The Trials and Tribulations of Josh and His Computer

I can't remember if I've extensively written about the temperamental nature of my computer, but in the words of Ben from Lost, she can be a "fickle bitch". She's been through a lot, seen three continents over the past four years, and served me more than admirably, but she's turned into an aged race horse staggering towards the finish line, almost begging to be retired. She doesn't run as fast as she used to, which I can live with, but she's given me other signals that it might be time for me to...move on. For example, shortly after I started using my external hard drive (whose disk stopped spinning, which coupled with the theft of my iPod left me with a music collection that was merely a semi-permeable membrane of what it used to be, especially given a story that comes later in this post), my computer decided to stop letting me transfer photos from my camera/iPhone, attach files to emails, or upload pictures already on my computer to the blog. When I would attempt the latter two, it would immediately quit the application and ask me if I wanted to send a complaint to Firefox, which proved to be as fruitless as trying to get an Argentine to be punctual. Two weeks ago, seemingly on a whim, she decided to let me resume these activities long ago abandoned, so now I can take pictures directly from my photographic devices, put them on computer, and use them in my blog posts without cluttering Julia's computer, having to deal with her menacing glares when she catches me using it, or the shrieks of displeasure when she realizes she's posted under my name since I was the last one on her computer to make a post (oh relationships!). Believe me, this is a good thing for me. But I'm not getting ahead of myself and fully expect the previous state of affairs to return once I start using my new external hard drive again, so here's to two weeks of normal computer usage.

One part my computer, however, shall never function correctly. For nearly 2 years now - half my computer's life - it has had to be plugged in or else it shuts off. Essentially, it has no battery. Whether out of laziness, apathy, or some sort of logic, I figured it was not worth the price to replace the battery, even though it's an incredibly annoying situation. Last year my friend's dog chewed through my power cord, leaving me computer-less until faithful blog reader Danya gifted me her old power cord, saving me a lot of money since I'm unsure if they even make the power cord for my model anymore. Now this cord is on it's last legs, as fickle as ever, and the slightest jostle will interrupt whatever I'm doing since I have to restart my computer. Usually it's just an annoyance, but today it almost proved catastrophic. I was in the middle of uploading the new iPhone 3.0 software when I moved my computer from the couch to the coffee table when, you guessed it, the cord slipped the tiniest bit out of the port and shut off my computer. I looked at my iPhone only to see my worst nightmare: the same screen that appears when you turn on the phone for the first time. My fears were confirmed by the box in iTunes telling me that since I interrupted the installation process I had to restore my phone to factory settings, robbing me of what little music I had left and over 200 photos that were critical for preserving memories and illustrating future blog posts. All of the information (phone numbers, addresses, calendar items, etc) could be synced from my computer, and to my surprise the photos somehow didn't get erased, but the last remnants disappeared into oblivion. I'm left with less than 200 songs on my computer, which although fantastic for space, makes me somewhat depressed. I will end up having to steal all of Dan and Nick's music on to my hard drive in order to replenish my music collection, but sentimentally, it won't be the same. Yet, it may be a blessing in disguise, for it will give me the chance to be a bit more particular with my library while, at the same time, hopefully expanding my musical knowledge through suggestions from my mates (in the British sense). Either way, my collection is a blank slate waiting to be refilled, so I'm very open to suggestions.