I don't follow astrology, but damned if I'm not stuck in the whole "Mercury in Retrograde" phenomenon. Here's the bad luck, especially as it pertains to communications:
- my phone/palm treo 650 suddenly and catastrophically failed last week
- the new phone/palm treo 700p that I got to replace my busted old one would sync but not transfer any data from my computer to the phone, then it refused to connect to the internet
- my laptop (which took a spill a few months ago and has been hinky ever since) was finally diagnosed today as a goner
- worse still, the daily data backups I've been making were found to by corrupted (a lifetime of scripts down the drain!)
- my laser printer (which somehow broke a part while standing still) will only print from the upper tray (and only when it feels like it), and not the fancy large capacity tray for which I bought the darn thing in the first place
- I caught a cold from my beloved nephew this weekend while celebrating Rosh Hashanah with the family (and my gf got it, too)
OK, so that last one is more about communicable diseases than communications, but you get the drift. The last time I was socked with electronics whammies, my laptop, palm and ipod and my bosses's laptop and palm got fried. Not a very good precedent.
The one bright spot in all this computer conflagration is that I had the absolute nicest, most helpful, genuinely caring customer service everywhere I turned today. And this is from some notoriously bad tech help sources, like Verizon Wireless. I tell you, I am still flabergasted at how kind and thorough these folks were from Apple, Palm, Veizon Wireless, Tekserve and Asurion. I'm pissed as heck about the failure of my devices, but I can only imagine how ballistic I'd be if the companies I called had been their usual nasty and inadequate selves.
The upshot?
- My new phone works and has all the data synced properly now (which is good, since my laptop is toast).
- All the backed-up data from my laptop MAY be salvageable.
- I have paper copies of all my scripts (except the specs I've been slaving away on for the past 2 months)
- I'll probably get a new laptop, but in the mean time am using an old "just in case" G4 Cube I keep around just for this purpose.
- I can print to my inkjet printer until I get my laser printer fixed or replaced.
- Colds only last 7 days.
- I'm alive and loved.
Now, can someone please tell me when it's safe to come out of my apartment with electronics again?
