so, what i wanted to do was organize everything perfectly and completely (i've never been diagnosed with ocd, really) before i got back to recording, so everything was perfectly functioning and i could just quickly get through everything. yes, it would require some time invested upfront, but it would be with the payoff of efficiency as i went.
as the machine has some kind of unknown problem, that's not actually feasible. instead, i should do a quick and rough organization upfront and file things as i go - which means i can be back to work within a day or two, but will need to stop frequently to reorganize, until i'm done.
i have to adjust. so be it.
so, i'm going to take the audigy back out (soundblaster installs are just loaded with bloated drivers, and it's a perfectly plausible cause), disconnect the front panel (i'm not using it) and even unplug the blu-ray burner (which was added years after i constructed it) to start.
i'm also going to hold up on the deletion script, for the reason that the machine is no longer on the internet so i don't have to worry about locking it down as hard as i did. the machine will still run faster with as much of windows taken out as is possible, but i'm going to slow down and take things out one piece at a time.
and, i'm just going to get right to it, so i'm back in order for the weekend, which is the schedule i want to click in to.
i have every reason to think i'll be able to get back to normal rebuilding on monday, and to the alter-reality not this friday but next friday. and, if i'm productive, i can hopefully get tons of stuff done by labour day.