Breaking things
It's not been an auspicious start to the year.
About a week ago, my hard drive decided to explode. This was probably because I'd bought a new, larger one and was in the process of backing up the old, prior to swapping them over. Dumb machines don't like it when they're being superseded - it's always fatal to discuss replacing a car whilst you're driving it. Fortunately because I was in the process of backing it up, I didn't lose much of any great importance. And I keep a copy of all my writing on the server at work as well, so there was always that as a last resort. But I have had to guddle around in a corrupted file index looking for the things that hadn't been backed up. So far the only thing that's gone completely and I miss is last year's collected blog-postings - I keep all my utterings in a Word file for posterity, which helps for spell-checking too. At least I can recreate that file from the blog.
My first attempt at a comics database has disappeared, too, but I'd pretty much grown bored of that anyway. I'd only managed a couple of hundred entries, and at a conservative estimate there's ten thousand up in the loft, covering thirty years or more.
Then the day before yesterday, the telly packed up. Now some people might think it strange to have only one telly in the house, but I'm OK with being thought strange. Our telly is getting on a bit and it's been fixed several times before - most notably when we first arrived here and I dropped it on my foot moving it into the house. I broke my foot, too - it's a big telly. But the day before yesterday it was dead. Push the button on the front and nothing. No pops and crackles, no high-pitched whine, no snowstorm, nothing.
The Horse Doctor was all for jumping in the car and driving to Aberystwyth to buy a new telly, until I pointed out that the electrical shop would be closed at that time of night. She needs her telly, does the Horse Doctor, and I can't be certain she wouldn't have resorted to looting in order to fix her craving. There was nothing for it but to get the screwdriver out and try to mend the thing myself.
Fortunately it turned out to be nothing more complicated than a blown fuse on the main circuit board, and even more fortunately I had a spare the right size and ampage. But for a few hours the house was very tense.
Yesterday morning the phones went dead. Mid-google search my internet connection packed up and the lines were silent - not that I get many calls even when they're working. At least it gave me the peace and time needed to get the basic redraft of Natural Causes done. Mr Makeupaname now goes by the slightly more convincing moniker of Jonathan Okolo, by the way. Being out of range of any mobile signal, it was difficult for me to inform BT of the problem with the line, but since it turned out to be of their own doing - a misplaced screwdriver in the local exchange can cause all sorts of trouble - they fixed it without having to be alerted. It took most of the day though.
So that's three things that have gone wrong this week. By rights, that means my run of bad luck is over for now. Can I have some good luck instead, please?
About a week ago, my hard drive decided to explode. This was probably because I'd bought a new, larger one and was in the process of backing up the old, prior to swapping them over. Dumb machines don't like it when they're being superseded - it's always fatal to discuss replacing a car whilst you're driving it. Fortunately because I was in the process of backing it up, I didn't lose much of any great importance. And I keep a copy of all my writing on the server at work as well, so there was always that as a last resort. But I have had to guddle around in a corrupted file index looking for the things that hadn't been backed up. So far the only thing that's gone completely and I miss is last year's collected blog-postings - I keep all my utterings in a Word file for posterity, which helps for spell-checking too. At least I can recreate that file from the blog.
My first attempt at a comics database has disappeared, too, but I'd pretty much grown bored of that anyway. I'd only managed a couple of hundred entries, and at a conservative estimate there's ten thousand up in the loft, covering thirty years or more.
Then the day before yesterday, the telly packed up. Now some people might think it strange to have only one telly in the house, but I'm OK with being thought strange. Our telly is getting on a bit and it's been fixed several times before - most notably when we first arrived here and I dropped it on my foot moving it into the house. I broke my foot, too - it's a big telly. But the day before yesterday it was dead. Push the button on the front and nothing. No pops and crackles, no high-pitched whine, no snowstorm, nothing.
The Horse Doctor was all for jumping in the car and driving to Aberystwyth to buy a new telly, until I pointed out that the electrical shop would be closed at that time of night. She needs her telly, does the Horse Doctor, and I can't be certain she wouldn't have resorted to looting in order to fix her craving. There was nothing for it but to get the screwdriver out and try to mend the thing myself.
Fortunately it turned out to be nothing more complicated than a blown fuse on the main circuit board, and even more fortunately I had a spare the right size and ampage. But for a few hours the house was very tense.
Yesterday morning the phones went dead. Mid-google search my internet connection packed up and the lines were silent - not that I get many calls even when they're working. At least it gave me the peace and time needed to get the basic redraft of Natural Causes done. Mr Makeupaname now goes by the slightly more convincing moniker of Jonathan Okolo, by the way. Being out of range of any mobile signal, it was difficult for me to inform BT of the problem with the line, but since it turned out to be of their own doing - a misplaced screwdriver in the local exchange can cause all sorts of trouble - they fixed it without having to be alerted. It took most of the day though.
So that's three things that have gone wrong this week. By rights, that means my run of bad luck is over for now. Can I have some good luck instead, please?
Comments
The alternative was buying a new telly - or forking out a fortune to have someone else guddle around in the innards of this one and then tell me he couldn't fix it because you can't get the parts anymore. So I figured if I broke it it wouldn't matter.
I am a bit worried about those two spare screws that are left over, though.