Prokofy Neva, Virtualtor
Artifacture via MidJourney
So this is for March 17.
Often, when you have put something off a very long time, it's not for a good reason.
But sometimes, it is…
So a year ago…two years ago? Time distends or compresses in the pandemic years… My son visited me from Florida and decided to clean my computer with one of those compressed air cans. This computer I had was actually one he gave me, a turbo gaming sort of thing which blinks coloured lights if I leave it on to "sleep" — which seems outrageous and occasionally spurs me to get up and turn it off. So he took the back of it off — all glass — to spray that stuff throughout, and while propping it up…it fell and smashed into a million smithereens.
(It seems I was sweeping that stuff up for ever. The cat even hurt his paw with a sliver that didn't seem to come out totally and it was limping around and bleeding for days, poor thing. I kept washing it and putting bacitrin on it.)
So now, backless, the computer was left to gather dust. I felt I should wait until my son came again because whenever I get involved with those air cans, they grow cold in my hand, and I also fear I'm going to spray that stuff on my hands, then it will be impossible to get off, and the injury will take forever to heal, etc. etc. with my conditions. SO. Somehow I actually missed two more visits of my son and failed to get this done so finally, in the "Just One Thing" mode, I decided I needed to FINISH my desk clean-up. Yikes…
This was one of those jobs that got chunked. Into parts. Into steps. Well, better than not doing it. So I cleaned the top with a mop; I took everything off and cleaned up the middle and right side, I took a lot of the stuff off the shelves to clean and sort and then…stalled. I didn't do the left side, that had a lot of figurines. These photos from MidJourney exaggerate it in a way — but not really! That is, MJ did a TERRIBLE job trying to reproduce "Gzhel" but somehow the overall effect does eerily resemble what was going on…figurines from Russia (Gzhel) and Netherlands (Delft) that are similar but different but can I always tell them apart? No. Boxes. Papers. Trinkets. Medicines. Pictures. Stuff. It's not that bad but…ok, it's bad.
Such strange artifacts…what the hell is that strange tall plastic thing that looks like a periscope?!
I never got the left side of the desk with those particular figurines…so that was my Just One Thing for March 17 — and I should have stopped after washing down the shelf and the figurines and putting them aside in a box with other random junk…but no.
I decided to tackle the dusty computer which really was a mess and I went after it with a can, after putting on first examination gloves (they gave us tons of them for free in the worst of the COVID years in these little first aid kits), then, realizing they were awfully thin, adding some oven mitts (which need replacing anyway). So…while I tried to follow directions, of course it condensed and I probably shorted something out. I took a few swipes with a wet rag as well because the canister just doesn't get anything. Also probably a bad idea. Well, it was unplugged.
Now come to turn it all back on again and…nope. The screen simply refuses to go on. I keep trying and trying. Sometimes ctr-alt-del gets you out of that damn "standby" mode which is the bane of many displays these days…but no. Unplugging. Replugging. Checking cables. Trying a different cable. Trying to turn it off and on over and over real fast. Turn it on and hold. Everything you can read on geek help pages. Finally for all that trouble it started saying not just NO SIGNAL but NO CABLE.
Now it's time to give up and go over and try to get my daughter's computer (new last May or so) — and I can't get past standby on that one either. Along the way I drop the little Dell box which is the computer. It doesn't have much memory, maybe for that reason. It then seemed to work but with part of it cracked open a bit…it turns on, but never gets past the "standby". Somehow, with all this backing and filling I notice that maybe the surge protector is the problem — a slight jostling and the whole thing turns off. So finally after rocking the plug in that while turning on the box…I get it on. It goes through Windows updates. It goes through stuff. It has no memory. I struggle with it, trying to decouple my daughter's One Drive, put on mine, but then it downloads all my files (or links to them or whatever) harming the space problem…I can't get SL working, or even installed. I go to Alchemy…finally Alchemy is installed, I log in and find…I am naked and none of my outfits are loaded at all.
Sigh.
I spent forever trying to fix that, finally going under the sea in an empty Linden sea sim to let my inventory load….
Then whenever I try to go anywhere, I freeze and crash. I have to stay put, let the scene load entirely, and then not do too much. But at least I can add tenants to resident powers, move Lindens, do a little bit of stuff.
So road to hell….And now I have two computers that don't work as they should, one I think could well be hosed. The icing on the cake? I had it in the back of my mid tha my son still had his computer he was willing to send to me, because it didn't sell, if I paid the $200 shipping. Hmmm. I dithered about that for months so that by the time I reached him about it early this am, he said it was already sold. I had some notion some friend of his might come over to help me…but what friends? They are away, busy, it was insane to think of it. I can't pay to repair this now, so somehow, I'll limp around.
Now my eye falls on the box of stuff taken off the shelf and washed…it has to go back…of course by now, after struggling with two computers, the whole desk needs washing again, and by now the middle and right hand shelves also need washing again…more boxes…due to the disaster, this has definitely become a "chunked-up" to do, and the boxes await on my living room floor…three…ok four…actually five…six…if you count the ones in the hallway, and that's only the start. Then the two empty boxes awaiting stuff that has to get mailed…
Still, nothing more can go wrong, right? And the boxes need to get put away sooner rather than later…
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