the video card had died (again).
I usually work on my laptop when I'm copyediting, and then switch to the larger screen of the desktop iMac to go over all my edits where I can really see multiple pages at a time, and proofing the magazine is a lot harder on a 13 inch screen, so I prefer the iMac for that. But the tech guy, and other people, were trying to encourage me to get a new Mac Mini with the M1 chip, and I was kind of reluctant because they have no useful ports to me--none of my peripheral devices are USB-C or Thunderbolt, and the intel iMacs are still around, they haven't yet made the 27-inch ones with the M1 chip and no useful ports yet, so I kind of wanted my platonic ideal sized screen with the good ports. My tech guy just could NOT understand that; all he could say was "speed" and I'm like, shrug. Speed is of way less importance to me than convenience. I had to do multiple assignments over the pas four months on that little laptop screen and it was absolute hell on my back and shoulders and neck, squinting and hunched over to try to see every possible punctuation issue.
minim_calibre loaned me a monitor, but I still had to work around things.So I kept dithering and dithering about what to do, because I knew I would need him to help me migrate the Time Machine backup onto anything new and try to futz around with an older OS so I could still use a couple of 32-bit programs I wanted to eke a few more months out of. This was such a huge unplanned expense that I just did not want to buy more expensive apps to work on stupid Big Sur. Anyway, very very long story slightly shorter, I finally broke down and got a refurbed 27-inch intel chip iMac, and it was very hard to find one with a hard drive the same size as my dead computer, which because it was my vidding computer, I didn't want less than a terrabyte so I didn't have to futz around trying to sift through what to throw away in the migration.
Typical Apple: the whole packaging setup was incredibly functional and elegant, and even by my decrepit, arthritic self I was able to get the whole thing unboxed and set up with ease. But of course, I've had nothing but problems since then, and the tech guy is not responding, he probably thinks I'm irritating and high maintenance, I don't know. I've spent way too much time on the phone with Apple Support, and Dropbox won't work (nor will some of my Adobe apps) but they refuse to allow you to speak with someone, you have to do everything via email. I have to use Dropbox because of my clients, but I'm really annoyed with them and with the money I spend on it for this level of crappy support.
Anyways, I can use some things, like my browsers, and most of my passwords and logins came over fine. So far the computer seems to function well, though I miss my DVD drive, and there were a couple moments with the Time Machine backup where the screen dissolved into millions of fragmented, pixelized colors and I thought I'd killed my brand-new old computer.
Which is also why I know I have to finally bite the bullet and get a new phone--this is my second iPhone 6s, they bricked my old one when they changed the battery and I lost a lot of my stuff. This one won't keep a charge, and I absolutely hate losing my headphone jack, but I can't even update the OS anymore, and since I am using it for work related things now too, I really need to keep more current.
Of course, right after the computer died, my car died. It turned out to be the battery, and thankfully died in my garage so the AAA guy was able to come jump start it, then replace the whole battery (thank god it hadn't died two days before when I was up north at a movie), but again, more of an unplanned expense. And he found a couple things that aren't immediate issues, but he said should be taken care of sooner rather than later because they will turn into bigger problems later. Then an appliance died, and let me tell you, things are crazy out there--it's hard to get hold of parts and stuff. In the time I was looking at computers, I saw at least half of the refurbs I was eyeing get snatched up--it's bananas!
There's also a couple of significant things going on with my house I have to get help for, if I can. It's just...a lot. I did find someone to help me with my yard upkeep, which has gone completely out of control because arthritis is just eating me alive. She's really cool but it's definitely an expense on top of everything else. Most days I just sort of want to hunker down and cry. But I signed up for Yuletide and am hoping this won't be the first time I ever have to default, even if my assignment is really confusing and has some conflicting information, making it hard to know how to proceed.
The plan tomorrow is to see Eternals with
minim_calibre, god willing and the crick don't rise, because we've now descended into the Noah's flood portion of our fall/winter. We had a nice couple days this weekend, probably the last we'll have for months, and I got to take the water taxi across the bay and meet up with a friend from out of town, have fancy brunch and tour the Pike Place Market with her. She gave me a Sam Cap/Bucky arm ugly Christmas sweater as an early birthday present, and it's hilarious and I'll have to take a picture at some point.
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Fanlore is just a dumpster fire. They scraped my several of my rec pages to spread my mostly one sentence recs, that usually just say things like "great AU of type such and such" as "fan reaction" or such across a ton of their fanfic entries. *eyeroll* I don't mind that as much as the kerfuffle I had with them over them uploading my art, but it's so pointless the way they just c&p everything, even whole comment threads.
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(I am dreading the inevitable upgrade of my laptop.)
Just keep repeating "Technology is our friend; it makes out lives easier." Maniacal laughter after you say it is totally optional.
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Make sure you don't update to Monterey. As our friend T said, it's not a good idea and might lock up your computer.
Hope you're having a better week:)
g