The mac is dead?
Long live the Mac.
It looks like Eugene's current heat wave may have killed my Macintosh 7100av. I attempted to boot up tonight (thought I'd watch a 10pm cop and/or lawyer drama before heading to bed fed through the vcr hooked up to the av card: a method that has served as my television for the past 7 years) and I'm getting the dreaded floppy disk with a blinking question mark:
So I guess I can't say 'sort of' anymore when people ask me if I really don't have a television. Now I really, really don't have one. I'm not kidding around. I mean it this time. Unless I go to Fred Meyer or Target or a garage sale next week. Actually: I could probably pick up a real replacement pretty quickly. Who needs a dumb CRT?
sigh.
And I guess I won't ever be able to convert those old Claris Works files over to MS Word now.
It's just blinking at me from across the room. All sad like and forlorn.
Poor thing.
I should throw it out the window.
I could buy two laptops and a decent desktop for what I paid (er, took out a payroll loan at NWU) for it in 1995. 11+ years. Not a bad lifespan for a personal computer. I even still had it hooked up to the web: I used it to prove to Qwest that their DSL modem was dying last year.
OK, I hit the emergency power button. The screen is blank. Last time this happened I booted from CD and resuscitated it, but a few years back I discovered the CD drive was dead. I had a spare, but it didn't work either. I figured it must be the bus that the drive was connected to.
The green power light is still on the monitor. It's the original. Still bright and in focus.
Yes, I tried re-booting. Yes, I reset the PRAM.
Geez, I'm getting a little choked up. I can't even seek solace: L is down with a migraine. It's hot out (although blessedly less than in recent days) and I'm all alone up in the attic. Maybe I should go for a walk, clear my mind. Although that might just make me reminisce about all the good times we had. It came with voice recognition right out of the box: that's funny, just yesterday NPR had a story about how far it's come. I remember sitting in an old apartment, long before L walked back into my life, with a woman I was desperately trying to date, speaking to the Mac in measured tones, speaking its name before every command: Theo (I was reading Dear Theo at the time, or maybe it would be more accurate to say that I was trying to impress this girl by reading Dear Theo at the time.)
I attempted to make my first map with it. By stitching together screenshots of Mapquest. I was going to measure gentrification in Chicago based on the density of SUVs parked on the street.
How oddly prescient.
Ooh: I also tried to draw a map of the businesses around Green Lake in Seattle: it was an attempt to learn Illustrator. Lame!
Geez: I'm like despondent. Earlier I was thinking about what a lovely evening I had tonight: a little tennis, dinner at a friend's, trimmed the hedge a bit (whoo hoo: #2!). And now this.
Well fuck.
oops. sorry mom.
I think I'll just go to bed.
Damn: I'm not kidding. I think I'm gonna cry. It's like the cat died: you know it's just a cat; you've sworn to yourself you'd never give it dialysis; you'd put it down at the first sign of struggle: no sense in prolonging the agony; get a new one at the pound for $20, etc. But when push comes to shove: I've moved the damn thing 8 times (3 more than the cat!); made space in all of my homes for it; spent some good quality time with it. Granted I've never had to pick up its barf or clean its litter, but still: it's like a member of the family.
sigh.
I almost feel dirty touching my Windows machine to type this post. Maybe that's it: Am I afraid this will be my last Apple? Will I never go Mac again? Have I gone completely over to the dark side?
Someone help me!
It looks like Eugene's current heat wave may have killed my Macintosh 7100av. I attempted to boot up tonight (thought I'd watch a 10pm cop and/or lawyer drama before heading to bed fed through the vcr hooked up to the av card: a method that has served as my television for the past 7 years) and I'm getting the dreaded floppy disk with a blinking question mark:
So I guess I can't say 'sort of' anymore when people ask me if I really don't have a television. Now I really, really don't have one. I'm not kidding around. I mean it this time. Unless I go to Fred Meyer or Target or a garage sale next week. Actually: I could probably pick up a real replacement pretty quickly. Who needs a dumb CRT?
sigh.
And I guess I won't ever be able to convert those old Claris Works files over to MS Word now.
It's just blinking at me from across the room. All sad like and forlorn.
Poor thing.
I should throw it out the window.
I could buy two laptops and a decent desktop for what I paid (er, took out a payroll loan at NWU) for it in 1995. 11+ years. Not a bad lifespan for a personal computer. I even still had it hooked up to the web: I used it to prove to Qwest that their DSL modem was dying last year.
OK, I hit the emergency power button. The screen is blank. Last time this happened I booted from CD and resuscitated it, but a few years back I discovered the CD drive was dead. I had a spare, but it didn't work either. I figured it must be the bus that the drive was connected to.
The green power light is still on the monitor. It's the original. Still bright and in focus.
Yes, I tried re-booting. Yes, I reset the PRAM.
Geez, I'm getting a little choked up. I can't even seek solace: L is down with a migraine. It's hot out (although blessedly less than in recent days) and I'm all alone up in the attic. Maybe I should go for a walk, clear my mind. Although that might just make me reminisce about all the good times we had. It came with voice recognition right out of the box: that's funny, just yesterday NPR had a story about how far it's come. I remember sitting in an old apartment, long before L walked back into my life, with a woman I was desperately trying to date, speaking to the Mac in measured tones, speaking its name before every command: Theo (I was reading Dear Theo at the time, or maybe it would be more accurate to say that I was trying to impress this girl by reading Dear Theo at the time.)
I attempted to make my first map with it. By stitching together screenshots of Mapquest. I was going to measure gentrification in Chicago based on the density of SUVs parked on the street.
How oddly prescient.
Ooh: I also tried to draw a map of the businesses around Green Lake in Seattle: it was an attempt to learn Illustrator. Lame!
Geez: I'm like despondent. Earlier I was thinking about what a lovely evening I had tonight: a little tennis, dinner at a friend's, trimmed the hedge a bit (whoo hoo: #2!). And now this.
Well fuck.
oops. sorry mom.
I think I'll just go to bed.
Damn: I'm not kidding. I think I'm gonna cry. It's like the cat died: you know it's just a cat; you've sworn to yourself you'd never give it dialysis; you'd put it down at the first sign of struggle: no sense in prolonging the agony; get a new one at the pound for $20, etc. But when push comes to shove: I've moved the damn thing 8 times (3 more than the cat!); made space in all of my homes for it; spent some good quality time with it. Granted I've never had to pick up its barf or clean its litter, but still: it's like a member of the family.
sigh.
I almost feel dirty touching my Windows machine to type this post. Maybe that's it: Am I afraid this will be my last Apple? Will I never go Mac again? Have I gone completely over to the dark side?
Someone help me!
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