I finally received my new computer about a week ago – and that was a week later than I had hoped. My reaction to my unexpected computer detox was that when I got it back (the new version) I didn’t really feel like using it…! I have set the computer up, downloaded some programs, uploaded some pictures, rebuilt some of the dorky lists that I liked to keep, gotten online to check e-mail and scan through my Google Reader, but I haven’t really used the computer. No photo editing, music downloading, video making, or BLOGGING. Granted, I am making a surprisingly awkward switch from Apple, to PC and the Windows operating system. I have to learn a whole new set of programs, figure out where things are stored, try to comprehend how, if I was a PC, I would handle situations… (I still can’t figure out WHY Microsoft Works crashes every time I try to copy and past text from the Internet into a Works document!) Anyway, the good news is that I have a laptop again and I am learning how to use the perverse thing – even if the touch pad mouse makes me crazy, and the screen, at 17″ still shocks me with it’s clarity and brightness every time I open the thing…! Phew.
With Our New England Country Store opening for the season and work piling up around my ears, on top of pretty, pretty weather that drags me outside at every opportunity, and even without the time suck of a computer, I’ve only finished two books so far this month – my first dive into P. G. Wodehouse’s mad-capped world with Indiscretions of Archie, and John Crowley’s most recent novel, Four Freedoms. They were both very enjoyable – talented writers, taking on by turns the comic misadventures of a poor but cheerful, and very well dressed Englishman, and the quietly epic journeys of a few American men and women through the turmoil of the early 1940s. Both created worlds that leaped off the page and characters that I won’t soon forget – although in quite different ways!
Thanks to Frances of Nonsuch Book who passed the Wodehouse on to me, and to the people at Overlook Press who published the lovely edition and let Frances give a few of them away! Now, instead of reading, I will go back to trying to figure out how to use this damn machine. (My current mantra – “I’m smarter than this computer, I’m smarter than this computer…!”) 🙂
what we have here is a failure to communicate 
You are smarter than that computer, lady!
My month has been nuts & light on the blogging & reading too, so I’m trying to get my toes back in the water by working down my Google Reader a bit. Good luck to you on learning all those PC quirks – I use one at work but I do love my Mac at home! 🙂
By: Emily on March 17, 2010
at 12:00 am
I just finished my first Wodehouse too that I won from Frances! Loved it! The perfect palate cleanser after Woolf, don’t you think? 😀
Yay for the new computer!
By: kiss a cloud on March 17, 2010
at 12:35 pm
When my Macbook Pro crashed a few weeks back I was all twitchy over gettting it back but it took a couple of days for me to get back into my mojo once it returned from Apple Care.
Going from a Mac to PC is very hard on the body. You’ll get the hang of it. I work with both platforms for work so I’m used to it but it’s such a shock to the system at first.
By: Ti on March 17, 2010
at 12:50 pm
I’ve loved everything I’ve read by Crowley and completely missed the fact that he had a new one out! Also, I was lucky enough to win one of those lovely Wodehouse editions from Frances too (Psmith Journalist) and really need to read it soon!
By: Nymeth on March 20, 2010
at 12:46 pm
Don’t think I could give up my Mac. Sometimes use a PC at work but it just doesn’t do it for me. I’m a total Apple junkie. Can’t wait to get my hands on an iPad. But a new computer is a new computer – a good thing. Good luck with that transition.
Glad you had fun with the Wodehouse. Been watching The Complete Jeeves and Wooster with my son lately. Too funny!
By: Frances on March 20, 2010
at 7:04 pm
Thanks for your support everyone, in regards to the computer. I’ll work it out, but it is gratifying to know that I’m not the only one who finds the Mac to PC switch slightly traumatizing!
And “Yay” for all of us Wodehouse winners! Good stuff. 🙂
By: tuulenhaiven on March 22, 2010
at 3:00 pm