The Post With Digital Death & A Satellite

Tuesday the 20th of this month I was on my computer.  I decided to download the new version of Inernet Explorer (I had been working with the last update when the search box and URL box were separate) and defrag the computer since I figured it wouldn’t hurt to see if it sped things up a little.

Thursday the 22nd I was asked to see what was on some discs that were laying around the house.  I pushed the power button and waited.  When I looked back to see if it was ready for my password yet I saw that screen that comes up when the computer wasn’t shut off properly that asks if you want to start in safe mode or not.  I was pretty sure I had turned it off properly, so I went with just starting normally.  As I watched the little bar with the green lines that go through it while it’s loading it did something that it definitely shouldn’t have.  For a brief second I saw the blue screen of death.  Just for a second, then it was gone and the computer began restarting.  I decided that it was just a fluke of some sort and when the “computer didn’t shut off right” screen came back I went with the same thing again.

The blue screen came back for a second time, again just for a moment.  Not even enough time to read what the problem was.

This happened at least half a dozen times, the last one I tried safe mode with the same result.  Eventually I just pushed the power button until it stopped the blue screen’s mocking death spiral.

A quick trip to the Geek Squad later and the guy does a test of some sort on it that should say what the problem is: expensive or really expensive and you might have lost everything you hadn’t backed up over the past year.  It was the latter.

The harddrive had lasted a bit over three years.  The guy’s explanation was that harddrives just die sometimes.  He then explained multiple plans of action.  There was the one where they replace the harddrive and try to retrieve the stuff off the one that died (which may or may not work), which would cost as much as a cheap new computer.  Then there was the one where I buy a new computer and add on their Geek Squad coverage, then use the Geek Squad coverage for the new computer to do the fix and maybe-retrieve of the stuff off the one with the dead harddrive, which would cost as much as a nice new computer and leave me with two computers when I only need one.

The options available were less than satisfactory and I really didn’t like having to search for a new computer that way.  The one with the dead harddrive was my second computer.  The first one, a graduation gift, had over-heated enough times that some of the insides were a bit melty.  The second one had been on a cooling fan for nearly its entire life (except a few times where I was only going to use it for about an hour and wasn’t worth the extra bulk).  Both times I went to figure out what computer I wanted I did my own research over days (at least) comparing my options online before deciding and going into the store with a clear idea of what I wanted, or having it narrowed down to a particular one or two.  There was also the problem that this particular store didn’t seem to have any HPs out for purchase, just the floor models, and those weren’t even on to test drive (not to mention the prices…yikes).  The only somewhat reasonably priced ones were Gateway and Dell, which I refuse to touch with a ten-foot stick if I can help it.

The search continued to Target, which only had two Acer computers, and I would prefer to have a brand I can trust to not set my lap on fire thankyouverymuch.

Back in the car and over to the hhGregg store that took the place of the old movie theater in town (which I was not happy about).  I had never set foot in that chain before and was skeptical, though since it is an electronics store they ought to have some sort of selection.  I can safely say that I will never set foot in one of those stores ever again if I can help it.  Not even one minute in the door and some sales guy is on me (not literally “on” me, but you know what I mean).  I understand that it’s his job, but at least let me look around myself for a minute, damn.  He starts asking questions about what I’m going to be using it for and starts trying to sell me on a Toshiba that’s on sale $150 off the regular price.  I don’t have anything concrete against Toshiba, but my two computers have been HP and they hadn’t done me wrong in the times before they died.  I’m not normally one for brand loyalty, but I really like HP and wanted to stick with them.  The only pseudo-HP that they had near the price of the Toshiba (which was still pretty expensive) was actually a Compaq, and it didn’t instill confidence in me.  Also, the Toshiba had a ten-key off to the side, which shoved all of the regular keys over, along with the mouse pad (mouse pad not being center = very difficult to use when you’re right-handed)  The guy continues to try and sell me on the Toshiba, mentioning that he sold eight of them the day before.  That was the tipping point for me, and not in the direction that he wanted.  He asked me again to make a decision (not in those exact words, but that was what he was getting at) and I told him I wanted to look at things on my own a bit.  I walked the row of computers (looking at the other side of the row proved to be less-than desireable because of the prices) and decided that I wasn’t happy with my options at all, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to be number nine for that guy trying to shove the Toshiba down my throat.

