Laptop kaputt

[silberstreif]

My dear Laptop,

I've had you now for a little bit over 15 months, and we had a wonderful time together. We've shared joy and sorrow, created wonderful epic stories and laughed about stories that we erased before anyone could see them. In short, I thought we had a working relationship and was looking forward to the coming years.
What happened?
Last Friday, I took you out of my bag - Laptop bag, bought just for you! - and wanted to activate you, but your screen remained an unpenetratable black. Not even a black and white DOS-screen, or the much feared Blue Screen. No, that was all too much bother for you. You always preferred the simple, efficient way. So I guess, this is your way of saying: I quit.
Okay. I can survive this. I have a mobile phone for internet. I have my old notebook, that always had a much nicer colour than your boring black. I have options!
But here is the unforgiveable sin: You took my data with you.
If we have to break up like this, if you have to suddenly move out of my life, couldn't you have given a sign, so I could have saved what is mine? What we painstakingly created together?
Now, I'm sitting here and wondering what I have done wrong. Didn't I update your firewalls? Your anti-virus programm? Did I let you fall one time too often? Did I carry you around too often? The one time in the rain, was that too much for you?
You're now out of my hands, your data and future resting with uncaring foreigners that I'm paying to repair you.
I'm hoping for the best. After all, I'm missing you, your wonderful touch screen and the data you hide inside.

Your sad owner
silberstreif

Comments

[pjlover666.livejournal.com]

Wait..wait wait wait wait *scream* THE DATA IS GONE?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[silberstreif.livejournal.com]

The judgement on that is still out there. :| But I'm not giving up hope. You'll be the first to know something definite.

[pjlover666.livejournal.com]

*hugs* *crying with you* The fics... all those fics....

[surefall.livejournal.com]

Not the data! Not the data! Say it can be saved!

[silberstreif.livejournal.com]

Still waiting for the verdict. *sigh* I have saved the most important pieces though, thank god for copies and some very nice persons that saved the stuff I send them for "test reads". But a few oneshots are missing.

[surefall.livejournal.com]

Yes, but it's not just about the fanwork (though that is my own selfish concern ^.~), it's also about everything else on the computer. Hopefully it can be recovered.

[silberstreif.livejournal.com]

The laptop I'm afraid is now confirmed to be nothing more than junk. On the positive side, so far I think I've recovered 90 percent of my fanworks. :)

[skylar-matthews.livejournal.com]

So not cool at all! My family's had a few computers do similar and I've lost so many stories I couldn't even begin to count (all previous fandoms or (looking back now) pathetic original verses) so I know the pain. Hopefully it was something simple like the screen itself died and they can get your data out with no problem at all. Although it does sound like it's time to start posting a version online somewhere private (we like Google Docs) so you have a copy that will only be lost if the internet dies.

[silberstreif.livejournal.com]

Thankfully for all the collaborations we have (mostly) online copies... but yeah. :/ I think this time I put everything into a cloud and never have to experience this again.
But really, you lost ALL? Oh god, that had to be horrible! I'm already feeling bad over a few stories...

[skylar-matthews.livejournal.com]

That's good at least. Hopefully what little you don't have online either she does or is easy enough to remember and rewrite.

It was a long time ago and thankfully I had printed (or posted online) copies of some of the stuff that mattered most but at the same time I lost a lot of stuff too. I had the start of a massive multi-crossover fic with at least three different series and crazy long plot as well as most of its notes on there when it died. There was also all the notes and name translations for my character list in an original piece I had just started /and/ the really nice and simple website I had used to find all that info in the first place ceased to exist between the time I was last on it and when my family got a new computer so I couldn't even go looking again. That annoyed me more than anything else I think because it also made learning the language easier because I could find words/translations so easily on there.

Thankfully that was just before I started really writing again but it still wasn't fun. At least though, way early on we would write in notebooks and pass them between class so we still have handwritten copies of all our oldest stuff. You know, if we could ever find that stuff....

[silberstreif.livejournal.com]

Finally answering your comment. Not having a computer makes life a lot more difficult.

I think I can rewrite most of it. ^^" And the most important parts are saved... still, I'm fearing for some of the oneshots. It's not only fanfiction, though. There is universisty stuff and photos lost too...

Sounds like you really know my current pain. ^^

:) Yeah, I have handwritten notes too. I rarely use them, but they're like the playing field of my muse.

[skylar-matthews.livejournal.com]

Seems like we get online on the same days anymore... My free time has kinda vanished since moving but I work in a section of the casino that's shortstaffed by 7-10 people so the hours are there for the taking with no limits on overtime (it's almost a requirement that you get some every paycheck anyway) and we get tips so there's even more money. My paycheck today was just below $700 with only one hour of overtime on it (and technically two extra days because they messed up my first paycheck but that's not much extra and this pay period I already have a day worth of overtime so that basically matches up.)

Anyway, short form is I'm not on the computer much at all anymore. It's annoying because I haven't written in literally a month now.

That's awesome that you can rewrite it because it's always a shame to lose good plots. I'm not surprised you have other stuff lost too and I know how that goes. I have one image I can not for the life of me find even though I swear it was saved on this computer. And I once had a class assignment that I wrote in one night and printed off but decided I didn't want to save and then a few days after I turned it in the teacher asked me for another copy because he had lost the original (and only) version. Thankfully he found it at home the next night but I freaked out a little bit because there was no way to rewrite that.

Oh yes. I can always understand how something could be painful but in some cases I've already been there and felt it myself. Did I tell you about the time recently when my phone decided to shut off icloud randomly and so all my contacts and calendar info and whatnot disappeared? It was a Wednesday night and I had literally just commented the Monday before about how glad I was I had all those numbers and things saved in my phone so I could find my work history and such when we were applying for an apartment. I was literally about to cry over it. Thankfully by chance I found the setting and turned it back on the next morning at work but that was still more than a little horrifying. And the sad part is that all the actually important stuff (writing and whatnot) wasn't even affected. It was only all the stuff I either would have to sit and think about or look up (work addresses and dates I lived places) or things I just could not get back at all (I have 50-some contacts but only actually talk to about 5 of them but the rest are previous coworkers for job references or old jobs numbers or people I used to know and don't want to forget about...)

I don't take notes so much as just sometimes write in pen or pencil because I can or feel like it. Sometimes you just have to actually feel the words as you build the world, you know? Typing is great and fast and so easy but handwriting scenes can sometimes help you connect to them so much better. I also zen out when I hand write (or used to anyway) and once I worked on something for about half an hour and when I finished it I read back through and didn't remember a single word but it was an even more beautiful piece than I'd been plotting in my head. The piece in question was about two typed pages in Word (on font size 11 I think, that's my usual preference) and a response to a roleplay in a totally different fandom where the villain had done something to one of the hero characters I also played and so another hero character of mine was doing some weird healing trick that kind connected their minds. Think decoding a virus but in a fantasy setting, magic rather than cables.

Anyway enough of my rambling for now. Hopefully none of it bored you too greatly.