Rant #3,769: Computer Games

This past weekend was a whirlwind of good things and bad things all smashed together...

But I am very happy to say that the good things, for once, won out.

My son's birthday was on Saturday, so we took him out to eat dinner at a local eatery of his choice.

That outing made things all the more better for me, as on Friday afternoon, my iMac computer kind of went on a permanent vacation.

Oh, it still worked, but it wasn't doing certain things that I wanted it to do, as it has been doing for the past nine years.

Yes, there were warning signs, but these signs lasted for years, and I was able to surmount the problems, somehow.

But in Friday afternoon, it kind of went "Sayonara" on me, and I frantically tried to work on it, to no avail.

I was confounded, but I had planned for the inevitable.

My old work computer--another iMac--was offered to me when my company went out of business, and I grabbed it as quickly as it was offered to me.

I used the computer sparingly for the past nearly six years, and it pretty much was dormant since late 2020 or so.

When I transported the computer to my house from my old work, I had a lot of stuff from work all over the back seat, including the computer, and I seem to remember that it either fell off the back seat or something fell on it, and whatever happened, I took it out of my car with a slight crack in the screen.

Well, it since has been moved from the old house to our first apartment in the development we now live in, and from that first apartment to the apartment we are in now.

The screen crack spread, and now, a good part of the screen is slightly cracked ... but the cracks are so hairline that you can't see them unless you are right on top of the screen and the background allows for it.

Anyway, on Saturday, on my son's birthday, I worked on it off and on, getting this new/old computer up to snuff.

Let me tell you, it was very, very difficult.

On Friday night, I tried to launch a program, which I had used before, to transfer all my files over, but to no avail--it simply wouldn't work.

So literally on Friday night through Sunday afternoon, I was transferring files from one computer to another using a thumb drive, transfers which often crashed while I transferred over these files 

While I was doing this, I was trying to load various programs that I use on the computer, and some worked, some didn't, and on Saturday, I stayed up to 1:30 a m. trying to get everything right.

On Sunday, we had my son's 30th birthday party, and in between everything I had to do related to this get-together--we had more than 20 attendees--I was transferring files over and trying to get programs to run.

I managed to get 95 percent of it done by early Sunday afternoon as our guests arrived--

In between getting the birthday cake and picking up my aunt from the Long Island Rairoad station.

I smartly put everything on hold as our guests poured in, but the problems were still there 

There were still a few devices I could not, for the life of me, get to work, including my printer and scanner.

After my son blew out the candles on his birthday cake and our guests were enjoying their dessert, I asked my nephew--who pretty much oversees Geek Squad for most of New York City and New Jersey--for help, because the printer simply would not work.

I knew what had to be done, but I simply could not do it myself.

It took him about a minute, and the printer was fixed and working properly.

On Monday morning, I figured out the scanner, and a little later, my turntable was up and running, and I was able to digitize an album late in the afternoon after I did my work fir the day.

There are still some problems with this computer--including that it is a bit slow, I think having to do with its nearly six years of inactivity--and some new ways of doing things, but it works, and it will certainly do for now--

But I did have some trouble shutting it down yesterday evening, but again, for now, it will do 

The party went even better than I could have hoped, and this little bit/lotta bit of agita is done, so I am looking forward to the rest of the week--

Except for today, when I have to cover a conference on the West Coast.

Keeping this computer was a smart idea, even if it looks like it has been through hell.

It is fun to digitize my records, but let's be honest about it--

I desperately need this computer for work, so I don't care what it looks like ...

If it works, it works.

I almost feel like Dr. Frankenstein, who put together, piece by piece, The Monster, and got him going with the electricity produced by a thunderstorm, which shot through the creature via the nodes on his neck.

Me, I took a computer from the scrap heat, warts and all, and resuscitated it by putting its plug in the elextric socket in the wall.

Whether this computer will act like "The Monster" or "Herman Munster" is anyone's guess.