Goddamn, how is it already the 5th? And 4 in the morning.
_ Its been going pretty decently for me so far. On the Eve, my parents and I made cheese fondue and started Up, then our neighbors invited us over, and we all had brownies, chocolate fondue, ice cream, and caramel vodka. Also played with adorable chihuahuas and a retriever who liked to carry shoes around like security blankets. We went home a bit before the ball dropped, and I think it turned midnight right as we got to the part in Up where Carl first sights the falls. A pretty good NYEve ^_^
_ Then I stayed up for six hours searching through the Steam store and playing the Portal demo. I bought it and the sequel the next day (for 8 bucks. AHHAHA). Can't wait to play them on a proper gaming machine! Speaking of...
_ Funny story. Dunno if I've mentioned this, but I finally got my Mac computer graduation gift. During my shopping around research, the clerk at the Apple store pointed out something interesting: for the same price of a great big MacBookPro laptop, I could get both a MacBook Air for portable, non-intensive work, and a nice desktop iMac for heavy stuff like film editing. I'd been considering that already, so with the confirmation about the price, I talked it over with my parents, and soon brought both machines home. I dubbed them, respectively, Loki and Gabriel (YEAH, GUESS WHAT FANDOMS I GOT INTO IN 2011).
_ However, Gabriel kept crashing for no understandable reason. It would be pounding away at however many things I had running, and suddenly tell me "You need to restart your computer. Hold down the power button." Sometimes, it wouldn't restart. So over October and November, Gabby spent more time at the Apple store than it did at home (more because I couldn't always pick it up immediately (thanks to things like Snow and Bronchitis), but still). Dad thought it was because we didn't buy AppleCare for Gab, they gave us a lemon; I did wonder. By early December, when it crashed six hours after I'd brought it home, the Apple staff threw up their hands in defeat and told me to call Apple proper for a replacement next time it happened. "At least all their support's been free," I thought.
_ It didn't happen again for about a month, possibly because I deliberately didn't use Gabriel for much. Turned out tiny for-internet-and-writing Loki is more powerful than most other machines I've ever owned, and has been able to handle pretty much anything I've thrown at it. Only games and tumblr seem to cause much stress.
_ Oddly enough, it was Steam that indirectly helped us figure out the problem. Over the holiday sale I'd bought a couple Windows games, in the hopes that finding a venue to play them wouldn't be too hard. First try: Virtual Machine on Gabriel. We found everything we needed, started to install the XP OS, whereupon it crashed. It rebooted fine, though, and we managed to finish installing the VM. But the VM wouldn't run. Booting it up only yielded a BSOD and an unfamiliar error message; we googled that, and found that one of the things that causes it is corrupted memory.
_ Dad: [gobsmacked] "Did they not check the RAM during their diagnosis?" Me: [confused] "I guess it's a rarer thing in Mac?"
_ Faulty RAM does seem to be a rare thing, but not as much as the unicorn. We quickly found Memtest for Mac, downloaded it, ran it 4 times - twice while the OS was running, twice from Safe Mode(?) - and all 4 tests failed. Memtest runs through the machine's RAM in pieces (which can take a couple hours to go through properly working RAM), and every single piece failed (within ten minutes, total). *FAILED!* message after *FAILED!* message after *FAILED!* message. Never have computer errors incited such glee! Because if faulty RAM is the reason Gabriel kept crashing, that's easily fixed. In fact, got a call from the store today - they fixed it in less than 12 hours. Unless there's even more wrong with the machine -- which I doubt -- or someone screwed up -- which I also doubt, these guys've done right by me -- I am coming home with my rightful BEAST OF A MACHINE tomorrow.
_ So yeah. Neat how that stuff works out.
_ And that was a tangent I did not mean to go on this fine... morning. Entry. But it's more interesting than what I've been doing since New Year's. Consistently staying up until 6 AM, feeling wrecked during the day, not eating much. Yesterday was good: after dropping Gabriel off, parents and I had my make-up Birthday Dinner, at the same place we ate when first buying the Macs.
_ Today I cancelled my appointment with my therapist because I only remembered it last night and was too tired to drive all the way to Hadley. Hopefully I can talk them out of charging me, since I didn't technically arrange that appointment and since I didn't get in touch with them last week, for all they knew I was still dealing with family things. I'm not, Nana's recovering well, just... Now I feel awful. Then I had a minor crying fit while writing a letter because it dredged up unpleasant memories and I was stumped for phrasing that wasn't needlessly maudlin. Finally found ways, but shit!
_ That's not a good way to open the year. I haven't made New Year's Resolutions in a while, but maybe for this year: Square my debts, clean up my act? I'd love to resolve to Get to the Heart of My Neuroses, but that's not so much a goal as a dear hope. Maybe also "Less Stuff For Me, More Donated To Worthy Causes." And of course, Get A Job, Move Out.
