There's definitely, definitely, definitely no logic to my-y computer
Phew!
It's been a scary few days over here at Chez Slave Quarters (as Sinead likes to call it). Friday night I was dinking around on my computer and it had a complete meltdown. I mean, it was messy. I have never had a computer go quite as ballistic on me as this one did. And the most fun part was that on attempting to reboot, I could not get the harddrive moving! There was nothin' getting this thing to boot back up again. I tried pleading with it. I bribed it with more RAM. I promised to lovingly defragment it once a day, if it would just start up! My harddrive had turned its back on me, my processor was making obscene gestures in my direction, and my OS was on the last train to Clarksville.
The scariest part was the idea that I might have to take it in somewhere for help, and they would probably want to know what I was doing at the time, and about 95% of it was illegal somewhere, probably even in China. I could lie, but if they had managed to boot it back up, the evidence would have been right there bald-faced on my desktop. So, I shut the thing down for the night, hoping that it was just cranky and needed to sleep. In the morning, it came back up in Safe Mode (hallelujah!) but was clearly hobbling around, crippled-like. I scrambled around like a maniac backing up everything I deemed important onto the only spare memory storage I had lying around - my iPod. I then uninstalled anything that might put me into jail (I jest! *ahem*) and began running every virus, adware, spyware, and other registry-eating-ware program I have, and it came up with...nothing! Nothing at all wrong with the thing! Except somehow my Font folder was corrupt and my browser would only show things in italics. It was so weird, I just didn't know where to begin. A check on microsoft.com was no help at all. It would say things like, "Your hard drive may be corrupt. You may need to disable your BIOS cache. Follow normal procedure." Which is....???? Stupid microsoft.
At last this morning, I chkdsk-ed the shit out of this thing, and it seems to be back to normal. I have regular, non-italiced fonts. Adaware seems to no longer be hanging on one system folder. It's finally located some spyware, WebHancer, which seems stupid but not bad enough to cause a meltdown. I am thankful that someone, somewhere finally decided to build a Windows operating system that seems to repair itself, because I was so lost it's not even funny.
So, welcome to my lovely, non-fun weekend! Oh well. I've also been reading. A lot. Mostly because no one assigns anything and I have no idea what I'm actually meant to read and what I'm not, so I'm just reading everything. Whatever keeps me from procrastinating, I guess.
I did make it through last week alive. It wasn't so bad. My classes seem like they'll be ok. The ones that seem to teach the least also have books on the reading list that look like they'll make up for it.
Thursday night, I met Sinead in the evening on campus. She's in the Anthropology department and they were having some sort of get together with really bad wine and horrible "canapes" as they like to call them here. It was really tiresome. Library school students are professionals. When they talk about their subject, they talk about work. There's very little theory or argument. It doesn't mean it isn't boring, but it doesn't frustrate me as much as the insipid, self-indulgent speech of the academic. Now, I would have been interested if people were talking to me about their research, in the sense of where they've visited and the types of cultures they've studied, and what they're like. But no. I get to overhear multiple conversations where people are priding themselves on their wonderful choice to become anthropologists, and Miss America speeches of wanting to help the poor people. These mixed in with many more loooong, dull accolades about the importance of what one does in their field, and how their research was so much better that other dunderhead's stupid research. Ohhhh my Gawd. I was so out of there. And after two glasses of battery-acid wine on an empty stomach, I was very much in danger of saying something, especially to the really hairy white guy who insisted on walking around barefoot in some tribal muumuu like a caveman. So I went outside and wished someone would do an anthropological study on the behavior of a...what would you call them...herd? tribe? clan? How about murder. On the behavior of a murder of anthropologists.
And yes, I'm a complete snob too.
I chatted with this trio of undergrads, all from the same boarding high school somewhere in New York, although all non-American, who had somehow stumbled across this party and free booze, so crashed it. Kind of like me, but I was invited. Sort of. They were a lot more fun, and were heading to some jazz club. They invited me along, but I had already planned to go to this pub with Sinead afterwards, so I declined. Finally, Sinead came out with a gaggle of social and medical anthropology students and declared she was ready to get wrecked, so we were off....half a block away to the Jeremy Bentham.
Now, Jeremy Bentham is an interesting fella. He's not responsible for the founding of UCL, but he is responsible for making it open to everyone, including women. He's also the creepy guy who's actual body is in a box in one of the main buildings on campus, and which I get to walk by frequently.
Yup! That's him! Oh, well, that's not his real head. His real head is kept in storage somewhere, and only brought out for special occasions. Like mafia weddings, probably. When I die, I'm totally doing that. Only I demand to be set up somewhere more personally interesting. Like, in front of a television. And in a much comfier chair.
