urbandruid

So I'm on Twitter now, mostly because all of my friends are.

http://twitter.com/aurordark

Follow me. I'm lonely. I've added the people I know that I could find- oh, and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

It's funny, for someone with a visual impairment I'm being driven really freaking crazy by the fact that I don't have a graphics program on the Mac. Haven't had one since I got the thing in January. I have some really basic things that came with it, all of which suck, and a few demos I've downloaded, which suck only a little bit less.

One of the things I didn't think of when I decided to get the Mac instead of another PC was that they don't make Paint Shop Pro for Mac. *sigh* I miss PSP. To the point where I actually booted up the Gateway the other night and messed around with some graphics. Of course, when I got the images back to the Mac (a complex file transer system involving a USB cable, my old iPod, and a lot of crossed fingers and swear words) I found out I need to resize the damn thing. Which naturally I can't do on the Mac, because I went ahead and added text to the image. I can resize the base photomanip, no problem, but it'll fuck up the text but good.

*headdesk*

I realized recently that I haven't done anything with urbandruid.net in.... um, a very, very long time. I have the redesign projects started, but they've been stalled because I kind of need a graphics program to get anything done.

So I'm downloading a Photoshop trial, and I hate to say this, but I feel like I'm on dial-up again. It's been going for at least half an hour, is at 17%, and is estimated to take another 1 hour, 31 minutes and 21 seconds. On DSL! I realize it's a big file (1,012.84 MB) but still, this is ridiculious. This damn thing had better work, that's all I can say. If it doesn't...

It really has been driving me nuts, not being able to mess around with manips or make icons or other random stuff like that. And I have no idea where I'm going with this post really, except that I'm bored, I still have almost an hour and a half to go, and I felt like ranting about this. So there you go.

Okay, I know you're all tired of hearing about my virus. I'm tired of hearing about my virus. So until I get it sorted, it'll just have its own section in posts, which you can skip over, like so:

State of the Virus: It's Virtumonde, and I've thrown in the towel and called for backup. The nice people at the spybot.info forums are talking people through removing this and other fun virus-y things, so I added myself to the que there. For some reason they're a bit backed up right now. /State of the Virus

I've been trying to write, anything really, but I'm not getting much done, I've been too stressed out over the computer thing. Mostly I've been reading while I run scans. Or sleeping. I was up half the weekend trying to fix stuff, and it finally caught up with me. Stayed up till 3AM yesterday morning, woke up at 1:45PM today. Strangely I feel better now.

I start back to class in the middle of August, and it's looking like it's going to be another fun fall semester for freshman. By which I mean, the local State U reduced their enrollment again, and we're going to catch their overflow. The only good news there is that I shouldn't have any of them in my classes, I'll just have to run a bunch of 'em over on my way to and from. :)

I got an invite to a 'new and returning student orientation' with my disabled students councelor. Recycled that, but Mom made the comment that I could probably give the orientation if I wanted to. Which led to us starting a list of stuff the freshmen really need to know. I'll have to see if I can reconstruct it, because I have a feeling I'll be adding to it a lot next month.

I'm almost bored enough to want to go back to school, but I know the novelty will wear off sooner rather than later.

Okay, so here's the short version of the story. I'm surfing along the other day, Saturday morning I think it was, and all of a sudden IE is going NUTS (yeah, more then usual) and I'm getting crazy popups everywhere, half of which are for porn sites and viagra, the other half for 'virus' scans, or messages warning me that my system is infected and I'll get in trouble with my boss & my spouse (no lie, one of them told me this.)

Turns out, I have the latest virus sensation that's sweeping the internet, some IE malware bug. Which I've now been trying to get rid of for three days. Most of yesterday was spent trying to get Anna to boot at all- she took this opportunity to have one of her little "haha, I'm trying to make like a Gateway and blow up" moments. I refer to these as Anna's little nervous breakdowns.

Anyway. Went out Sunday and bought the biggest, baddest new version of Norton I could find, which I'd been meaning to do anyway. Took it home, took a long nap, got up and started trying to install it. Turned out my older Norton stuff was SO old I had to uninstall it all before installing the new software.

