Lonelier than Writing

My Windows registry is so corrupt it makes the Bush Justice Department look honest.

Blew an entire day getting organized, backing up whatever I could from the hard disk, compiling a couple of emergency CDs for the restoration process, making sure I had reg numbers for all the programs I’d need to reinstall. I’m still not quite finished.

Norton Ghost balked at the space available to it for backup on my external hard drive, so I ordered a larger one from Amazon — like that’s where I need to be spending money right now. (But I’m seriously wondering whether I should replace the internal drive, as well.)

It’s all a very lonely and unrewarding enterprise. Eventually, I hope, there’ll be a victory over bad data to celebrate, but it’s still at least a day away.

It’s been five years since the ex left, I think. I find myself both missing and resenting her a lot tonight. Isn’t that strange?

10 Responses to “Lonelier than Writing”

  1. Fred Chamberlain Says:

    Rhetorical question, I’m sure…. but it isn’t strange at all. 7 months since my engagament was called off and I have similar feelings and then some….. and I’m minus the computer skills you mentioned on your end. sigh

  2. Brian Spence Says:

    I’m becoming bitter towards women in general. I have no problems getting dates, it’s the effort involved in keeping a girl around that’s the problem. I have no patience for it anymore after the past bunch of heartbreaking relationships.

    Honestly, my catholic upbringing keeps guilting me into getting married, but I don’t think I’m willing to budge on the things I like to do (the aforementioned soccer, comics, gaming, bar hopping). I also think about how I wouldn’t be in school right now study a subject I love (graphic design), nor have a cool job with NATO that lets me travel all over the world.

    By the way, I see it says this post is filed under Technullogy. Typo, or how you’re feeling about your pc these days?

  3. Justin Newberry Says:

    I just built a new computer and as such no longer need my old IDE hard drives (SATA, baby. All about the SATA now!). I have a 320 Gb Western Digital and a 160 Gb Seagate. Let me know if either would be of use to you and I’ll gladly donate one (or both) once I’ve finished moving all my important documents (porn) off them and wipe them (unless you’re interested in lots of free porn). I’m up in the northwest part of town, so it’d be no problem for me to drop them by your mailbox (or I could have Tony over at JRL give them to Mary). Which reminds me, I have to find Tony’s number and ask him if he got those copies of Super to you guys.

    On the femme front (what the hell, everyone else seems to be talking about it), I haven’t had a real relationship in 8 years (sporadic dating, but nothing serious) and the only woman I’ve met in all that time that I can stand for more than a few hours is currently living in Reno. Granted, it ain’t like she’s in China, but c’mon man, if I ever leave my city for a woman, it sure as hell won’t result in my living in a knockoff version of Vegas.

  4. Alex Krislov Says:

    Steve, I recently learned that a woman I was briefly engaged to passed away a bit over a year ago.

    And I still find myself with some ill feelings toward her. And I’d like to see her again, too.

    After 24 years.

    The world is too much with usGetting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
    Little we see in Nature that is ours;
    We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!

  5. Brian Spence Says:

    Oh, and try crapcleaner. It’s supposed to help out your registry and other junk too.

  6. Steve Gerber Says:

    Wednesday, 4:53 AM. Windows has been reinstalled, along with necessary drivers and a few utility programs.

    It’s a start.

  7. Fred Chamberlain Says:

    uh oh Steve… I just had this image of you in an orange hard hat at the top of a pole.

  8. jb Says:

    I don’t know what all your software needs are beyond MS Word, but have you ever considered linux? You can download a live CD distro of Ubuntu to try it out. I’ve been running a dual boot laptop for over 2 years now but the only thing I use the windows side for is PC games. Ubuntu covers all my work needs and online activity without me ever having to worry about registry corruption, adware and viruses.

  9. Steve Gerber Says:

    Justin: Can one machine run both SATA and IDE drives? The primary hard drive in my own system is also SATA.

    If it’s not possible to run the two types in one machine, and you don’t have any other plans for those IDE drives, I probably know someone who could put them to good use.

  10. justin newberry Says:

    See now, if you’d have just emailed me, you wouldn’t have had to wait for me to get bored at work on Sunday night to find out you replied to my other post.

    The answer to your question depends on how many cd/dvd readers/burners you have. I’m currently running just the one, so I have an extra slot on my IDE ribbon to “slave” a hard drive to, which is how I’m getting all my old data transferred.

    Let me know who needs ’em, since they’re available. (Quick, before I do something crazy, like build a back-up computer!)