New and Improved - or Still Not

I aways find myself talking to my stuff when I pack to/from an assignment. "Will I need this? Use this? Be provided comfort or contentment from this? If I leave this behind will I be sorry?" "Why Do I Have ALL of this?" usually said at 2 am before a 10+ hour drive

This last trip was no exception, fortunately I had a semi grip on the packing leaving the assignment which lead to little re-packing when I reached the house and TAO. Good thing, because while TAOs surgery went well, and his recovery went almost too well, my computer suffered a catastrophic lost of information. Upon hearing the screaming blue streak in the basement, TAO logically pointed out that if I were going to have to reinstall all that information, I should buy a new laptop with more bells, whistles, processors, and such. Right, but I'm not ready to go Fruit yet (willing but not ready) which leads to the PC option. Despite it's having been on the market for more than a year, I still hear mumbled cursing from people on the big V system. Having learned computers pre-windows, I hate the new point and click softwares, they've been dumbed down to the point that everything is 9 times more complicated than when you just had to know how to use it. And there isn't a way to circumvent the "idiot friendliness" you just have to slog along clicking here there and everywhere.

The upshot was a new laptop, which hates everything about my old information and has made me really look at my virtual possessions. "Do I use this file often enough to pull it off the harddrive and de-bug it now so it will run in V, or can I leave it for some other day?" The biggest PITA has been, unfortunately, some programs I use daily, and have so far, been a crapshoot as to whether big V will link to it day by day. "What do you mean, file not found?, you freakin found it yesterday and it did not go anywhere in the meantime, because Look, it's right freakin here!" Did I mention that the Search feature has been so improved that it's now just about useless? Unfortunately, I have 678 emails to read, bloglines has sent out a little dog with a cask of brandy and my favourite workout isn't recognized. Not much knitting either.

On the bright side: Due to my anal backing up of stuff, very little "good stuff" was lost, and my niece will receive my old 80 GB laptop with a newly recovered system. Also, the nicest "stuff" in my virtual world -the friends I've made through it- didn't go down with the crash.