Well. There is good news, and there is bad news. I will start with the bad news.
A week ago wednesday, I got back from class with my laptop, plugged it into the mess of wires on my desk (printer/scanner, mouse, power) and went about my business. The computer was at about 50% power, as I’ve been taking it to my drawing class to pull up photos I’ve been working from and it’s not worth carrying the charger too.
An hour or so later, it hasn’t charged at all. I mess with the charger, I make sure everything’s plugged in right, and it still won’t charge. Good news is, it isn’t losing power–it seems to be maintaining the current level. I assume it’s a battery problem or a charger problem, and I’m frustrated but I’m going home soon and I’ll figure this out later because things are too busy and I don’t have time for computer problems.
Time passes. The computer doesn’t charge. By Saturday morning, it is dead completely. It will no longer take power.
The people at the computer place tell me that the battery seems fine, the charger is fine, and the port that it plugs into is fine. So there’s something else wrong, and on my two year old mac book they don’t advise paying to fix it. I’ve already had a hard drive failiure this fall; I can keep pouring money into the machine if I want to but it’s not going to make it a brand new, perfectly running, flawlessly behaving computer again for long.
I am not dealing with this right now. There is too much going on, too much to do, and this isn’t a decicion I want to make. But I am probably going to be getting a new computer this winter, and it will probably not be another mac, much as I have loved these last two computers. It is not a cost I’m wanting, but I’ll make it my christmas present to myself and get over my frustration at all of this. There’s nothing I can do about it now.
The good news is my dead hard drive. It’s back, mostly. A few files are gone, a few are corrupted, but most of them are there. With them is a shiny new external hard drive, which will hopefully be helping protect me from data loss for years to come. I pulled up some of my files using my mom’s computer the other night, and it’s really wonderful to have all this writing back.
What this means for the comic is that I will be using the Library’s scanners again, probably for the rest of the run of Emma and the Fairy Queen. I don’t personally like the look and feel of the pages I scan on there quite as well, but they’re servicable. What it also means is that I have back two different in-progress scripts for stories to follow Emma with, and I can start putting some more time and energy into those in the next couple of weeks. Finishing Emma is something I am both excited and scared about, but as we are nearing the end of Chapter 3 and I’m looking forward to Chapter 4 and the end of the story, it is a future that is less distant.
I hope your Thanksgivings have all been going wonderfully, with much time spent with friends and family. I wish you health, happiness, and none of my recent computer related bad luck.