Praise then darkness, and creation unfinished

At the moment, I have chat working through gtalk, YIM, and LiveJournal's Jabber client, but not AIM.
AIM produces nothing resembling a useful error message, just endless login screens. I am using Adium on MacOS X for the instant; I have tried changing the connection port. (I have also tried asking AOL to send me a password reset message, but merely confirmed that if/when I do get signed in there, I need to change the stored email address.)

I hope to be back on my usual desktop machine soon; in the meantime, phone, email, or those other chat services will work to reach me.

I was looking at something on the web last night when my monitor displayed it's "no signal" message (which is normally seen when I shut the system down) and I smelled something wrong. We shut the computer down (cattitude has quicker reactions on this, unplugged it, and waited a bit. Then he tried booting it with the monitor disconnected, in case the problem was there.

The beeps were wrong. Power off again, quickly. I used Cattitude's machine to send adrian_turtle a quick email message, soaked my feet while reading some Bill Bryson, and then we went to bed.

This morning, post-caffeine, Cattitude opened my machine up. The magic smoke had come from the motherboard.

I'm getting a new machine. Actually new, as distinct from "take Cattitude's previous machine when he needs fancier graphics for the current Windows games." We have other plans for today, but if I can figure out what I want in a PC, we can order it today; until it arrives, I'll be either sharing his PC or borrowing his laptop. As Adrian pointed out, it's a good thing we're a multi-computer household, or I'd be getting grumpy or fidgety about lack of connectivity. Especially since I'm expecting a contract by email, and do a lot of my socializing either by email or IM.

The new machine is going to live on my desk, not under it, because we think that the proximate cause of burned hardware is how much dust got into the machine while it sat on the floor.

I may download Gaim to this machine, or I may just wait. If you need to talk to me, you either have or can find my phone number. I'll be checking email much less frequently for a few days.

I'm having some problems with my PC (and may have lost some data, we don't know yet). In the short term, that means I'm sharing cattitude's machine. That in turn means that I won't be on IM (any form thereof), and may not see email quickly.

The telephone is still working (please not after 11 p.m. or before 8 a.m. unless it's an emergency).

At the moment, I don't think I want any gifts higher-tech than a bicycle unless they're serious backup equipment.

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Explanation of the above: I have a new Ipod, which Cattitude got me for my birthday (slightly belated, while we sorted out details of headphones that wouldn't hurt my ears). I set it up this afternoon. The system hung a few times as I tried to rip CDs to the Itunes library, and then I noticed that there was nothing more recent than mid-2004 in my Eudora inbox. Itunes seems to have done something rude to my Eudora mailboxes. Fortunately, Eudora is a cautious program, so all the data was saved, and in fact saved in the format I want it in. Normal service has been restored, and once I've got a couple of sets of current backups, we're going to reinstall Windows, and then make another attempt at installing Itunes.

(I also created new folders labeled "old mail" and "old sent mail" and swept a lot of messages into them. I had a fair number of specific mailboxes already: for specific people, subjects, and mailing lists. But a lot of stuff was just sitting in either "in" or "out." This is no better organized, I just hope it's less likely to be lost in a crash.)

I know that I'm missing at least some email that I should have received in the last couple of days (I know it exists, because of cc's and the like, but it hasn't reached me). I don't know what the cause of the problem is, although the forwarding from redbird.org to panix appears functional, and I just successfully downloaded a test message I sent from gmail to the redbird address.

If you've sent me something that's gone unanswered in the last few days, please try again. (I realize that posting here won't reach anyone, but it seems better than nothing.) I would suggest phoning, except we're waiting for a repair person for the landline and my mobile reception is sad. I'll try to remember to check gmail for the time being (my username there is v [dot] rosenzweig).

[I'm also going to try actually looking at this entry for comments, rather than assuming they'll be emailed to me.]