_ Need to sleep. Want to talk fandom at some point - specifically do a couple New Year's memes and tell you about my strange plot bunnies. Hope everyone's having a happy 2012, and that it stays that way :)
_ Then I stayed up for six hours searching through the Steam store and playing the Portal demo. I bought it and the sequel the next day (for 8 bucks. AHHAHA). Can't wait to play them on a proper gaming machine! Speaking of...
_ Funny story. Dunno if I've mentioned this, but I finally got my Mac computer graduation gift. During my shopping around research, the clerk at the Apple store pointed out something interesting: for the same price of a great big MacBookPro laptop, I could get both a MacBook Air for portable, non-intensive work, and a nice desktop iMac for heavy stuff like film editing. I'd been considering that already, so with the confirmation about the price, I talked it over with my parents, and soon brought both machines home. I dubbed them, respectively, Loki and Gabriel (YEAH, GUESS WHAT FANDOMS I GOT INTO IN 2011).
_ However, Gabriel kept crashing for no understandable reason. It would be pounding away at however many things I had running, and suddenly tell me "You need to restart your computer. Hold down the power button." Sometimes, it wouldn't restart. So over October and November, Gabby spent more time at the Apple store than it did at home (more because I couldn't always pick it up immediately (thanks to things like Snow and Bronchitis), but still). Dad thought it was because we didn't buy AppleCare for Gab, they gave us a lemon; I did wonder. By early December, when it crashed six hours after I'd brought it home, the Apple staff threw up their hands in defeat and told me to call Apple proper for a replacement next time it happened. "At least all their support's been free," I thought.
_ It didn't happen again for about a month, possibly because I deliberately didn't use Gabriel for much. Turned out tiny for-internet-and-writing Loki is more powerful than most other machines I've ever owned, and has been able to handle pretty much anything I've thrown at it. Only games and tumblr seem to cause much stress.
_ Oddly enough, it was Steam that indirectly helped us figure out the problem. Over the holiday sale I'd bought a couple Windows games, in the hopes that finding a venue to play them wouldn't be too hard. First try: Virtual Machine on Gabriel. We found everything we needed, started to install the XP OS, whereupon it crashed. It rebooted fine, though, and we managed to finish installing the VM. But the VM wouldn't run. Booting it up only yielded a BSOD and an unfamiliar error message; we googled that, and found that one of the things that causes it is corrupted memory.
_ Dad: [gobsmacked] "Did they not check the RAM during their diagnosis?" Me: [confused] "I guess it's a rarer thing in Mac?"
_ Faulty RAM does seem to be a rare thing, but not as much as the unicorn. We quickly found Memtest for Mac, downloaded it, ran it 4 times - twice while the OS was running, twice from Safe Mode(?) - and all 4 tests failed. Memtest runs through the machine's RAM in pieces (which can take a couple hours to go through properly working RAM), and every single piece failed (within ten minutes, total). *FAILED!* message after *FAILED!* message after *FAILED!* message. Never have computer errors incited such glee! Because if faulty RAM is the reason Gabriel kept crashing, that's easily fixed. In fact, got a call from the store today - they fixed it in less than 12 hours. Unless there's even more wrong with the machine -- which I doubt -- or someone screwed up -- which I also doubt, these guys've done right by me -- I am coming home with my rightful BEAST OF A MACHINE tomorrow.
_ So yeah. Neat how that stuff works out.
_ And that was a tangent I did not mean to go on this fine... morning. Entry. But it's more interesting than what I've been doing since New Year's. Consistently staying up until 6 AM, feeling wrecked during the day, not eating much. Yesterday was good: after dropping Gabriel off, parents and I had my make-up Birthday Dinner, at the same place we ate when first buying the Macs.
_ Today I cancelled my appointment with my therapist because I only remembered it last night and was too tired to drive all the way to Hadley. Hopefully I can talk them out of charging me, since I didn't technically arrange that appointment and since I didn't get in touch with them last week, for all they knew I was still dealing with family things. I'm not, Nana's recovering well, just... Now I feel awful. Then I had a minor crying fit while writing a letter because it dredged up unpleasant memories and I was stumped for phrasing that wasn't needlessly maudlin. Finally found ways, but shit!
_ That's not a good way to open the year. I haven't made New Year's Resolutions in a while, but maybe for this year: Square my debts, clean up my act? I'd love to resolve to Get to the Heart of My Neuroses, but that's not so much a goal as a dear hope. Maybe also "Less Stuff For Me, More Donated To Worthy Causes." And of course, Get A Job, Move Out.
_ Need to sleep. Want to talk fandom at some point - specifically do a couple New Year's memes and tell you about my strange plot bunnies. Hope everyone's having a happy 2012, and that it stays that way :)