I could have been smart and uninstalled things a piece at a time, replacing them with the new software before moving onto the next one. I wasn't smart. I downlodaded a huge Norton uninstaller, proceeded to run it, and let it reboot my system.

Cue crashes, fatal system errors, and lots of swearing. I went to bed Sunday night with things still screwed up.

Somehow yesterday I got it from fatal system errors to Anna's usual nervous breakdown crap, which I kind of know how to fix- you leave it alone for a few hours, come back, and keep trying to boot from a disk until it takes instead of crashing.

So now we're back in business, kind of, except that I can't use IE for anything without getting popups and freaking Norton the hell out. Add to this the fact that my connection's making like I'm back on dialup instead of DSL. Put it to you this way- I'm writing this on Mom's laptop, which IS on dialup, and it now seems to be running pretty fast to me.

So. I've run Norton, couple times. Run Adaware, couple times. Downloaded Spybot Search & Destroy today and am now running that. When that's done I figure on upgrading downloading Windows updates, upgrading IE... and downloading Firefox. It's not like I LIKE IE, just that it's all I've got, unless you count the anciet (4.7) version of Netscape I use mostly for my email. ...Yeah. I don't like change sometimes, what can I say?

Anyway. In case anybody's been wondering where I've been- well, there you go.

Oh, and if anybody's got any suggestions- been there, had this and got rid of it?- HELP! Email's about the only thing I can still get to without risking more crap trying to download itself, so I should be okay for reading comments.

And can I just mention how much this is sucking? I don't have that much vacation time left, and this isn't how I planned on using it.

...and sorry, I guess that was the 'not so short' version, but this has kind of been annoying me and I wanted to vent a little.

Hey, guys.

So Mom and I finally got fed up with our less than stellar dial-up and decided to get ourselvs DSL for Christmas. Not that we celebrate Christmas exactly, because, you know, agnostic and lapsed pagan. But we have a tree, have always had a tree even though we never did the church thing (and my cat's new name is "Get away from the fucking Christmas tree!" but that's a whole 'nother story.)

Anyway. So we finally got our stuff together and called our ISP last week to see about getting DSL- we knew they had it, just weren't sure they'd have it in our area. If they hadn't, we'd have been stuck with the phone company, who a.) get enough of our money and b.) kind of suck in that "we're trying to take over the world, tee-hee" kind of way.

We still have to pay them $4 or something a month to run the DSL through their line, but whatever. They're a hell of a lot more expensive than my ISP, too, and not nearly as nice or easy to deal with on the phone. I hate calling tech support- had some very bad experiences when I was a teenager- and I will call these people.

So we talked to the ISP guy, and he explained how it worked- they told the phone company to switch over our line, and when that was done they'd let us know. He said it usually took about 3 weeks. So imagine my surprise when Fex-Ex showed up yesterday with a box addressed to me that appeared to contain a modem. (I called Mom, just to make sure it wasn't a Christmas present for me, but I was pretty sure what it was.)

Then, around quarter to 5:00, I got a couple emails from my ISP. One says "we shipped your modem yesterday from a place in state." Another says "Your DSL should be activated on 12/19, please make sure your modem is hooked up, and call us if it doesn't work."

THEN- while I'm running around the living room going "this is cool, but I have no clue what I'm doing!" the doorbell rings.

UPS. With the books we ordered from Barns and Noble. "DSL for Dummies" which unfortunately is missing its table of contents, and has a 2002 copyright date, damnit, and "Networking for Dummies." Because we're going to need a router, and PC cards. Or at least a PC card- Mom's gonna have to get a new computer, which she's kind of been looking at anyway.

So, here we are. December 19. I didn't think I'd have this to play with before I had to go back to school, so I'm very jazzed.

I'm going to go read some stuff in our books (and an older one I bought for XP when I got this computer) and then I'm going to go haul Anna and her stuff into Mom's room and see if I can get it to work.

If not, the dialup's still going, so I'll be back. But... yeah.

Anyone have any advice about routers, networking, anything like that? Or other DSL-y stuff I might need to know? Please share. Thanks. :)

(As an aside, I discovered that Darth there is the closest to a 'happy' icon I have. The rest are a bit... dare I say 'moody'? Except the writing one, which just doesn't quite fit. I might need to work on this.)

