The Universe Is a Funny Place

My laptop finally died yesterday. No surprise, really — I’ve been completely abusing it for the better part of the past four years.

Spent most of the day trying to get the machine to boot so I could salvage some much-needed data. After several dozen attempts and a little too much time hacking my way around the command line, I managed to boot from CD and transfer a bunch of files to a thumbnail drive before the computer crashed again. I might try to resuscitate it once more to grab a few more files, but then again, I might not: the book files are safe, and there is a certain liberation in starting from scratch on other fronts.

Rebuilt a “spare” laptop today. Got the Internet connection running, upgraded to XP SP2 (it’s an older machine that hasn’t been used in some time), and installed Firefox so at least I can surf and blog. Transferred files from the thumbnail drive. I’ll install MS Office tomorrow so I can get back to work on the book. Not quite the way I’d expected to spend the weekend, but there it is.

On a brighter note, I did get to see the new Bond flick with Daniel Craig. If you’re into the slick gadgetry of the Pierce Brosnan era, this one might not be your cup of tea. If, however, you’re more partial to the grittiness of early Sean Connery, you’ll probably like it. I know I did.

Busted laptops, a blond James Bond. The universe is a funny place, but where else are you gonna go?

On this day…

• 2007: Dogs and Gigs — I’m trying to branch out a little in my writing. They say you shouldn’t put all your baseballs in one [...]