Showing posts with label apple. Show all posts
Showing posts with label apple. Show all posts

Poor Lucy, poor me.

Posted in Labels: ,
6:14 AM
I spoke too soon.  Saturday I was web-browsing with Lucy toasty and warm in my lap and then things got slow.  Firefox came to a halt.  I got moderately annoyed but reminded myself that my new RAM was on the way.  I closed her and set her aside.

She sat and charged a while.  I opened her back up yesterday to resume my normal activities and the same windows were still open, obviously.  I attempted to "Force Quit", to no avail.  No response to any of my commands.  Frustrated, I held the power button for a reset.

And then it happened.  Or didn't happen.  That's kind of the issue.

The spokes on my "loading" wheel turn and turn and the screen changes (eventually) from gray to blue...  but that is the extent of Lucy's activity.  A cursor appears on the screen after about 10 minutes, but it's a blank blue screen.  Nothing to click.  Nothing to do.  I've gone through the steps about 20 times now.  I've researched suggestions for this particular issue.  All to no avail.  If you hold down certain keys on boot you see other screens, kind of like a behind-the-scenes peek at what is happening during the loading process.  My screens display messages that imply my hard drive has failed.

"disk0s3: i/o error." - doesn't that just sound horrifying?  I don't have a clue what it means, but if you google it you find a bunch of traumatized Apple loyalists trying desperately to salvage their computers via "help" forums.  All of the "help" gurus mention hard disk failure, which can only really be fixed by replacing the HD.  And the HD can only really be replaced by a professional (Apple Store: we don't got) or a really ballsy PB enthusiast who is pretty certain he/she can replace it without destroying the machine.  Plus it costs more money.  And I'm not sure how I feel about all this money I am pumping into my outdated machine.  So far the battery was $49, the RAM $29, and if I were to tack in a new HD, that'd be close to another $100, plus the power cord replacement she really needs.  Is it worthwhile?  Do I even bother?  I mean, certainly $200 is cheaper than replacing the entire computer...  But she'd still just be a PowerBook G4, circa 2004 or so, with fairly limited functionality as far as things go these days.

Oh, and thinking that I might be able to boot using the OS restore disk that came with dear little Jimmy MacElroy (since Lucy's original [outdated] software restore disks are packed away somewhere that isn't here) I stuck disc 1 into the drive on Lucy.  And there it remains.  None of the emergency eject features even work.  Which panics me further.  I don't want to be without that software.

I am just sad.  Totally sad.  We had something special, Lucy and me.  And now it's fading away.
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Lucy

Posted in Labels: ,
8:11 PM
$40 bought me a replacement battery on ebay, and I just spent $29 on an additional 1GB RAM. All that's be left to buy is a new power adapter (which I've been scoping out and it looks like I'll be able to get one for $50 or less) and Lucy will be like new. Lucy and I have a bond. We've been through a lot. I've broken her a couple of times, she's pooped out on me once or twice, but somehow we always find our ways back to each other - Lucy warm and toasty in my lap and me with hands poised over the most comfortable, familiar keyboard in existence, eyes fixed on the LCD. Yes, I am a computer geek. More appropriately, I'm a Mac Geek.

Before we left California, we took her to an Apple Store to diagnose a long overdue issue that rendered her useless for over a year. (What can I say, I was lazy about it!) The Genius at the Genius Bar in Thousand Oaks literally repaired her free of charge in 10 minutes and sent me on my way. He said to me as he corrected the issue (which basically was that the battery needed to be reset and the OS needed to be reinstalled), "This is the most well-loved notebook model that Apple has ever come out with, statistically." And I literally almost cried when I agreed and said to him that my PowerBook G4 was like my little sidekick.

She's old. She's speckled, she's dented. But she's mine. And I think that I'll forever love this silly old computer.
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imac, do you?

Posted in Labels: , ,
11:02 AM
I have successfully corrupted Mark just the right amount. He laughs with me at the Mac/PC commercials. We discuss why Apple is better. (God, I love that man.)

The other day, against all better judgment, we finally bought the iMac we had been coveting for the past couple of years - the very computer that caused us to jointly decide to skip birthdays this year, so that we could gift it to eachother on Christmas. It is beautiful.

Even Amaris likes it. (Almost as much as she likes her slippers. And being a nudist.)





Happy Columbus Day! Mark has today and tomorrow off to celebrate Columbus Day. I'm not sure exactly how we are "supposed" to celebrate this holiday, but my goal is to go to "American Village" (which I am pretty sure is Japan's way of making up for us having Chinatown, Little Tokyo, etc back in the 'states.) and explore the pretend American culture. That seems appropriate, right? American Village has a huge slow moving ferris wheel and I am told that if you ride it at night you get a beautiful view of the island.

Yesterday we went to a tug of war festival in Naha and that was pretty cool... Well, from what I could see. Apparently the rope is gigantic and such. But there were so many people that the rope was pretty much unviewable - unless you are Mark, who insisted on grabbing hold of the rope and "helping," later on he climbed on top of it and "rode" it, but I missed that because he was so swept up in the crowd. By the time the rope was the main event, we'd had lunch and Amaris was tired and bored and ready to leave. But up until then we had a fun time exploring the area - lots of shopping and such. We saw Habu Sake for the first time, which was totally creepy, and I literally had nightmares about Habu snakes last night.

No matter, Amaris had a good time hanging with her favorite couple of Cassidys - apparently that is a highly popular name, as two of our friends here in Okinawa have daughters named Cassidy. Amaris enjoys both of them. And she enjoys saying "Cassa-ee!" - so much that whenever one of them is brought up, all we hear about from her is "Cassa-ee!" over and over again until she falls asleep and/or forgets about the mention. So she had a fun time hanging out with them at the tug of war thing yesterday.

And Ronald. And just so you know, that Ronald is NOT in front of a McDonalds (Makoro Donoro's, if you're Okinawan). He was chained to a bench outside of a store that sold all sorts of ethnic novelty foods. Everybody can go ahead and expect MRE-style Taco Rice for Christmas from us this year. Taco rice is the shit. And it is extremely popular in Okinawa. For good reason! They have it packaged like astronaut (or US troop - whichever you are in the mood for) style food packages for sale there. Holy awesomeness.

Clearly from the photos above, I am still in pajamas. I need to remedy that.

But before I do that, please enjoy this photo of the fizzing crazy shrimp cocktail we had with our lunch yesterday at Sam's Anchor Inn.

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