Two weeks ago I got a lobotomy. Don’t let anyone tell you the brain doesn’t have nerve endings. It was (still is) very, very painful. It all began with my vision of peripherals not working. I would wheedle, I would cajole, I would uninstall and re-install. No matter what I did, nothing would get the mother ship to accept its acolytes. A scanner, a webcam, a sweet little device called a Squeezebox that allows music on the computer to be played through the stereo. My short, squat computer refused them all.
So, the question began niggling at me. What to do? Computer problems have a way of messing with your mind. If only, you say to yourself. If only it would work the way it should. Reformat is such a harmless sounding word.
Our very first lobotomy happened entirely by accident. It was in Hong Kong shortly after the handover from Dos to Windows. I know, I’m dating myself. Despite its reputation as a great place to buy electronics, the IBM laptop we purchased was a major investment. It was the software that was cheap. Something about not paying royalties. Sure enough, six months later there were serious issues.
I took it back to the shop and told the owner about the problem. He smiled at me, took it under his arm and said: “reformat. ok?” I had no idea what he was talking about. It did not dawn on me that he was talking icepick. That I would be picking up a reamed-out brick instead of the clever little crutch that I had come to depend on for everyday life.
Everything we had written and received had been turned into randomly polarized electrons. Contacts, email, articles. I looked at the man in disbelief. “You mean you didn’t save it somewhere?” He looked around the shop to see if my life had been mislaid somewhere among the printers. “Works okay now.”
The very word ‘reformat’ gives me heart palpitations. But time heals, as they say. We forget. Twelve years is a long time. I have everything backed up. It is simply a question of reinstalling my programs and the data. That’s what my rational, intelligent mind had to say. My body got the night sweats. Big brain won. I lost.
All my contacts, appointments, email. Everything My computer guru did the same thing I did to reinstall Outlook data file. He tried. He failed. If you are reading this I may have had your address in my files once upon a time. Not any more. No worries. Someday, someone will figure it out. In the meantime, enjoy the peace and quiet of my absence. Pretend I’m on Mars. I won’t be bugging you anytime soon.
Check back here in a few days. We just returned from nine days down under down under. That’s right, Tasmania. Words and pics will be up as soon as I get the bills paid and a pile of laundry done.
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February 22, 2008 at 2:52 am
DMR
Welcome back John…
Lobotomy or not, your words are always enlightening. We missed, well I missed you. The “downunder blog” has become a must read in our household and I’m forever re-broadcasting the latest exploits from Halbrook Downunder at the dinner table.
I had a ‘lobotomy’ once….. my old IBM Thinkpad Laptop self destructed (with help from my very own helping hand) shortly after purchase – so back to the IBM god for a ‘renewal’……… I had everything worthwhile backed on “floppies – remember them? Still use ‘em” and my files were soon reintroduced. In fact I’m writing this on the same wee machine, still running Windows 98, and guess what – the hard drive is a generous 11.2GB with available space of 3.85GB. I must admit to recent recurring failures including a slowly dimming screen, and I fear imminent collapse. However I’ll soldier on, even though my poor old Word Perfect 9 word processor has lost some of its features ……. it’s maybe that Adobe Acrobat is at war with Corel as my much valued PDF maker has refused to accept the WP file as written – something about refusing the ‘fonts’ – and delivers a PDF file, ‘faintly’ readable and with tiny ‘script’. This process by itself is about to drive me to “buy” the latest stuff – very likely what Corel and Adobe planned in the beginning – if you believe in conspiracies.
Welcome back…….. we are awaiting the latest pictures as promised
David frozen in Montreal