Find someone to carry you.

Haven't been feeling well. Fighting a sinus infection, trying to get my rest. "Trying" being the key word.

Bulk of this weekend has actually went to fixing my grandmother computer. The machine's nothing particularly special, a Dell 2400, really an out of the box budget model whichever way you slice it [not unlike my current laptop], that's been floating somewhere between needing a back to factory settings reformat/restart or just a merciful bullet to the brain. Purchased in '04 or '05, it's probably shouldn't be as shocking to me as it that the thing still runs - especially since the only hard workout I can even think of it having was my short MAME-fueled King of Fighters/Samurai Showdown obsession. Still, I'm not used to seeing computers last this long, especially with only the nominal upkeep I've ever bothered to get it.

Which in retrospect was kind of shitty of me. For a short time that 2400 was my go-to computer, in that particularly uncertain period between my Toshiba Satellite dying and selling the house so I could buy this winner I'm writing this on today. As personal milestones go, I had quite a few on that particular machine, from starting this blog, to finishing "Unfilmable," to even doing the bulk of "Trendsetter," not mention a bunch of smaller, probably to most people less noteworthy things, such as the "Before Hulu was Awful" "Death Note" marathons, or getting started on "Breaking Bad" [thanks, Justin]. Sitting at that computer I read a script by my friend Glen, setting up years of future "I knew him when..." stories. It was there that I finally got back in touch with Lex, and it was there that I finally, actually got to talk to her at length - one of those rare instances where a missed opportunity to get to know someone wasn't. Perched on that air-filled office chair in front of that monster of a monitor, I dissected so many things, from "The Dark Knight," to how I spent and organized my days, to how I was treating and taking care of myself, while in the midst of some pretty serious heartbreak.

And though I was partly joking before, it really was quite shameful that I let the computer deteriorate into such unusable shape, especially since it isn't even there for me, really - it's my grandmother's, it's what she plays games on, what she checks her email on. And with a little bit of regular attention and care, there's no reason it can't keep doing that. Selfish of me to let that go to hell like I did.

And as with anything put off far too long, "fixing" it wound up being quite the ordeal. How much of that was actually my fault is up for debate, of course - yes, I probably should have read up on the model and noticed that it was going to give me a bit of a run-around, what with it's notable [though not universal] penchant for not loading all its necessary drivers on the first installation, but that doesn't change the headache of its backup disk being pre-Service Pack 2. Thankfully, my new external hard drive, which was so perfect for backing up what little was on the computer in the first place, was just as perfect for downloading all the necessary BIOS, drivers, and updates that were needed. Especially since accessing the internet on its own was nearly the last thing the it wanted to do.

Actually, it's quite surprising how smoothly it runs now, even with limited memory and hard drive space. I'm really thankful for free virus-scouting programs like avast! and Ad-aware, and less memory-intensive browsers like Google Chrome, and hell, compared to IE, even Firefox, which make running an older machine feel a lot more do-able. The best part, of course, is that while digging through piles and piles of unorganized CD-ROMs for the reboot, I was also able to find the discs for the weird third party games that my grandmother has come to love so well over the years.

I honestly think if I hadn't found those, I would have been better off just shooting it.

Still. It felt odd to be in front of that computer again. Sense memory, the sounds, the texture of the mouse and keyboard and chair, even the smell [all right, I might be off my nut, but I swear when they get going, those old box monitors have a smell] made it feel like it hadn't been that long. Certainly not like it had been 3 years.

...huh. I guess Wednesday was the 26. Weird.

I guess we shared lots of sleepless nights back then. Giving it one more seemed like the least I could do.

And for the Mojo Wire - here's to the end of the first three years.