so, i went to make a smoothie this afternoon, in the thunderstorm, and came back to a laptop with a dead processor.

this is the same laptop that was previously having electrical problems. and, i noticed that it was seizing up a little bit, this afternoon - so it didn't come totally out of nowhere.

once again, though, this laptop fails in co-ordination with my living room desktop, which went into the loop for the first time since replacing the hard drive. i don't know what that loop actually is, but i've designed the system around the need to reinstall to get rid of it. it may actually be a network virus. what's extra curious is the correlation: i seem to be getting periodic attacks by some kind of intelligence network that take everything down at the same time.

i vlog! i blog! i give you information for free!

oh, and my phone came in the other day, but don't expect me to actually use it any time soon :P. not now, with all these priorities...and, certainly not the way anybody expects. at least it's there though, right? have fun with it.

and, no, i'm not blaming the russians. i understand that the russians actually have extremely limited cyberwarfare capabilities, and are simply not technologically advanced enough to do much of anything they're currently being accused of. if i was attacked by a rogue intelligence gathering service, it was almost certainly by the good old cia. i don't think i'm very interesting to the chinese or the israelis, which are the only other serious operations running.

the storm is a good cover, right? hey - explain why everything all comes down at once, then.

nonetheless, occam's razor is to ignore the sputtering this morning and just blame it on the storm. did i get a surge? well, the power didn't actually go out, although i do think that i had a close lightning strike. but, nothing else in here got fried, and this laptop was actually on one of the better protected circuits. it doesn't quite add up; i'm not convinced.

given that i had all of the windows open, i actually think it may be more likely that the static electricity in the air got to it and shut it off as it was running hot. that would be terrible luck, basically. i've tried some dry boots and it's not working; i get the caps lock single flash, and it just shuts down. so, i'm going to have to let it sit and drain itself for a week or two. if i can fix it easily, it will be by unplugging it for a while.

for now, i swapped the drive out and am back on the backup laptop, as i was over the course of may and june. i hope it doesn't take as long to come back...

...but, even if it comes back sooner, i'm thinking i'll stick on this machine as a short term access point and go ahead and install the new drive in the other machine, which is what i was planning on doing shortly, anyways. that's what i'm going to be doing for editing in the long run.

if it doesn't come back, should i buy a new processor? i'm not confident about disassembling it. so, i might buy a new stripped down laptop (not necessarily the same model), actually, and just put the new components in it. i mean, i just bought a new hard drive and 8 gb of new ram or this: it should be running a fast sshd with 8 gb of ram. the optical drive works. if i can just get a barebones board/screen/case combo for $50 and then upgrade it with my new components, it will justify the existing investment and really be a helluva calculator. i've already spent around $200 on it, so i'm not just going to discard it - i'll find a way to reintegrate this component, one way or another.

but, am i getting fed up with it? sure. i'll give it a week or two to come back and then move on.

so, i'm probably on this machine for a good while. i haven't taken it up to 4 gb of ram yet but will soon. and, that should make it more than sufficient as an access point until i get around to reconstructing the studio.

that was a messy weekend. i found myself on a pcp buzz (i need to stop just smoking and/or eating whatever random thing anybody gives me - this was laced pot, i've been through it repeatedly and know it when i get it, it was a specific trip. i even know who i smoked it from, as i could taste it. it's a burnt taste, like hashish, but more intense) after actress, and stuck outside the bar until 5:00 am. again: i wasn't actually drunk. i didn't pass out, and i didn't vomit. i was just inoperable due to the high. in fact, i could have walked somewhere, and no doubt would have if i didn't have my bike, but i decided against bicycling until the buzz passed. safety first. well, i would have just sat outside the diner, anyways, right? i could sit outside the bar and smoke or sit outside the diner and smoke, what's the difference? as before, it took a while longer than i expected, but i caught the early bus, in the end.

saturday was even weirder, as i didn't get over until 00:30 and found myself at a party that ended at 9:30. i managed to get a lunch hour pizza on the way home, and then took until midnight on sunday to finish eating it. i again think i smoked something that kept me awake. this is the primary argument for legalization: you just really actually don't honestly know what the fuck you're smoking. you really don't. i know i was awake for 36 hours before i feel asleep.

...and that i then slept all day monday, and most of the day tuesday.

i now need to be in court in nine and a half hours, and it will be fine. i've got the information i need compiled and put together. i just need to figure out what i'm printing and what i'm not printing, and plan the rest of the morning around getting there on time.

i've decided that i'm going to wait until i get a ruling before i file a third case. this really isn't a lot of fun, after all. but, the point of this is to get them to stop, not to bankrupt them. if i put them in too difficult a situation, it could actually make it harder to sell the building. and, if i win the case, it could give me the leverage i need to make it stop.

i mean, to be clear: i plan on filing. 5 attempted evictions without cause requires a response. it's just that i'm going to want to do one thing at a time, so i'll give them a chance to respond, first.