The search, not going well at all by this point, continued to what I refer to as the cult center: Walmart.  They had a few computers and it came down to two options that weren’t overly expensive, the Compaq and the Toshiba from the other store.

I ended up going with the Toshiba because the Compaq really didn’t look like it would hold up to much.  I still had a bit of satisfaction in getting it because it wasn’t sale number nine for that douche and it cost less than the other store.

The only thing now that needs to be resolved is the files on my dead harddrive.

That screenplay that I documented (somewhat) on here?  Yeah, that was on there.  And because I wrote it in Celtx I plugged the internet into my computer to verify my page count instead of putting it on my flash drive and plugging it into the house computer to verify with the internet on there.  Thankfully my novel that I wrote in November should still be on the flash drive, so I shouldn’t have to worry about that being lost.  And if it isn’t on there anymore, then thank goodness for my free proof copy.  But I did lose all of the work I put into trying to change it into a graphic novel script, which sucks.

Oh, and about 33(ish) songs that I got for free with an emusic card when I did my 5k in May.  Those were only on there too.  An entire Mika album, an entire Alice Cooper album and various Alice Cooper and Jonathan Coulton songs.  It’s so weird not having those to listen to anymore, especially when some of them get stuck in my head.

This post has been typed to you on my Satellite, which sounds kind of silly.  Guess I’ll just have to get used to it (like I’m getting used to this damn keyboard setup on here…).

An Open Letter to Murphy

Note: this is not someone named Murphy that I actually know.  This is the Murphy with that Law that causes people so much grief.  Also, this is being written at a time where the sun is making it very hard for me to see what I’ve typed, so if there are typos, this is why.

Murphy-

I would say that I appreciated the thought you put behind that birthday gift you gave me yesterday were I to have actually enjoyed it in the slightest.  Yesterday I was in the numb phase of processing what you had done.  Today I am in the raging stage, and the one it is directed at is you.

I completely understand that, being on hospice for as long as she was, that my grandmother could have gone any day.  I’m sure that she held on as long as she did because Death was quite booked.  It was just ever so kind of you to suggest yesterday for him to take care of her.  After all, it’s August, not like there’s any proper holidays or major to-dos going on, just that lady’s only granddaughter’s birthday, and it wasn’t even a milestone year, so no, nothing going on that day Death, that day looks just fine.

Was it not bad enough that another relative died 23 years ago within hours of my birth?  I suppose not, as if it were you wouldn’t continue this way.  Should I dread years where my birthday falls upon the Tuesday I was born?  This is a rhetorical question, of course, as I would hate to actually know or give you any more ideas to cause me trouble.

You knew that last year my birthday was under the shadow of my brother being sent to boot camp the next day (a year ago today).  Perhaps you heard my thought that at least this year nothing like that would be hanging over it.  I know that these sort of thoughts are what you live to prove otherwise, and that were I to ask if it were really necessary that you would say yes, but I still don’t think it’s okay.

No matter what the circumstances, giving someone the death of their grandmother as a birthday gift is in no way okay, even if it may have been better for it to happen.

And for the record, Murphy: I refuse to cry over it now.  Whenever her wishes are carried out, perhaps, but not now.

I refuse to give you that satisfaction.

The First Post of Camp (The Kind Where There’s AC)

July was the first trial run of Camp NaNoWriMo, which is just like the NaNoWriMo in November, only it isn’t in November and the two months it is happening during each have a spare day in comparison.  July I did not participate, though I definitely tried figuring out what I was going to do this month.  I had participated in the first Script Frenzy, would have participated in the early years of NaNoWriMo had I known about it back then, and I am not going to let myself know that a new OLL writing challenge is out there and not participate in it.

