Wednesday, October 19, 2011

I Byte

All of my trouble started with a virus that hijacked my laptop and held it hostage for 3 days. Fortunately, it wasn't anything that a simple system restore couldn't handle....or so I thought. Because of a series of events in the last 3 months, I think that virus didn't only invade my laptop, but myself as well. You see, at my house we have a new solution if ever anything that runs by electrical current won't work or isn't working correctly, and it goes something like this, "Did Mom touch it?" If the answer is "Yes" then you have your solution. It is either broken for good or broken badly enough that it will cost you a significant amount of money to make it ever work again.

Apparently, I have the touch of death for any and all electronics. Take a look at my list of casualties:

-Laptop fan
-Left front turn signal
-New cell phone
-Left rear turn signal
-Van automatic door latch on passenger side
-A crashed hard drive... for which I weep. Nothing was recoverable. In the technicians words "it is fried". A company in California tells me that they have a clean room where they can open it up, take the platforms out and retrieve the information for $755 for jpeg files and up to $2800 for any other files. (Sniff, sniff.) And yes, it had to die the day I had the external hard drive out ready to back up files.
So the lesson learned through this ordeal is for all of you procrastinators (like me) out there, I suggest you take the route I did and shell out $59/year to Carbonite. $59 beats $2800 any day and the best part is that I don't even have to think about it.
-Van door signal. Try driving around for 3 days with that constant "ping, ping, ping" ringing throughout the confined space of a car- I about drove up the road to the State Hospital and committed myself.
-Playroom DVD player.
-The replacement DVD player for the previous playroom DVD player.
-E-reader
-Van radio
-Refridgerator ice maker. It is amazing what a misplaced plastic bag can do. Just trust me on this one.
-Richard's ipod touch
-One of our phone handsets
-And this weeks victim, my good lap top's screen.

I wish I knew what a system restore for me would entail. I'm sure it involves an exotic location, lots of down time, and large quantities of delicious foods, so in other words, it's out of the question. But seriously, this is getting to be ridiculous, not to mention expensive, and I'm running out of ideas to cope with my new condition.

 Do you think the Amish would take me?


PS- I am not liable for anything that may happen to any electronic devices used in the commenting on this post. Please, comment at your own risk. ;)

7 comments:

K said...

Actually, I believe that some people do have a personal electric field around them that does screw up tech. We had a client/musician who seemed to do the same thing with studio equipment. Maybe it's the static electricity he was packing - or you are. But I think different people interact very differently with tech - I can feel the electricity in my sewing machine, or even my stove top - my hand runs across the machine and i feel the jitter in my nerves. If I put a metal bowl to mix in on top of the stove, I can feel the jitter through the bowl. So maybe there's truth to this.

Rob and Marseille said...

lol...post at own risk. hopefully your bad luck is over soon!

Chastina said...

What a pain! Hope you can find a way to release your energy in a positive way. ;)

Anonymous said...

A similar thing happened to me a few years ago...lesson learned; luckily, I was able to salvage many of my files though.

The Nixons said...

SUCH BAD LUCK! Luckilly you are such an amazing woman and can handle it well.

Linda Chatwin said...

That is about the funniest thing I've read fire a long time. I wish I had recorded the funny things my kids said, of course all of the cute things I would never forget, I have now forgotten.:(

Rachel said...

Oh Naaaat! If you do move and live with the Amish take me. I've always wanted to live by them. Seriously!!

According to Clark W. I'm halfway there. ;) Me and the fam sittin' like a bunch of Amish in our bench at church.......... Hee hee!