Last Week Was Weird. Discuss.

So—I don’t know if it was because of some eclipse that was supposedly going on (I never know about eclipses-- isn't the sun supposed to go dark?), or because Stephan was in Argentina where it was winter during summer, thus rendering everything back home Bizarro world, but last week?  Weird.

First off, and I know I’ve mentioned this before but please bear with me because it’s still going in, my computer continued the Great Meltdown of 2009, and I was forced to totally wipe out the PC side and build the whole thing up again just as a Mac.  Because, believe you me, if you get a MacBook, and you try to partition it to be both a PC AND a Mac just because you think it will be neato, and then you end up using the PC side a lot, eventually it will act like a boy who you dress in pink dresses because you really wanted a girl. 

That’s right—eventually the transgendered Mac/PC that you have created will throw off the dresses once and for all and be like “Stop it Mom!  You can’t force me to be something I’m not!” and will then proceed to rob you of your valuables and run away forever. 

And that, my friends, was what happened last week, when the PC side of the transgendered Mac/ PC caught a horrendous virus and proceeded to eat itself, piece by piece, until all I could do was boot it up and frantically pull files off of it until it completely froze up and died again.  My own fault, really.

It took me two days, but I did manage to salvage all of my files—everything except my Quicken files, which (sadly) contained five years’ worth of data.  Well, to be fair, I did salvage that file, but the version of Quicken for Mac is only up to 2007, so the data I have saved in the 2009 PC version apparently isn’t backward-compatible, which totally sucks.  If you or someone you know has a solution to this problem, I would love to hear it, because I am not looking forward to re-building that monolith of information.

But, onward and upward.  At least I didn’t lose everything, and let me tell you, it was dicey there for a minute or two.  So, because I bought my MacBook the very moment before the Leopard upgrade, I first had to get that and install it to even be able to wipe the PC partition.  I went to the UCLA bookstore to get this, and that’s when……

I drove over tire spikes in the UCLA garage.

Yes, that’s right.  I drove over tire spikes.  Don’t laugh, because one day it will happen to you. You’ll be driving along, thinking about your poor dead PC and all the work you’re going to have to do to build your system back up, and you’ll drive into an entrance you think you’ve driven in a thousand times, and only right before you actually drive over the tire spikes will you see the sign, only it won’t make sense, because you’ve driven in this entrance a thousand times, and then….pop!    And when you call Toyota roadside assistance and mention the tire spikes, the customer service rep will say "Um....were you being pursued by law enforcement at the time?"

This is another “bad news/ not such bad news” situation, because after I waited for roadside maintenance to come and help me, they told me that a minor miracle had occurred—that only ONE of my tires had been damaged, and that the hole was so small it could probably be patched.  So—they put the spare on (because they were there already, not because I don’t know how), I drove to a gas station, and the awesome repair-shop guys (who just happened to be there at 8:45 at night) repaired it for under $20.  Not bad, considering I drove the wrong way into row of tire spikes that had a red sign and the words SEVERE TIRE DAMAGE.

Note:  I don’t think I would try this if I were you, as your results will probably not be as favorable.  Like I said, it was Bizarro Week.

So, I get the tire fixed, and the next day I get Leopard, which gets installed and works well.  I kill the PC side, even though it hurts me and I am a little obsessed that there’s something I forgot to save.  I start re- building the system, which is good.  I get a call that my friend who works on The Closer wants me to come and be a murder victim in a photo shoot on Friday, which is also weird, but in a good way this time.

But then—the pendulum shifts back.  More weirdness, this time not so good. My credit card company calls.  Someone has randomly gotten ahold of one of my credit card numbers (which is now destroyed, but the card for which was in my wallet the whole time), and has attempted to make THOUSANDS of dollars worth of jewelry purchases, like some old-timey Jewel Heist kind of thief.   I don’t know how they did this and I don’t really want to know, and you shouldn’t either, because everyone in the fraud department of my credit card company was ALL OVER this case because of the large numbers involved.  This is weird too, because I think if I were a credit card number stealing-type person, I might keep my purchases conservative (like gas and Target, for instance), instead of trying to make a purchase so big it’s GUARANTEED to make the fraud protection department call you, even if that is your real credit card.  I do have one charge I have to contest and now I have to change all my “automatic billing” type things, but again, bad news/ not such bad news, right?

On Friday, I played a slasher victim in a photo shoot for The Closer, which was at once weird and awesome.  Actually, I just laid on the floor of a laundry room and had my photo taken, and apparently they add the gore later in PhotoShop, which you know is going RIGHT up on this blog the minute after the episode airs on the 24^th.   In case you’re looking for me, I am in the murder book that is in the Season Finale episode airing on August 24^th.  I am slashed in a patterned Diane Von Furstenburg wrap dress, in case you want to pause your Tivo.

Luckily, Stephan and his cousin returned from Argentina on Friday morning, thus ending the week of weirdness.  I’m telling you, everything has been totally normal ever since then—machinery is functioning normally, computers are working, projects are getting done, and the world is once again rotating on its proper axis. 

Anyone else have examples of weirdness last week?  I am genuinely curious about this.  I am not talking about regular, run of the mill weirdness.  I am talking about transgendered PC, tire spikes, jewel heist, “I am a slasher victim on The Closer” weirdness.    Bring it!

Comments

[Shannon]

Oh my Lord. That's all. Just...oh my Lord.

[Rachel]

Last week was kind of a shit storm, but I don't remember exactly why.

Today kind of sucks, as I spent a few minutes of it lying on the 10, pinned under a 500 pound bike. But the damage to me and my bike is minimal, so that's good.

In other news, I'm kind of daydreaming about your writer's retreat location. If you need someone to test drive the location, hit me up. I've been trying to do some writing lately, and although it's going well, I totally have writing ADD and can only get miniscule amounts done at a time before I decide I need to watch tv, pet my cat, or clean my house. Or just spend copious amounts of time daydreaming that I had enough money to quit my job and write and nap all day. I've been thinking a lot about the book you had me read (I won't put any spoilers here) and trying to implement some things into my life. So far not so good, but I'm kind of waiting for the aforementioned shit storm to blow over.

[Kimberly]

You should try using VMWare Fusion (http://www.vmware.com/products/fusion/) for running your Windows-based applications on your Mac, now that you've upgraded your Mac OS. We've got 2 MacBook Pros and both have this setup and they have worked really well for a couple of years now. The only thing that I find is kind of painful is running programs like Flash and FreeHand, so I've been slowly getting the Mac version of all of my graphics stuff. Otherwise, it works like a charm & has lots of nice features (like making your Windows apps look like they are just another window on your Mac desktop).

I swear I do not work for VMWare! BTW, Quicken for Mac has several missing features the last time I checked, like it won't import stock information for some reason.