Idle notes

Today, I'm setting out to make real and substantial progress on getting my essay written.  The couch is currently a Sami Zone, which isn't fair on housemates, but it's only for a couple more days.  Stacks of books, my b&w laser printer on the coffee table, all to blitz through my essay.

So, quick link: Profile-ish piece on Warren Hern, specialist in late-term abortions.

Fair warning: I cried a little, at the end. Because this is about people involved in performing late-term abortions, which never happen for a reason that isn't utterly, utterly tragic, and the people who do this difficult, terrible job have to suffer hatred and real danger to do it.

PSA

... I made a FaceBook account.

I feel like I've just been assimilated. (For semi-obscure reasons, this is actually harveystoat's fault.)

Sent friend requests to a few people (mostly people I spotted flicking quickly through theducks's friends list), am now going to get back to working on my damn essay.

My throat hurts from screaming, and it's only 2pm

So, first I think something's going weird with my 500GB external hard drive.  Computer struggles to recognise it.  I finally get it to see the damn thing, and I think, okay, just in case, because I've had some trouble disconnecting that drive a couple of times, I'll copy it all off to my 1TB external hard drive, then reformat it.

(I use external hard drives for bulk data storage, because they're relatively cheap and incredibly convenient for storage and access.  Non-critical data is kept on one, critical data is backed up to two and also periodically backed up to CD or DVD, because I was raised to be paranoid about backups.)

I plug in my 1TB drive.

Computer struggles to recognise that.

Later, it also struggles to recognise my USB-connected printer.

Sooo, apparently, in addition to the sound hardware issues, the USB ports are suddenly fucked too.

And yet, my anti-virus software is up to date, and all that.  And tech support says the sound drivers are probably a hardware issue.

*gives up on trying to get the printer to work* Awesome.  I bought a b&w laser printer specficially for printing text documents, as it's preferable in a range of ways and also cheaper.  But I can't get my fucking computer to connect to the fucking printer, so I'll have to go with my inkjet, which is wireless.

I am currently in the process of copying my C:\ drive to my 1TB external wholesale.  When that's done, I'll do D:\, and then, at least, I'll be sure my data is backed up when I have to take my fucking computer to the fucking service centre, which is in fucking Morley, and give it to some tech to fix.

Because it's under warranty, so they will fix my computer or they will REPLACE the fucking thing, and I? Am DONE CARING.  I have an essay to write.