There was supposed to be a way to switch what you wrote in your novel information to the correct month if you had not supplied any words to July’s writing.  Switching straight into a new challenge going from July to August made the site freak out and brought out new and exciting bugs, some of which involved unintentional time travel (not the good kinds of exciting or time travel).  Once my novel information decided to exist again, I just copied it, pasted it into the August information and tweaked the wording slightly.

There’s also a feature involving cabins, where you and about five other people (maybe less, not sure) get a page to talk to each other, commiserate, celebrate and bounce ideas off one another, that sort of thing.  My group has one of the bug-fixers in it, which is interesting.  I don’t think any of us in my cabin are in the same state (though we are all in the states).

My novel for Camp currently lacks a title.  I decided to hold off on the idea I had in May and work on one that popped up at the end of July.  It involves a writer getting sucked into her story.  Her characters don’t have a motivating force to go on this quest that they need to go on, so she kind of forces everyone into it.  They quest, there’s character growth (or there ought to be, they’re doing things they wouldn’t be otherwise), and I’m thinking that when the writer gets back to reality the story will be done (herself having a different name, of course).

I also realized today, while I was deciding that I want an epic title for this, not unlike The Librarian: Quest for the Spear, that if I figure out how to write other types of stories, like murder mysteries and science fiction, that it could turn into a series, also not unlike The Librarian.

I technically started writing yesterday, but I didn’t get to update my wordcount, so the hundred or so words from yesterday are counting toward today.  I’m supposed to be at about 8,000 words today, so I’d best get to it.  Wasting the extar time from work getting out early would be very unwise with a trip coming up this weekend.

Also, it is ungodly hot.  Not to the point where the temperature without heat index is over 100 (it is currently 91 according to the Waether Channel), like in other parts of the country, but one thing I have leanred from my time in Florida all these years is that it doesn’t matter.  The humidity will bring you down (or at least it’ll try to with gusto) and when the heat index is more than a +10 it makes it seem that much worse.  Right now it is +14, and I’ve never been more glad to be inside a building with air conditioning that can keep up (I’m also next to the cooler, which helps).

A New Challenge Arises & Brain Children at a Bad Time

The Office of Letters and Light have decided to start a new event this year (which seems to happen every time I win the ones they offer at the time): Camp NaNoWriMo.

“But wait,” you say, “they already have a NaNoWriMo, what is with this camp business?”

You see, there is this small issue that some would-be participants have (quite miniscule, actually).  As the month before the holiday season, November tends to be quite busy.  Students are on the fast track toward the end of the semester, which normally means tests abound.  There’s only one month after November, so those in office settings that have to make sure that their work is processed by the end of the year are trying to make sure all they have left to worry about are the couple of weeks before Christmas and the few days after.  Not to mention Thanksgiving and all the relative-entertaining people have to do in conjunction with that.  And shopping for gifts.  And parents dealing with kids while they’re on Thanksgiving break, usually for at least a week.  That isn’t to say that those people who do participate in NaNoWriMo don’t have to deal with some or all of this, they just manage to plow through and get it done, along with everything else, usually while losing some amount of sleep in the process.  But there are some that absolutely cannot find any sliver of time anywhere in their hectic November in which to write, though in other months they may have the time available to them.

One of the main draws of NaNoWriMo is the camaraderie between others writing alongside you, either in person, online or both.  No Plot?  No Problem!, which was written by Chris Baty (the founder of this magnificent event), essentially tells you how to attack NaNoWriMo in just about any month you choose.  However, outside of November there isn’t a way for people to get together with others writing that particular month and have their author page complete with word count chart.  There are similar events that others have tried doing in other months (I know of JulNoWriMo and NaNoEdMo off the top of my head) in forums throughout the Internet, but from what I can see they aren’t at quite the same level and some end up dying off in the end.

