After weeks of trying to stab-in-the-dark cure my laptop via YouTube and other online advice, that kept restarting on its own and taking forever to do so, and giving me many other episodes of hair-pulling grief before finally sputtering to kaputland, I finally gave up and brought it to a repair place, that promptly charged me a steep-ish ‘inspection fee’ before texting me soon after that the hard drive is busted and needs to be replaced. “Well, not in the damn near f**king future,” I seethed to myself. I have other commitments that I can’t even take care of at the moment, that are more urgent.
I was really hoping that they might just need to erase everything and reinstall the Windows10 maybe, but that was not to be. I hate Windows! The blasted operating system kept wanting to update itself when I was online. If I wasn’t so damn skint I would had switched over to Apple everything a long time ago but Apple computers and phones are so damn expensive, compared to Windows-run devices.
The Asus laptop was bought brand-new less than 5 years ago! Are things not built to last anymore? It’s probably considered an ancient artifact in the tech world, where some decadent gadget-obsessed people I know wastefully ‘upgrade’ to the newest smartphones every single year, but what about the rest of us who do not give a rat’s ass about such things? I just want things that work and last as long as I take reasonably good care of them. As simple and basic as that.
I’ve never been very bright about tech stuff. Hell, I suspect I’ve never been very bright, period. But it never bothered me, because I’m a good person who treats others as how I would like to be treated, with kindness and respect, and in the clouds in my head where I live, that’s good enough. But I have to admit at times like this I wish I’m more useful and tech-inclined.
So I’m having to write this on my smartphone (another cheapie Asus) and my fingers already hurt two paragraphs ago. I’m the sort of person who gets annoyed by text messages, and if possible respond by calling the sender to talk instead, as I find that so much easier and better than going insane going back and forth texting.
Looking on the bright side, these next months or years of not having a laptop will probably finally force me to get to know my phone and the world of apps better, hopefully making me cleverer about these things eventually. Apps-wise, so far it’s only for Instagram and paying bills that I regularly use the phone for, but now I will have to use it for WordPress and a myriad of other stuff. To be honest I already hate writing this much on my phone, but I have no choice, I will just have to get used to it.
What sucks the most is that I was getting into the swing of designing and illustrating (using those two terms loosely) for t-shirts and stuff for my Redbubble account, mostly using a software called Inkscape I got off the net. I really enjoyed that and was looking forward to continuing exploring different types of design. Well, can’t do that anymore. But you know what, I’m going to research and read up on the different free apps one can draw or design with on the phone, and see if I can use them to create something decently nice, and which can be uploaded to Redbubble from the phone. I have a feeling it’s going to be a pain in the ass (compared to using a computer) but I have to try BECAUSE MY CREATIVITY WILL NOT BE STIFLED! 😭😤🤯🌤️🎉🔙🔛 Haha 😂
The cutesy emojis. I guess I’ll be using them a lot more now. 🤷🏽♂️🤔🧐🙀
Watercolour pencils. Yes I have them somewhere. After many years of not drawing on paper and making other physical ‘artwork’, maybe it’s time to be reacquainted. Hmm I wonder if I can then take decent photos of the work with this phone, to then be worked or edited into stuff uploadable to Redbubble. Something to look into.
Sounds like a lot of stuff! And stuff I’m not excited about having to learn to do, as like I said I’m just not a tech person and never liked fiddling about with my phone. But, whatever, it needs to be done.
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Reading back what I wrote, I sound kinda whiny and I think I should end this post remembering to be grateful for the things I do still have for now. So, thank you, God, for the following things:
- My good health
- Food on the table
- The good health of my partner and our cats
- Food for the cats
- We still have WiFi for the phone, and the phone itself
- Roof over our heads
- Water and electricity supply
- Safety and security in a country not currently afflicted by war or other violence, famine, and/or widespread Covid.
Wandering at night 