ARRRRRRRRRGH COMPUTERS ARRRRRRRRRGH

 

Computer Archangels were here for about two and a half hours today* and . . . an hour after they left I was writing pathetic HEEEEEEEEELP emails to Raphael.  This was once again out of office hours** and I was merely trying to get on his list for tomorrow earlier than I would be crawling out of bed to phone him, but hellhounds and I were out hurtling in the dark when Pooka started barking at me, and it was Raphael.  I explained that I was standing in the middle of a dark field about a quarter mile from my computer—through a good deal of juvenile hilarity going on in the background at Raphael's end.  I'll put the kids to bed, he said, good dad all the way**, and ring you back.  Which he did.  Which is why this blog post is coming to you at all. 

            The good news is that yes, indeed, I have a Brand New Very Shiny Laptop.***  The bad news is that it's up the wazoo with new frelling updated frelling software frelling, which, first, means it won't play with some of my old programmes and, second, that both my old computers which are all networked together are having tantrums.  OH HOW I HAAAAAAAATE MICROSOFT.  HAAAAAAATE.†  This also means, of course, that I can't USE the shiny, (allegedly) magnificently overpowered beast, because I don't understand all the weird  (if shiny) new stuff.††   This is, you know, a trifle counterproductive in a new computer. . . .

            Raphael PROMISES that the old Word file with the tender new SHADOWS on it will run just fine on Shiny and New.  Of course I trust him totally—implicitly, explicitly, and dancing the fandango—that's what archangels are for, to nurture and cherish mere mortals and to know more than we do about everything.  But . . .  

katinseattle

I want to hear more about Mongo. A lot more. Preferably a whole book with Mongo in it.  

This is in the process of being arranged.  I think he may even save the universe once or twice.

Aaron

I want to hear more about Mongo. A lot more. Preferably a whole book with Mongo in it.

A new record, a sequel request before the manuscript has even been submitted. 

MONGO IS A MAJOR CHARACTER IN THE CURRENT NOVEL.  I'M PLANNING ON FULFILLING THIS REQUEST IN THIS STORY, OKAY?  DON'T YOU HAVE SOMETHING ELSE YOU COULD BE DOING?  SOLVING GLOBAL WARMING OR SOMETHING?  OR WRITING A GUEST BLOG?

* * *

* During which I DOODLED.  There was one utter ratbag of a request^ that I did over and over FOUR TIMES before it was unlousy enough that I could bear to sign it and put it in an envelope.  

SarahAllegra

Just let it be said that I think being able to order [doodles and doodled books] on command later is a FABULOUS idea. 

Oh good.  I may even get to the point in another decade or so that I don't nearly have heart failure every time I raise a drawing pen over an open page in a book.  I got used to signing the frellers decades ago, but doodling is scary.   

BurgandyIce

I am going to miss [doodling] when I finish the last one.

Wait… can we help you with this and request random doodles?! 

Totally.  Just not yet.  

^ And no I'm not going to tell you what it was first because I wouldn't dream of being rude about a paying customer, but also because it's a perfectly reasonable request and if you don't draw yourself you aren't likely to know what is and is not drawable.  Or, possibly . . .  he/she responsible does draw, and cheers him/herself up on bad days thinking about the tortures of the damned he/she has committed me to.  In which case I hope the wall you hang it on—because of course this will be one of the special doodles that is framed and hung on a wall—is infested with both damp and deathwatch beetles and that one morning you will be uneasily awakened by a vague heaving sensation like a boat at anchor and then with a terrible roar that whole damp and beetled end of the house will collapse and you break a rib coughing in the resulting roiling clouds of plaster dust, not to mention shattering your great-grandmother's ornate Victorian bedhead, which was not built to fall ten feet through the first floor to ground level.

            The doodle itself, of course, will have been rendered into to tiny dusty atoms, which will mean that no one will ever again be able to pronounce on whether or not I successfully broke the unlousy barrier. 

Katinseattle

May I say, you do a really terrific line in curses. 

I get cranky.  

** Urgencies always happen outside office hours.  As any critter owner can tell you.  In this case I think computers totally count as critters. ^ 

^ There's a critter right now trying to convince he needs to be fed again.  This is so exciting a development—hellhounds soliciting food—that I've kind of fallen into the habit of feeding them four times a day. . . . REMIND ME AGAIN.  WHOSE IDEA WAS DOGS?

            . . . Pardon me.  Back in a minute.^

            The thing is, the underlying problem—that hellhounds believe that eating is optional—remains.   Therefore I have now created a situation where I have four times a day to get it wrong, instead of only two or three.  I've just let myself be seduced by the idea that if they're engaged in the process by asking for food, maybe . . . uh . . . 

^ ::Munching noises:: 

*** I assume Mum is in the next room getting around her second double Scotch.  The kids are both small and excitable.  

† I know.  If I were a Mac girl I could have pink.  As it is I have to make do with brushed aluminium.  Feh.  But I'm just not going to make the shift now, and fifteen or so years ago when I was first buying computers, you couldn't get Macs over here unless you were a geek and could do the support thing yourself.^  Also . . . I now have a pink-clad iPhone and a pink-clad iPad.^^  I don't need a pink computer.  But brushed aluminium?  Give me strength.  It's brushed circularly around the frelling HP logo.  Fortunately it will spend its life open and I will not be forced to look at it much.  But the exquisitely brushed aluminum makes Raphael's heart beat faster, and he wouldn't let me put the power cords and so on into the same tote bag with the computer in case I scratched it.  What is a frelling computer doing being made of something that scratches that easily.  Clearly the only answer is a laptop sleeve.^^^ 

^ Which would not be me.  Ahem.  

^^ And, Mac stuff?  It's not the second coming.  I'm just sayin'.  

^^^  http://www.coxandcox.co.uk/products/velvet-laptop-sleeve  And of course I'm going to spend another fifty quid to save six on postage.  

†† I'm too tired to work out a suitable curse for Microsoft.  It would have to be pretty intense.^ 

^ My mind will keep running on Gotterdammerung.  Magic gods-and-world-consuming fire.  Yes.  Although I have never been able to like a woman who rides her horse into a funeral pyre.  Your choice, honey:  leave the horse alone. 

††† The screen's pretty dazzling.  I could just stare at all the crisp new little icons and admire their sharpness and clarity.  Never mind what they might do if I risked clicking on them.^ 

^ Eeeeeep.