Thanksgiving Related Text

So I'm home for Thanksgiving, playing a loaned-out Guitar Hero 3 with my younger brother, and looking at old family photographicals.

First off, the drive was OK. Zak (my younger brother) and I got out of Des Moines before it snowed and, although it did snow here a bit today (it has all melted, for the most part) before it snowed here, too. I hate snow. I hate most weather, though, so this is to be expected for the most part.

Second, while I said I wouldn't own Guitar Hero 3 while I was in school, that shouldn't stop me from borrowing it. So I did. I played Even Flow, which was awesome, but Cliffs of Dover on Expert is killing me. Like, literally. Killing me to death with its hardness.

Third, food. While our Thanksgiving dinner isn't until Saturday (on account of my lame old Dr. brother, Pete not getting home until Friday evening), I have eaten so much food that I am about to burst. String cheese, chocolates, brownies, chili, pumpkin rolls, crackers, cookies, more brownies, and more Dr Pepper than you can shake a stick at... Its the good life.

4th (still can't spell that), I finally saw Live Free or Die Hard and it was great and had lots of explosions and, if I could, I would trade my family for explosions. So... it was awesome.

5th, last night I looked at a bunch of old family photographs we have in photo albums and, you know what? I looked like a goon when I was a young lad, too.

I will return again shortly with another post. But I may be giving this up after the new year.... I'm just not very good at keeping up with it anymore...

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

We're Living in a Computerless World...

...and I am a computerless girl... what?

So, I have my computer working again. I got a processor fan in the post and replaced my old, janky one (it was making a lot of clicking noises and/or not spinning at all) and it runs smooth and silent and it works again. And its like a dream.

But for the three short days in which I had no computer and had to live in the library, here at Drake, I felt disconnected from the world.

In my first year at Drake I felt I had spent too much time on the Internet and not enough time on studies, so I removed my Ethernet cord and lived a disconnected life for a week. It was torture and I got less done because I simply played computer solitaire instead of reading and studying.

But, that's because I had a computer. While I wasn't connected to the world through the Internet, I could be connected to Midgar in Final Fantasy VII or my imagination through MSWord.

But those three days where I had no computer, I couldn't help the characters in the first Final Fantasy save their world, I couldn't talk to my girlfriend online until 2AM, I couldn't catch up on webcomics, I couldn't write homework or fiction, and I couldn't even browse through my folders.

Some people are big on cars, others on sports teams or just the sport itself. My computer is like an extension of my being, like another limb. Without it, I feel like I've lost an arm or a leg, and I stop functioning altogether.

I'm glad I have it back.

Stranded here on planet Earth

".....its not much, but it could be worse."

My computer - which I built sophomore year, here at Drake - is non-operational. The processor fan is either burned out or burning out and so I can't really use it. I mean, it will run, but eventually the processor itself will die and the rest of the parts with it and... well...

Back in high school I helped - along with a few other students - build all the computers in the building. By the time I'd graduated, I'd probably put together more than three dozen computer towers. Way more than that. I knew how to do it and I was good at it.

But then I stopped doing it and then I got parts from my parents to put my own together and, well... There is a difference when you are putting a computer together for a school and putting a computer together for yourself. If you really mess up at school, the school will frown upon it, sure, but they need those computers and so they will buy another one. If you screw up with your own, well.... You have to hope you had warranties on the parts and you have to hope that you backed up your hard drive onto some other form of information holding device.

Regardless, I took a lot more care in the construction of my own computer, whose name is Amalgamar because he is combined from parts of about three computers, now. And anytime there is a flaw or a strange noise or something is slow... I always flash back to that evening in my dorm room in GK, first floor... Lying on the carpet in barely any clothes (static free environment!) and putting those things together, and wondering what I'd done wrong.

The answer is probably nothing. The fan could have simply run its course (I've basically had my computer on non-stop since I got it up and running, back in 2005) and I have already ordered a replacement part. So, everything will be back to normal.

But the worst part is I'm stuck, here, now. In the library on campus, cut off from the E-LEC-TRONIC world (no idea why I broke it up like that, don't ask). I struggle without a constant online presence.

It will be an interesting 3-7 days...