So, anyhow, we all went to a pub named after him and had a few pints, and this went on long after I wanted to go home. Everyone was really drunk, and I wasn't, but I didn't want to get home on my own. So I basically sat there for a few hours waiting until the pub closed. And of course, the pub closes at 11, but everyone leaves about 11:45. I saw one of the staff members, actually take a glass of wine out of a girl's hand. Woo! If only he had done that sooner. Then Sinead was hungry and wanted a burger, so we stopped at McDonalds. It was my second taste since I got here, and yup, it's still crap. Can't beat American McDonald's fries!
It was still fun, though. I chatted with a greek (?) fella with an accent JUST like Eddie Izzard's, who we both agreed was fabulous. There was a Canadian girl who practically cried when I told her I was from Chicago, because she loves it so much there. She was a bit drunk when we got there, I think. I talked with a local, English bloke who wants to open his own restaurant, and was a snob about Fish and Chips, because he said frying fish is disgusting and ruins an otherwise perfectly fine piece of fish, and if these people want fish, why don't they order it grilled or whatever. It took me awhile, but I finally convinced him that no one actually cares about the fish when they order this, but the fried goodness that surrounds it. I spent most of the time, though, talking with Mariana, the girl from Norway that lives in Sinead's hall. She is definitely really cool, so I hope I bump into her more often.
When I finally made it home that night, I collapsed into bed sick on second hand smoke and Stella Artois. But I managed to scramble out of bed for my 10am Friday class, and then spend the rest of the day at the British Library trying to figure out their system of ordering books and read up on stuff for another class. All I can say is that place is gigantic. It is just SO big. And the parts I'm seeing aren't nearly all of it, because hidden somewhere are the actual stacks for book storage. No wonder it takes 70 minutes to get a book after you've paged it! Also, it's cool because after your book arrives, rather than it being delivered to you, a little light on your desk turns on and says to go pick it up. Neato!
After all that I walked back to my dorm and since then I've either been sleeping, reading, or fixing my computer. Fun stuff! Hope everyone else is well, and drop me a line please! I miss you all!!!
It's been a scary few days over here at Chez Slave Quarters (as Sinead likes to call it). Friday night I was dinking around on my computer and it had a complete meltdown. I mean, it was messy. I have never had a computer go quite as ballistic on me as this one did. And the most fun part was that on attempting to reboot, I could not get the harddrive moving! There was nothin' getting this thing to boot back up again. I tried pleading with it. I bribed it with more RAM. I promised to lovingly defragment it once a day, if it would just start up! My harddrive had turned its back on me, my processor was making obscene gestures in my direction, and my OS was on the last train to Clarksville.
The scariest part was the idea that I might have to take it in somewhere for help, and they would probably want to know what I was doing at the time, and about 95% of it was illegal somewhere, probably even in China. I could lie, but if they had managed to boot it back up, the evidence would have been right there bald-faced on my desktop. So, I shut the thing down for the night, hoping that it was just cranky and needed to sleep. In the morning, it came back up in Safe Mode (hallelujah!) but was clearly hobbling around, crippled-like. I scrambled around like a maniac backing up everything I deemed important onto the only spare memory storage I had lying around - my iPod. I then uninstalled anything that might put me into jail (I jest! *ahem*) and began running every virus, adware, spyware, and other registry-eating-ware program I have, and it came up with...nothing! Nothing at all wrong with the thing! Except somehow my Font folder was corrupt and my browser would only show things in italics. It was so weird, I just didn't know where to begin. A check on microsoft.com was no help at all. It would say things like, "Your hard drive may be corrupt. You may need to disable your BIOS cache. Follow normal procedure." Which is....???? Stupid microsoft.
At last this morning, I chkdsk-ed the shit out of this thing, and it seems to be back to normal. I have regular, non-italiced fonts. Adaware seems to no longer be hanging on one system folder. It's finally located some spyware, WebHancer, which seems stupid but not bad enough to cause a meltdown. I am thankful that someone, somewhere finally decided to build a Windows operating system that seems to repair itself, because I was so lost it's not even funny.
So, welcome to my lovely, non-fun weekend! Oh well. I've also been reading. A lot. Mostly because no one assigns anything and I have no idea what I'm actually meant to read and what I'm not, so I'm just reading everything. Whatever keeps me from procrastinating, I guess.
I did make it through last week alive. It wasn't so bad. My classes seem like they'll be ok. The ones that seem to teach the least also have books on the reading list that look like they'll make up for it.
