Frankenputer

“…once I falsely hoped to meet the beings who, pardoning my outward form, would love me for the excellent qualities which I was capable of unfolding.”
— Mary Shelley (Frankenstein)

My laptop is a Frankenputer. Mary Shelley and Dr. Frankenstein would have been proud. The original Acer Aspire 1640Z has seen the technician multiple times over the three and a half years that I’ve owned it. Within my first year my lack of updated antivirus software got me infected with a Trojan horse that caused my computer to undergo a whole format. Two years ago the original 80GB hard disk died, only to be replaced by a 100GB hard drive, virtually partitioned to create Pinky and Brain. This summer, multiple systems have crashed and died and much work has been put into resuscitating the laptop. The original motherboard has been replaced. The new motherboard is slightly larger, causing it to be impossible to close the laptop’s casing. When picked up, the inner workings of the computer are held in place by the magical powers of duct tape. The fan no longer works and the entire contraption sits atop a USB powered cooling pad which is slightly too small to support such a big laptop. Brain, the master partition on my replacement hard disk is ridden with viruses and malicious things. It, too, has been replaced. An external hard drive, named SideKick, is connected with another USB cable, claiming my second – and last – USB port. If all of this isn’t enough, the battery no longer charges and the laptop must be plugged into a wall outlet in order to refrain from shutting down and loosing anything I might have been in the middle of. Additionally, if it does shut down, when restarted, the computer goes into an endless cycle of CHKDSK. It is only by pure miracle that I get it working again each time I have to turn the computer on. I have learned to pray to Haphaestus and Vulcan, the Greek and Roman G-ds of technology. No, this is no longer a laptop.

On the other hand, with a 15.4″ widescreen display, weighing in at just under 3 kilograms, it never really was portable. Although, once, I could have taken it home with me. Now, it’s just a desktop with an inconvenient key board and a touch pad mouse. It’s been pimped with a pretty WACOM, speakers, a webcam, a black and white laser printer and a scanner. It’s a pretty nice setup, although all these cables are constantly getting tangled despite being bundled nicely in larger cable organizers which collect dust and hair under my desk.

Last weekend, I decided it was time to put Frankenputer to the test. People around me keep raging about how great Windows 7 is and how it can bring life to old computers so I decided to give it a try. Three hours and forty two minutes of waiting, pushing “next” and more waiting, my old computer was running Windows 7. It was beyond miraculous. I started installing my old drivers: internet, printer, graphics card, speakers, etc. Something was wrong – terribly wrong. The drivers, which were compatible with WinXP, didn’t agree with my new operating system. I took over my mom’s computer in search for appropriate drivers, just to get discouraged time after time. Apparently, my computer is so old, there aren’t Vista drivers suitable, never mind Win7 drivers. I scanned forum after forum in hopes of finding a fix. It took me two days before I finally got my internet working, three more days to get my printer and scanner running along with the graphics card and sound and damn computer still wants to preform a never ending CHKDSK loop upon startup. I still pray every time I have to restart my computer, but so far, and I don’t want to ruin my good luck so far, he hasn’t needed to be restarted by force as he doesn’t tend to freeze over, frustrating me and making me pull the plug.

Despite this, my transfer to Chrome has been less successful. I feel that it keeps getting stuck and moves very slowly. Extremely slowly when I want it to load a new page and save me the embarrassment of others seeing my inbox or what-not. Next time I get a free day or two, I’ve got to revert back to my old, beloved, trustworthy Opera. (Yeah, never was a fan of the fox – too mainstream for my own personal tastes. If I could I’d probably be a Mac user, but it’s just currently out of my budget for now.)

The little clock in the bottom corner reads 12:34 am. It’s late and I have to be up in less than six hours. I have a seminar to give. My slides still aren’t ready. Open Office has been giving me problems. I miss my real Office. Still haven’t installed a legit version on my computer, yet. It’s all a matter of time. Time – the thing I lack most right now. What I wouldn’t do for a 25th hour each day…

But for now, I think I’m just going to call it a night.

Sweet dreams.

We Were Expecting…

The calls came in. Two or three of them, but all I needed was one job offer. I’d accept almost anything that paid more than minimum wage and didn’t involve me explaining to large women that we sold junior sized clothing and maybe she’d like to try a XXL? [I, myself, as I always pointed out, was wearing a large.]