Tuesday, 8:47 AM
Well, this is just fantastic. In the sense of not really. I'm writing this from school, but I'll have to post it when I get home, because, after nearly an hour of running around from the reference desk to the computer lab, to the media center where the techs hang out...

...my network card is too !@#$ing old to connect to their wireless network.Fuck. I disconnected Anna and all her accoutrements, packed her and the minimum of stuff I need for my Psych class, into her case, and hauled 10 lbs of laptop, plus said accoutrements and school shit, into the library, all around the huge reference room, down the looong hall to the computer lab, across the hall to the media center, where I sat playing with things and swearing at them for a while till the techs got in... talked to a guy who seemed to know what the problem might be, and it was one I knew how to fix, so I did that, and... he took another look and told me the bloody network card is too bloody old.

My shoulder is already killing me, and I'm going to have to haul all of this crap half a mile to the freaking bus stop, lug it onto the bus, and lug it the several blocks home.

At which point I may have time to get it plugged back in and check my email, before I have to get ready for my dentist appointment.

Because, you know, this day didn't suck enough, already.

Oh yes, and I'm sitting at the far back table in the library, with the sun in my eyes- slowly rising, so it's getting a bit easier to see what I'm doing- because the library only has plugs scattered along the walls. Why, you ask, do I need a plug, since I have a laptop? Because Gateway sucks.

No, really, I mean it. That's why. Every computer I've ever bought from them has had battery issues. The first one, the battery never charged, and they had to send me a new one as it was still under warranty. Unfortunately, by the time I figured out the new laptop, Anna II, wasn't so much better off, her warranty had expired.

I guess she's only half as bad off, technically. The battery is supposed to have "at least" a 4-hour charge. It has maybe 2 hours, probably less, and they go pretty fast. It was down to 60% or so while I was working on it while waiting for the techs to show up, and I was praying the charge would last long enough for them to help me.

*facepalms*

I honestly don't know why this surprises me. Things like this never seem to go my way, particularly when we're talking about school related stuff that involves me going out of my way to do stuff, such as carrying 10 lbs of laptop all over hell's half-acre. I don't even want to think about how much fun it's not going to be to carry this thing to the bus and home again. In a word, ugh.

Other than that- oh, and having to go for my annual checkup/torture session/cleaning at the dentist, hah- it's been a pretty good day so far. Yes, this makes me feel a lot better, too.

Seriously, though, why does this stuff never occur to me? It's not like Anna's state of the art anymore- she's from 2002, at least according to Windows. Newer than Mom's laptop, Morden, or Kosh, our ancient desktop, but that's not saying a lot. And Anna's perfectly good for what I use her for, though I think her keyboard is starting to fall apart- among other things, the space bar has issues, and that stupid SysReq key I broke a few months back is kind of hanging on by a thread... but she's a good computer- and I think I'm kind of used to thinking of her as state of the art, whether she really is or not, because she's lightyears ahead of anything else we've got in the house.

But the upshot is, she's too old, so I'm sitting here, running AdAware, typing this, and listening to the work crews doing whatever the hell they're doing outside on the quad between the library and Admissions & Records this time- though it could be the guys working on the Admissions & Records building, too. They were supposed to be done last fall, but maybe they've finally figured out that they'll be a year behind if they don't finish by the time this semester is over.

I'm really starting to think the college hands out contracts like these to the lowest IQ-score bidders.

I didn't do much more than toss some spam out of my inbox this morning, because I figured that I'd have all of this time to kill at school, and I could surf LJ and other things at my leisure. Hah! So much for that plan.

Oh well. At least this answers the question of whether I ought to trouble myself with bringing Anna to school again. (And the answer would be, not unless I have a deep burning desire to do some typing that can't wait until I get home.)

I need to do some writing for AL, among other things, but I'd kind of planned on having the prompts accessable to me. Which, for obvious reasons, I don't, because they are online and I am not. I've probably already made this more than clear, but this annoys me.

I seem to be sitting right in a draft, too. Either that, or they have the AC on. Hell, as screwed up as this place can get, nothing would surprise me anymore. Even that. At least it'll be warmer upstairs, at 11:00 when my class starts. If I can make it that far and not die of boredom, which seems rather possible right now.

