Normally I talk about t-shirts and TV here, but today I had a computer annoyance. Not a rare thing, but I never blog about it.
Really, Firefox? Or, really, Windows 8 Release Preview? I'd been getting the message "Update could not be installed. Please make sure there are no other copies of Firefox running on your computer." But then it would start just fine after dismissing the message. This happened every time I started the computer up for the day to work, so I knew there weren't other copies running. It did this for two weeks and I finally got fed up enough to waste my time looking for a solution. After a few minutes of searching I found these solutions having to do with deleting update folders, which didn't work for me. I didn't have the folders (yes, I turned on hidden folders) they were talking about and another in Program Files didn't fix the problem.
The next search led me here. Even though it's a 2-year-old post about Firefox 3.something I tried it anyway, because I'd rather tinker than reinstall. That's always my last resort. The solution was to run it as administrator. This worked before with another program that was having a tantrum. Just right click the executable and go to Properties, then the Compatibility tab, and check the box at the bottom that says "Run this program as an administrator." I restarted Firefox and the update installed. Interesting. As the only account on this computer, how am I not the administrator? I am, so...hmm.
From Friday until Tuesday morning - except for a while on Saturday when I was taking a break for dinner and The Dark Knight Rises, where Michael Caine made me cry - I was searching. Searching for a mattress. I got this one. Searching for a desk. I got this one. Searching for a new computer. Didn't get one yet, but watching a ton of stuff on eBay, hoping for a deal that only I notice, and pricing the shit out of parts on Amazon and NewEgg.
All of those days I was up until the wee hours of the morning, just obsessing over not being able to find the right thing. Too many choices of bed. Too few choices of desk. Only two desks out of thousands fit my set up, room size, budget, and were aesthetically pleasing. I took a chance on the one that has less storage space. That means I'm going to have to get rid of a bunch of stuff, clean like there's no tomorrow, and be creative. Also, I should find some nice boxes at Target or Staples to hold my ridiculous mess.
Both the mattress and the desk arrived at the same time yesterday, after less than a week, from different companies on the same FedEx truck. And yet my books, The Art of Marvel's The Avengers and The Art and Making of the Dark Knight Trilogy, still haven't shipped. Not annoyed by that at all, just confused.
My bed has been killing me for years. My desk is a monstrosity in a tiny room. And I've been fighting with my PC for the last four years out of eight. And to think I just cleared it last week of some useless things, got a new antivirus, and was planning on another fresh XP reinstall after a thorough case cleaning. I loved it when it was new. It was fast and pretty, not bogged down by hundreds of half working programs and the mess of ads and flash and interactivity everyone has on their sites now. It's been getting too hard to work with. I'm sick of XP, though I may keep it to save money, at least for now. I'm sick of not having power, of having to fix it constantly, and of not being able to play anything new. Half the time I'm on here I'm waiting for it to do something. I need my computer for work and for the last year it's just been very hard to deal with. I have less and less time to devote to keeping it running. This Tuesday was the last straw when it crashed minutes before my deadline, after having delayed me all day.
Still, I'll be sad to see it go, but I may just do an upgrade, since people on eBay seem to be way overpricing their two-year-old PCs. For me, it's still a big chunk of change to start with, because it's so old I need at least a new motherboard, CPU, and RAM. But I don't have to immediately replace everything, and other parts I'll use until they blow up, like my last power supply. Really, it sparked in my half awake face when I turned it on one morning. That was awesome. :(
Anyway, I like the idea of my own Frankenstein's monster computer. Ooh, I wish I could give it a new paint job to match. And YAY for finding money in an account that I haven't checked in a while that I specifically opened for saving for a new computer.
At the same time as all that, I was trying to finish my letter to the Fringe cast that I'd procrastinated on since early June. It was 4 AM before I was done. It was due that day and I had to work, so it had to be done then. I get sick if I go to bed so late, but at least I cleared my mind of a bit of clutter. I also put an Otterbox Defender case up on eBay, and on Thursday last week I decided to finish ripping up the carpet in my room I'd started on in the winter. Everything that was under heavy furniture I left alone. It's a very hard thing to do when your room is small and you keep almost everything inside while moving the whole mess around so as not to clutter the hallway.
Yeah, it was a damn busy five days, and today I'm unpacking my mattress and setting up my desk. Possibly I'll only get to moving the contents of my monstrosity into buckets, dismantling said monstrosity, and removing the last bit of carpet before I lose interest and take a video game break. But it'll definitely be done by Monday. Can't wait to see what that looks like.
Got an 8-year-old PC with ZoneAlarm and Avast? Don't be tempted to upgrade to the free ZoneAlarm Firewall+Antivirus. I did during the weekend and didn't realize it doesn't work with Dragon Naturally Speaking 9, which is now vital for my work since using my hands to type for long periods is too much of a strain. Dragon would hang at the loading screen and ZA wouldn't give me the pop up to add it. It also refused to allow me to manually add it and all controls would reset themselves. So, I uninstalled, which took forever and didn't work right, because the reinstall of the free firewall without the antivirus decided that my computer would no longer finish rebooting. Into safe mode we go and uninstall again. Back to normal-ish. How about a system restore? Note quite right. Now Zone Alarm won't finish initializing. Yeah, thanks for the protection. Two hours later (two hours I could have been working), I finally have Zone Alarm back. Fingers crossed that Avast reinstalls a little easier than that. . . . . . . . . . And we're done. Thank you, Avast, for working with me instead of being an ass.
Until the series ends, I'll always be behind adding to this playlist. I had to stop for quite a while, so there's a big gap. Still, there are 170 songs to enjoy.
This is the essence of The Blacklist. Probably my favorite is Disturbed's cover of "Sound of Silence." The scene it played over was one of the most devastating ever in the series.
