Yes, There is a Virtual Hell
Some people are just slow learners. Yep, I'n one of them. Charter member of the National Slow Learners Association, right here. Why, you ask? (I'm ignoring your answer because I'm going to tell you anyway cuz I need to vent. So there.) Okay, ever since I got my first computer and joyfully threw away my slide rule collection (a bit prematurely perhaps,) I've gotten myself into a world of trouble tinkering around in dangerous territory about which I know enough to fit in a thimble and float. This happens notoriously every time I get a new operating system upgrade. This week, I installed Mac OS 10.4, also known as Tiger. It worked splendidly until I thought to myself, "Okay, that installation when well. I AM a computer tech goddess and the virtual world is mind to rule. Hmmm. Think I'll do a maintenance check on the volume structures and defrag the hard drive." Needless to say, it did not go well. I spent probably 6 hours a day for 5 days trying so many things to resurrect what had become a heap of useless wires, plastic, transistors and little square thingies with Japanese squiggles and numbers written on them. You know when you're so deep into the bowels of computer hell that you don't even know where the crap you are and what the crap you've done or not done? You're looking at the person (or the person's blog, anyway) who's traveled that rocky path with gun and camera. The Clark and Livingston of that whole journey. By the way, did those guys ever make it back? Anyway, I digress. Basically, my computer's state of existence continued to plummet down a slippery slope of deterioration and demise. I wound up having to reformat my hard drive until it was as squeaky clean of my mistakes as the driven snow. In other words, it took alot of blood, sweat and tears to tame that Tiger. This was not all without casualties, however. I am left with a bruised knot on my forehead the size of Rhode Island from beating my head against the monitor while mumbling unmentionables to myself. And this nightmarish cycle will repeat itself with the next upgrade. I can swear by it. Fortunately, I've learned to back up my drive before the installation. Live and burn, uh, I mean, learn. Anybody out there got a slide rule I can borrow?