Blessed by the Potato

Nothing seemed to be going right for me this week, especially when it came to electronics.

First, my home desktop broke down with no video, the problem appearing to be a combination of the motherboard, video card, and possibly power supply, so I went and ordered a whole new computer for myself as a bit of a birthday present.

Then, the DVD burner on my work computer died (I still have a DVD-ROM on that system, so the situation isn’t too dire).

My laptop pulled through, but it crashed a number of times the next day, including some very strange video errors that made me think the video card on it was dying, too.

Then my new computer arrived, and after putting it together, it wouldn’t boot with my old hard drive (one of the few parts I kept from the old computer). I spent all day trying to get the drivers right and repairing windows and slipstreaming, and just nothing. So after giving up the next day, I did a fresh install of windows, only to find that the brand-new PC-Cillin 2008 disc I picked up doesn’t support XP SP3. (Fortunately, Trend Micro upgraded me to 2009)

At work, I use a piece of hospital equipment for my research, but only get it when it’s not being used to treat patients, which is generally the middle of the night. It’s tough to find volunteers to participate in my study even at 11pm and 1am, but I managed to fill all four time slots last night: 11pm, 1am, 3am, and 5am (ending at 7am), the first time I’ve managed to book 4 people for a single night. Things were finally looking up: this one busy, hellish night was going to pay dividends in getting me that much closer to finishing my thesis. Then, halfway through the first person, my equipment broke down. Just gave an error message and stopped working. Then I’m left cancelling all these people, trying to get a hold of them in the middle of the night so they don’t waste their time coming in, in addition to not having my equipment and losing out on all that time…

So tonight is our Halloween party. I talk to my mom on the phone beforehand, and she mentions that she’d like me to print some of the photos I took of the trees changing colours. My camera, which she got me for xmas last year, is just fricking great. It takes amazing pictures, a few of which I’ve printed as 8×10’s and framed. So of course, praising the camera today has cursed it, and at the end of the party I set the camera on a bookshelf to take a timer shot with Wayfare and I in it… and the camera falls off the bookshelf and hits the floor. I’m thinking it’s no big deal: I’m not generally too gentle on my equipment, since I figure it’s got to be made to handle the rigours of everyday life, and a 4′ drop is not that serious. Nope, the camera’s dead. The motor that focuses and retracts the lens when it shuts down won’t operate, so it can’t focus on anything and I can’t retract the lens to shut it down.

Fortunately, my parents got the extended warranty from Black’s when they bought it for me (it must have been a freebie, since they never bother with extended warranties). I should hear back soon if it can be repaired…