I had my first real job interview. It was in the business side of town, in a tall building. The interview was as a phone and computer operator for the Hawaiian telephone company. I wasn’t sure what the job entailed, but it didn’t seem too hard and I was happy that I had this interview.

I was excited as I wore slacks and a button down shirt, riding the bus downtown. (I ditched the bike so I wouldn’t arrive all sweaty.) I entered the building and the receptionist pointed me into the waiting room. I sat on a chair, feet firmly on the ground, hands in my lap, trying not to fidget too much. I waited. About five minutes later a woman in her late thirties or early forties came into the room. She called my name. [Here's the part where I mention that I've got a guy's name. In Israel, it's unisex, but somehow in the states, it's exclusively a man's name.] I stood up. She looked around the empty room and called my name again. I said “that’s me.” She looked at me and I repeated my name, reassuring her it was I she was looking for. “Oh,” she started to stammer, glancing down at my resume, “we were expecting a… uh, someone taller.” Her face flushed and I knew she meant “a man”. “I’m very tall,” I reassured her, “especially when wearing heels.” I joked at my own expense. I’d need really high heels to be taller than my 152 cm [5'1"] allowed me.

A few days later I got a call that they were interesting in continuing the hiring process and sent me to do drug tests. I wasn’t all that crazy about the company and the first woman’s lack of tact, but I went and did the drug test as requested. I still needed a decent paying job. Long hours at the store, knowing it really wasn’t worth the effort, wasn’t doing me much good.

Before I got the results from the drug test back, I got called into another interview. This one was at Decision Research Corporation and they were a small computer company. They were looking for a database administrator when they saw my resume. During the interview, they seemed pleased with my knowledge of SQL and Oracle and the fact that I served in the IDF’s intelligence unit. I was hired on the spot.

Next time the phone company called, I rejected their offer, telling them I had already found employment elsewhere. They seemed mad at the fact that I wasted their time and money, but I didn’t feel too bad about it.

I started working at DRC almost immediately. I was left on my own most of the time. It was a strange feeling of independence, mixed in with the fear that I would somehow screw things up and prove to be a bad employee. I kept the job at the store for a few more weeks, only working weekends. I didn’t want to burn my life line in case DRC decided I was a fluke.

Within a few weeks I was starting to feel more confident with my job at DRC and I was pretty sure they wouldn’t be firing me soon. At the same time, I was still working weekends at the store, getting irritated by having to serve fat customers who wanted me to tell them how great that t-shirt looked on them and trying to convince them to buy more. One Saturday, an extremely large woman came into the store. As Kim, the other sales chick, was already busy with another customer, I tended to the large woman, explaining that we probably don’t have shirts that would fit her, but our shirts do make lovely gifts. She kept on insisting that she wanted to see so and so shirts in a medium. No way in heaven or in hell would she fit into a medium, but under Kim’s glare of “give the customer what she wants”, I gave her the shirts she requested. As she tried them on in the tiny fitting room, I could hear her grunts as she tried to wedge her way into the small shirts. Eventually, she came out, shirts fully stretched, the graphics distorted and said “Your shirts are shit. Look at this crappy quality.” I looked at Kim. She was dealing with a customer. “Our shirts are great quality,” I started. “We sell JUNIOR sizes! If you weren’t such a fat cow, you might be able to fit into one of our shirts, but you even refuse to try on a larger size – so what the hell do you expect?!” I found myself raising my voice until I was almost shouting. Kim had turned away from her customer and was glaring at me. I knew that look meant I was fired and so I just walked out of the store. Three days later I got a call from Kim, telling me I was fired and that they would appreciate it if I would stay away from the David & Goliath chain of stores. I could pick up my check at the end of next week, just don’t forget to turn my sales chick shirt in before I do.

I never did hand in my sales chick shirt. I did pick up the last paycheck, though. I also stole a bunch of buttons and stickers before I left. Nothing really expensive, but it was fun. They had a tank top that had two coconuts on the chest and said “Shake Your Coconuts!” (see my logo!) I really liked it, but I never did buy it. $20 for a tank top seemed a bit pricey, especially when workers don’t get a discount. Besides, they fired me, so I shouldn’t be giving them back my money, cause if you do the math, I would have had to work almost six hours in order to pay for the damn tank top! So not worth it.

Privacy, Please

I never imagined that it would be so damn hard to blog without a computer.