Camp NaNoWriMo is meant to be that site where those who want to participate in NaNoWriMo some other time can do just that, without losing the other perks that the OLL provides.  And it wouldn’t just be for those who can’t do NaNoWriMo; apparently there are some gluttons for punishment out there who want to do NaNoWriMo all year.

I bring up Camp NaNoWriMo, not just because they are starting a donation drive next Wednesday to fund the development of the new site, but because my brain foolishly birthed two new writing ideas in the past couple days, one for a set of stories that may be more like very long chapters in a novel and another idea for how I would write a “musical” (please take note of the quotation marks on that, I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t count as a real musical).  Not a plot or anything, but what would be in the place of songs and the fact that the other characters would make mention of the fact that it’s happening.

Now that mentioning of idea-spawning and a new writing challenge for me to conquer in a few months is out of the way, I really need to start editing my novel from NaNoWriMo 2010.  It is in need of some serious lovin’, most likely in the form of turning it into a script of some sort.  Heck, maybe I’ll try turning it into a graphic novel and get my proof made that way.

Whatever I do to fix it up, I need to be done with it in a month and a half to cash in on that free proof copy that I earned.

My Injury: A Dramatization

So, I mentioned that during the Expedition Everest Challenge I fell during the first obstacle.

Trying to properly explain just how epic the fall was (particularly since the photographer that was right in front of me didn’t get a good shot of it) is quite difficult with words.

However, the anime Lucky Star happened to have a character fall in a similar fashion, making the explanation process much easier.

The main differences were a) my left knee made first contact which allowed me to spin into b) skidding to a halt more on the left side of my back/shoulder.

Thus ends the tale of the egg-sized bruise/lump under my knee.

Forget Charlie Sheen, I’m the Real Bi-Winner Here

So, on April 30th I mentioned that I had won Script Frenzy, and that the certificate said something about being “Conqueror of the Mount Everest of Scriptwriting Treks!”

I had also decided that it was a sign that the Expedition Everest Challenge on May 7th would be soundly vanquished.

I also mentioned that since I had typed it that I would have to worry about good ol’ Murphy hearing it and causing me trouble.

Well, I did finish, and within the 16 minutes per mile time constraints (I actually had about 44 seconds to spare).  After that, I didn’t really care about running to finish the scavenger hunt portion.

Murphy’s contribution came at the first obstacle (it was a “5k adventure run”, meaning obstacles in the middle and scavenger hunt at the end).  About five rows of hay that needed to be jumped over.  I stepped over the first two.  Then I decided that just looked stupid, so I started to jump the rest of them.  Number three was jumped fine.  Number four decided to be a hooker and trip me.  Right in front of the photographer.  I made contact with my left leg (right below my knee), then skid to a stop with the back of my shoulder.  Pictures haven’t shown up yet, but I sure hope he got a good shot out of that or I’ll feel like my giant bruise is for nothing.

The next day I hobbled around EPCOT to see Davy Jones at the Flower and Garden Show.  Needless to say my legs did not appreciate that and I could barely shuffle around the house yesterday.  Today they’re being a bit more cooperative.

Is it bad that I’m actually thinking of trying a half marathon next year after all this?  (With much more preparation, of course, I’m not that insane)

In summary: I’m bi-winning and crazy enough to consider a longer race within a year.

The Part Where I Do a Victory Dance

So, after getting back from the partly-unexpected trip north where there was much outrunning of tornado warnings up and down the highway to get home, I had not added a thing to my page count.  Granted checking on tornado warnings and where we were in relation to them was kind of important, but I really needed to write something so I wouldn’t be stuck with 37 pages to write over the course of two days.

I ended up with 37 pages to write over two days.

Yesterday I wrote 8 pages during the day.  I did not find this out until this morning due to unplugging the internet so I would focus on just writing and not worrying about how many pages I had.  (I knew there was a long way to go, so really checking every so often didn’t matter so much at that point.)