Thursday night, I met Sinead in the evening on campus. She's in the Anthropology department and they were having some sort of get together with really bad wine and horrible "canapes" as they like to call them here. It was really tiresome. Library school students are professionals. When they talk about their subject, they talk about work. There's very little theory or argument. It doesn't mean it isn't boring, but it doesn't frustrate me as much as the insipid, self-indulgent speech of the academic. Now, I would have been interested if people were talking to me about their research, in the sense of where they've visited and the types of cultures they've studied, and what they're like. But no. I get to overhear multiple conversations where people are priding themselves on their wonderful choice to become anthropologists, and Miss America speeches of wanting to help the poor people. These mixed in with many more loooong, dull accolades about the importance of what one does in their field, and how their research was so much better that other dunderhead's stupid research. Ohhhh my Gawd. I was so out of there. And after two glasses of battery-acid wine on an empty stomach, I was very much in danger of saying something, especially to the really hairy white guy who insisted on walking around barefoot in some tribal muumuu like a caveman. So I went outside and wished someone would do an anthropological study on the behavior of a...what would you call them...herd? tribe? clan? How about murder. On the behavior of a murder of anthropologists.
And yes, I'm a complete snob too.
I chatted with this trio of undergrads, all from the same boarding high school somewhere in New York, although all non-American, who had somehow stumbled across this party and free booze, so crashed it. Kind of like me, but I was invited. Sort of. They were a lot more fun, and were heading to some jazz club. They invited me along, but I had already planned to go to this pub with Sinead afterwards, so I declined. Finally, Sinead came out with a gaggle of social and medical anthropology students and declared she was ready to get wrecked, so we were off....half a block away to the Jeremy Bentham.
Now, Jeremy Bentham is an interesting fella. He's not responsible for the founding of UCL, but he is responsible for making it open to everyone, including women. He's also the creepy guy who's actual body is in a box in one of the main buildings on campus, and which I get to walk by frequently.
Yup! That's him! Oh, well, that's not his real head. His real head is kept in storage somewhere, and only brought out for special occasions. Like mafia weddings, probably. When I die, I'm totally doing that. Only I demand to be set up somewhere more personally interesting. Like, in front of a television. And in a much comfier chair.
So, anyhow, we all went to a pub named after him and had a few pints, and this went on long after I wanted to go home. Everyone was really drunk, and I wasn't, but I didn't want to get home on my own. So I basically sat there for a few hours waiting until the pub closed. And of course, the pub closes at 11, but everyone leaves about 11:45. I saw one of the staff members, actually take a glass of wine out of a girl's hand. Woo! If only he had done that sooner. Then Sinead was hungry and wanted a burger, so we stopped at McDonalds. It was my second taste since I got here, and yup, it's still crap. Can't beat American McDonald's fries!
It was still fun, though. I chatted with a greek (?) fella with an accent JUST like Eddie Izzard's, who we both agreed was fabulous. There was a Canadian girl who practically cried when I told her I was from Chicago, because she loves it so much there. She was a bit drunk when we got there, I think. I talked with a local, English bloke who wants to open his own restaurant, and was a snob about Fish and Chips, because he said frying fish is disgusting and ruins an otherwise perfectly fine piece of fish, and if these people want fish, why don't they order it grilled or whatever. It took me awhile, but I finally convinced him that no one actually cares about the fish when they order this, but the fried goodness that surrounds it. I spent most of the time, though, talking with Mariana, the girl from Norway that lives in Sinead's hall. She is definitely really cool, so I hope I bump into her more often.
When I finally made it home that night, I collapsed into bed sick on second hand smoke and Stella Artois. But I managed to scramble out of bed for my 10am Friday class, and then spend the rest of the day at the British Library trying to figure out their system of ordering books and read up on stuff for another class. All I can say is that place is gigantic. It is just SO big. And the parts I'm seeing aren't nearly all of it, because hidden somewhere are the actual stacks for book storage. No wonder it takes 70 minutes to get a book after you've paged it! Also, it's cool because after your book arrives, rather than it being delivered to you, a little light on your desk turns on and says to go pick it up. Neato!
After all that I walked back to my dorm and since then I've either been sleeping, reading, or fixing my computer. Fun stuff! Hope everyone else is well, and drop me a line please! I miss you all!!!
posted by Lauren Matson | 2:59 PM
4 Comments:
That burrito porn will kill your computer every time.
What if the Newberry had Walter's barrel just sitting outside the SC Reading Room? That would be so cool!
I am thankful that someone, somewhere finally decided to build a Windows operating system that seems to repair itself
Trust me, this is a completely accidental feature/flaw in Windows.... Microsoft programmers couldn't program themselves out of a plastic bag on purpose.
Canadian people are so cute, aren't they? ;)
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