Or life, in general. Suddenly, my Google calendar isn’t constantly reminding me of events, birthdays and other random things I don’t remember on my own. Suddenly it seems that all my time is free and as it slips between my fingers, the lost time just beyond my grasp, I remember three more things I should have done yesterday. And in the movie of my life, the Beatles are singing “Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away…”

Checking email is hard. People are coming up with creative ways of getting spam past the filter and you can never know what emails will await you or who will be looking over your shoulder to see what you’re doing and why you aren’t working and being productive. Cause G-d forbid, for one second, I should do something personal on the lab computer, not to mention if I’ve accidentally opened an email inviting me to try V1AgrA!

Which brings me to blogging. I enjoy writing. I’ve blogged before on various topics and I can usually get to a level of comfort where I blog very intimately as I share my thoughts with readers. But there’s something wonderful about not knowing who you are. Cause, despite how personal and intimate I get, there’s always a bit of distance between us and while you’ll never know who I am, I don’t feel judged by you, which gives me this freedom.

Blogging while on a public computer is especially hard as I feel that I’m sitting there, stark naked, typing. Which is not far from true, because if I were blogging on my own computer, in the privacy of my own room, I probably would be nude (which is very different from naked), sitting on a towel, damp and fresh out of the shower, during those lazy minutes right before bed, as I unwind and relax from a long, hard day.

Here, I feel as if I’m being watched. Eyes are staring at the screen from straight behind  me, reading every word I type, scrutinizing, analyzing. I can feel them on me, despite being in the back row of the computer room. I don’t feel safe and comfortable.

I really miss having my own computer. Today I called the technician. He told me my laptop is beyond repair and that I should think of investing in a new computer. It’s a nice idea. Now I only need the money. Talk is cheap, computers aren’t. I’ve been networking, trying to get someone to help me out by donating an old computer. So far a few friends have offered but the road to hell is paved with good intentions and I still haven’t received a single computer. Friends also suggested things like selling a kidney and renting out my uterus or, gasp!, finding a job. When it boils down to that, I’m probably more likely to consider selling a kidney. Besides, in order to find a job I need internet access and a resume, which was so nicely typed and stored on my old computer. Oh, laptop, how I miss you!

The Fine Art of Procrastination and Printers That Don’t Work

Being computer-less, I decided to spend the weekend at my grandparents’ house. Aside from good food, they have a working computer, which is a definite plus. Don’t get me wrong – my mom’s home also houses a computer. Three, in fact. But, being that I’m not as computer savvy as my younger brother, I’m not allowed to use either of his two computers, for fear that I’ll download a malicious virus. (Reminds me of that illustration of a little boy and girl and he says to her “No, you can’t touch. You already broke yours off.”) My mother, the computer addict, always needs her computer. She can be talking on the phone, cooking lunch, watching the news on tv and doing three other tasks all at once, but she still needs her computer for G-d only knows what. Should I use it to check email and take too long, she needs it. Now.

At the start of every new semester I make a resolution that this semester I’ll start doing my homework the day it’s assigned instead of the day it’s supposed to be handed in. It’s never held past the first two weeks and this semester is starting no different. It’s Saturday and I’m only starting the assignments I have to hand in on Sunday and Monday. (Ok, still haven’t started the assignment for Monday, but I hope to get to it by the end of the day.)

Tried to turn on my grandpa’s printer. Doesn’t work. Bleep, bleep, dead.

The assignment is due Sunday morning at 9:30 am. If I head back to campus tonight, I could probably get into one of the computer farms, print it and have it ready before I go to bed. But then again, that would miss the point of procrastinating. Instead, I know myself all too well. I’ll set my alarm clock for 7:30, giving me plenty of time to push snooze a few times. By the time I wake, it’ll be nearing 8:30 or even 8:45 if I’m feeling very risky (lazy). I’ll jet into the shower, toss on a pair of shorts, tank top (apparently no one informed the fall that it’s supposed to come), flip flops and run to the biology computer farm, only to find out that the printer is out of toner/paper or just plain doesn’t want to work. If luck is on my side, my lab instructor’s printer will work and he will be kind enough to let me print. But, being it a Sunday, and Sunday’s usually don’t start too well, his printer won’t work either and as I think up some lame excuse, jetting to class, walking in ten minutes late, sans homework, bumping into a desk, attracting unnecessary attention, I find a place between my two friends, who have already handed their homework in and I curse myself for not having called one of them, asking to print my homework just this once…