Leap of faith...or more like dumb blonde luck.

Yesterday at the office I noticed my dear sweet Kevin in Danbury on the gchat and noticed he had a cutesy little icon next to his name…a webcam icon. I hadn’t realized gchat HAD audio/video chat now and thought it would be cool to video chat with Kevin, since I hadn’t seen him since our last trip to NYC.

I downloaded the program for the gchat chat chat and installed it. When it started up and did the configuration I was bummed to notice the little blue light on my webcam hadn’t come on. No worries. You typically have to restart your computra after an install, right? I closed everything up and clicky clickied on the start button and restarted my baby. But…then…something…dreadful…happened! My computra didn’t restart. It never shut down. It kept spinning and spinning like Pete Burns (PRE-sex change). I ended up having to do a hard close on my machine to get it to shut down. No worries.

When the computer started whirling again, it went through the standard, “you were an idiot and didn’t shut down properly…I’m going to take 20 minutes to scan your drives to be sure nothing is fucked up”. It never finished. It shut itself down, midway, and restarted again…the second time, it DID finish the disc scan. I IMMEDIATELY went to my add/remove programs button to undo what I had just did. Unistalled the WHOLE enchilada, beans, AND rice. I restarted my computer again, and even though it shut down properly, when it booted back up again it went through the whole disc scan again. I thought it was odd, but honestly didn’t think much of it.

After everything was set right in the world again I opened up my cybercam program to verify my camera was working again. No blue light. Nothing…except a message saying “no camera detected, plug that thing in and let me look again”. (My computer is even sassier than me sometimes!) I went through my entire device manager thing and noticed that the “video devices” were no longer an option for me. I knew I had JUST used the camera, because I had used it to post that totally awesome picture of my new wallet on January 7th. So I did what any rational thinking queer would do.

I did a system restore to the last restore point right before the 7th. I KNEW my camera worked on the 7th (MUST do more video conferencing!!!), therefore restoring my system to right before that point would solve everything. The restore took about 6 minutes and the computer shut itself down to reboot.

When it came back on…IT WENT THROUGH THE DISC SCAN AGAIN! Jesus H. Christ. I went back to the device manager, still no video devices. Went back to the cybercam program JUST TO VERIFY what I already knew, no blue light and same message about no camera found…yadda yadda yadda, plug it in, I’ll give it a tug, we can video conference” message. I tried to do an “add hardware” command, “no new hardware found”. I felt a little defeated.

I knew I had to get my camera fixed pronto. If not for my legions of adoring fans who love pictures of my super hot, humble, self, then so I can have video conference with Jed for the next 9 weeks while I’m back in school so he doesn’t forget what I look like.

I logged on to the HP Help Desk “instachat” thingymabob. After a GRUELING hour and 40 minutes text chat with my technician, he informed me, “Mr. (F)reddy, your computer sir, is, how we say, FUBAR. You know FUBAR? It mean FUCKT UP BEYOND REPAIRS we can do on the intrawebs”. He went on to say, “HOWEVER, I have good news for you Mr. (F)reddy. I have looked at your purchase history and your computer we are try to fix today sir is covered under HP’s warranty sir. And what I am going to do is send you a box and a FedEx label. You, sir, will send us your computer and we will have it fixed and back to you within three days”.

PHENOMENAL.

EXCEPT.

WHY COULDN’T THIS HAVE HAPPENED IN THE LAST SEVEN WEEKS?

WHY did it have to happen THE NIGHT BEFORE I GO BACK TO SCHOOL?

WHAT THE HELL am I supposed to use for school until…

Oh wait! It should be back before Monday, right?!?

Today I spent the better part of the day doing a back up of my files and programs. I’m trusting I did it correctly. Cuz I got about 40 gb of videos from using a bulb syringe to pull bloody mucous plugs from Nathan’s nose and other awesome events from my children’s first 4 years. I’ve got about 37 gb of pictures that I will die if I never get to see again. I have 83 gb of music. I’ve got EVERY SINGLE document I’ve ever created since my umbilical cord dropped off saved in my documents. (Not quite sure how much space that takes up).

I’m mostly bummed because I have programs that I purchased and use frequently that won’t come with a factory reimaged machine. I’m worried about my contacts. I’m worried about my OCD calendars. (Seriously people, you have NO idea how bad my calendar addiction is. I have menus and grocery lists already made out through 2017.) I’m worried about the programs that I bought online that I didn’t save passwords for “unlocking”. Mostly, though, I’m worried about my memories. I ain’t shit without my computer. I can’t even remember my sweet precious boyfriend, Robert’s, name without my computer.

I suppose CHECKING the “backup” would be the most obvious thing to do to VERIFY everything copied over. And I did look…but all the files in the back up are zipped, or otherwise compressed. It’s not like I can just click on the “My Pictures” link and see all of my photos (arranged alphabetically by persons in the picture, location taken, year taken, approximate time of day taken, and what I was thinking when I took the picture). Same thing with the music. I’m basically taking a leap of faith that technology is saving the $32 MILLION dollars I’ve spent on music over the last three decades (I itemize for the IRS, that’s how I’m able to give you exact figures).

I’ll be sending my life-line to the world to some anonymous stranger in Malaysia to blow the pubic hair out from under the key board and fix my stupid, STUPID camera (and other system failures). If you don’t hear from me ever again it’s because I didn’t save my contacts, favorites, or RSS feeds correctly…I haven’t died, nor have you angered me.

MOSTLY, however, I want to say, KEVIN YOU’RE A FUCKING DOUCHEBAG FOR HAVING GOOGLE AUDIO/VISUAL ON YOUR COMPUTER AND MAKING ME WANT TO TALK TO YOU YESTERDAY. YOU’RE DEAD IN MY EYES. YOU HEAR ME? DEAD.

Hope you’re well...AND enjoying your new president. Oh, and in case you missed it! CLASSES started back up tonight…so there’s a chance, if you don’t hear from me for a while, THAT has something to do with it too!