I guess I could always- ooh, isn't this exciting? - copy out my Psych notes so they're a little less chickenscratch, a little more legible.

If there's a plus side to this, I'm finally learning how to use my TouchPad. Or TrackPad, or whatever the hell you call it. It's really touchy, and I don't like it much. I use a mouse at home- I brought the mouse, and if I were online I'd probably use it, but I'm too lazy to dig it out at this point. It's not like I'm really doing anything of major concequence here. Just hanging out, watching the AdAware scan crawl its way through the temporary internet files- I ought to clean those out again, I suppose- and occasionally glancing over at the guy who sat down a little bit ago at the opposite end of the table. He kind of looks like David Tennant as the 10th Doctor- or maybe it's just the clothes, which are sort of preppy, and the hair which is kind of brown. Or at least I think so. Sun's still kind of in my eyes. But, you know, it's something to talk about, at least.

9:45 AM
I've killed almost another hour playing around with this. Still annoyed. Still bored.

9:54 AM
David Tennant lookalike dude is gone. Sigh. My shoulder hurts, half from hauling the damn laptop around, and half from hunching over the damn computer so I can see what I'm doing to type this oh-so-important document. I have no Advil, ibs, or any other kind of painkiller on me. If I wanted non-asprin, I could hike way the hell over to the nurse's office, currently residing in Bungalow # something or other, also known as the village of portable classrooms way the hell and gone almost to the edge of campus.

In short, no thanks.

For some reason which I really cannot fathom, the security alarm at the entrance to the library has gone off every time I've walked through it. The last time I came back in here, the kid at the front desk looked at me, asked if i had a laptop, and when I said yes, waved me on through.

I wonder if they'll want to search the bag when I leave. They're welcome to, nothing in there but Anna, her mouse, two notebooks, a paperback (Babylon 5: The Shadow Within) my Psych syllabus, my iPod, wallet, keys, and a couple of pens. Oh, and a makeup bag with pads in it.

Anyway, they've got signs posted everywhere saying they reserve the right to search bags and/or persons- there werent' as many of these signs last semester, so they must've had some problems with book theift. People are idiots. But, you know, whatever. As long as they don't make me late for class or hurt my baby, I don't really care.

I've never had my bag searched before, so it would be a novel experience. Though I guess it'd happen if I ever took a plane anywhere. I haven't flown since way before 9/11- we're talking mid-1990's, here. One of these years I'd like to travel. You know, if we ever win the Lotto or something. We play, but we never win.

The Apprentice has a contest where you can enter to win 10,000, and I entered that last week. Didn't win, though,but I'm not surprised. I entered online, and we all know how fast Anna's dialup connection isn't.

10:02 AM
Things to do, if I a.) ever get Anna home; b.) survive the dentist; c.) ever remember that this list exists.

( massivly long list )

This is really random, but does anyone know a cure for the hiccups that actually works? I was getting ready to go to bed last night, and they just started up on me. And refused to go away for at least a half an hour. I know it's some kind of muscle spasm that causes it, which would imply that you need to relax the muscles, but cranking my electric blanket didn't seem to be doing it much good, until it decided to go away on its own.

The human body is so odd sometimes...

I have a million things to do, and, true to form, I'm not really doing any of them. I only discovered- last weekend, I think it was, that the last time I messed with the journal pages at Urbandruid, I accidentally uploaded the journal index over the main index page. And I think I screwed with the journal last in... uh, well, September, from what the error logs tell me? No one mentioned this, of course, but it's hard to blame them- when I haven't updated the site in forever, why visit?

I'm working on cleaning up and redoing a lot of stuff on the domain now, but it's so much work that I just want to bury my head in the sand.

Of course, this is how I feel about most things lately, so...

Depression is still kicking my ass, though things are starting to get a bit better. Mostly because I don't really have to do anything anymore. Except, you know, the million and one things that I dump on myself. Because I'm a mad overachiever that way. You think I'd have learned by now, but oh no, not me.

I'm trying not to take it too far, because starting to get better doesn't mean being better... but I guess we'll just see how it goes.