Last night, between midnight and 3am I wrote more.  Found out this morning that it was 19 pages in those three hours.  It’s amazing what writing at night in the dark while listening to the Fellowship of the Ring soundtrack can do.

So before bed I had written a total of 27 pages.

Leaving me with ten more to do today.  Which, after finding out that I had written almost twice that in three hours, seemed paltry in comparison.

Needless to say, I made it to 101 pages by the end of my script.

Also needless to say I was, and am, very pleased.

I win, and damn does it feel good.

When I got the certificate, I saw that it said “Conqueror of the Mount Everest of Scriptwriting Treks!”  Naturally this made me laugh because of the Expedition Everest Challenge a week from tonight.

I’m going to take this as a sign.

A sign that, unlike Charlie Sheen, I will be the one who truly is “bi-winning.”

Let’s just hope Murphy stays away for a bit longer and didn’t hear that.

The Part Where I Slack Off and Kick Myself for it Later

Yeah, I have 63 pages right now.

I didn’t start writing until around five or six in the afternoon.

Once again, three pages are ending up on the next day’s tally.

The good thing is I get a bit of time in the morning to write that I wasn’t expecting.

The bad thing is that I’ll be leaving the computer home so if a tornado happens across the town I’ll be in tomorrow morning I’d rather not have it exposed to those sorts of elements when I don’t have another way of typing it up.

I also looked into signing up for some online work so that once I’m not in “HOLYCRAPWRITE” mode I can spend part of the day looking for an actual job and the rest of it making a bit of money.

So yeah, lots of handwriting of the script coming up, followed by (what will hopefully be) a metric fuckton of transcribing when I get back.

And now to sleep, perchance to dream…  Hopefully not of what comes next in my script, there’s going to be a lot of blood.

The Part Where I Put My Old Best Day to Shame (Out of Necessity)

Technically those last few pages are going to count for the 26th instead of the 25th, but I know that I wrote them as part of the 25th’s count.

I’m now at 56.  So that’s nine pages in a day (though three of them will count toward the next day since I’ve stayed up late writing them).  A fifty-percent increase from my other best days.  Not quite enough, but certainly making a nice dent in this second half.

Off to bed, where I hopefully won’t keep myself up or wake myself up in the middle of the night dreaming up new ways for the shovel to have fun.  After all, it did just get its first taste of college-student blood, albeit greatly diluted with alcohol.

44 to go spread over five days.  After today it’s looking far more likely that I may just pull this one off (as I knock on the wodden sides of the desk…).

Of course two of those days are going to be another not-quite unexpected trip.  This naturally means that the more I am able to write before we leave on Wednesday, the better.  It isn’t exactly realistic, but if I could manage to get the deficit to that point below or around 30, I would be beyond happy with that, because then it’d be ten pages on the way back, ten the day after and ten on Saturday…

On second thought, maybe aiming for closer to 20 left after the trip would be better, weekends don’t seem to agree with my trying to write on them.

Where Doing Things Yourself Fixes Issues

The title refers to how the Script Frenzy site is finally back.  Amazon is still having issues, but the OLL people rebuilt the site someplace else in the vast interwebs so it can finally function again.  So huzzah OLL people!

I got back from the concert (where Urban Meyer of University of Florida Gators fame happened to appear seemingly out of nowhere) and had written about four pages by hand on the way back.  I was planning on writing some on the way there (which didn’t happen) and before the gates opened since we were getting there hours early (also didn’t happen, gates opened early).

So yeah, now at 47 pages.  I officially have to write about 11 pages a day all this week to finish on time.  It isn’t even a matter of catching up anymore, just a matter of getting to 100 before next Sunday.

I guess I’m just going to have to try to get up early all this week to give myself more time, because I know that given four or five hours I can write about six pages pretty easily once I’m on a roll.  So in theory if I give myself four or five hours in the morning and then four or five hours in the afternoon or at night, I could have a dozen-page day.  Oh that would be bitchin’.