Techno Terror/Computer Whizz! (Blog 447)

My computer has been freezing a lot over the last month or so, I assumed because of old age. The thing is, my computer isn’t particularly old, so when it froze when visiting a more than regular and everyday Facebook page, I finally snapped and Googled why it was messing up so much. (Or rather making understandable mishaps - let’s not upset my computer anymore. To clear things up and bury the hatchet, I’m so sorry for calling it a bumface). Apparently, one explanation of the understandable freezes was having a computer that wasn’t updated. I checked if my Mac was indeed updated and it wasn’t! Why didn’t it tell me?? I’m so sorry again. I forgive you. No, I don’t forgive you because there is nothing for you to be sorry about. :) Ok then, I could simply update my computer and that would be that. Perhaps because I left it so late, it didn’t work, even after a good few tries. Then Google told me to put my Mac into safe mode when updating. Really I’d like my computer to be safe all the time, but the drawback of such a mode was the plain, bright yellow screen which was annoying. THAT’S the price of being safe.

Even in the safe mode, it still didn’t work! Naively hoping for the best, I tried again another couple of times, and as I did so at night, I lost a fair amount of sleep. :S When I woke up feeling super anxious, I checked out more online advice and it told me to put a line of instructions into a computer program called ‘Terminal’. When the thing said ‘installing’ I was super happy, but even so, I wasn’t in the clear as the night before it also said ‘installing’ but it wasn’t really. Well not fully, anyway. Again, I had to stop myself swearing at my computer, not just in my head but out loud too, and as I have done no tests on whether my computer reacts badly to spoken insults like I have with non spoken ones, I wasn’t brave enough to say a word. When Terminal said I passed 60% of downloading, I was particularly pleased, as that’s the number I got stuck on beforehand. Part of me was surprised I made it that far, as on online article suggested I may need two computers to sort out my problems. Screw that, that’s way too complicated! I’d just have to live with a faulty computer.

When Terminal said I reached 86%, I really was on the edge of my seat in anticipation. THAT’S what the edge of your seat is made for. Bring Me the Horizon’s album ‘This is what the Edge of Your Seat is Made For’ is a bit too noisy for me. It needs some melody. When Terminal said the download was finished successfully, I was so happy! Updating a computer may not sound like a big deal to you, but my reaction shows what happens when you quite literally learn nothing in school I.T. lessons. If a lazy 13 year old is reading this or whatever, you have been warned. And it’s serious warning, too. My happiness didn’t last too long however, as I checked my computer and it said I still needed to update it!!! Not only that, the update I needed was the same damn one I just supposedly installed!!! Maybe restarting my computer would fix things and it would say it WAS downloaded? Weeeeelllll…. No. Not at all. Not only that, my wallpaper was still yellow!! >:(

I guess I could try installing again? As I did so, I proofread my latest music review (Scars on Broadway), so I was doing at least something. Filled with anxiety, I posted my finished review on my faulty computer. Then I looked at Terminal again, and it soon said it was downloaded, but this time for real! I found there was an application I had to download on the bottom of my computer screen and after so much sorrow, so much pain, it looked like I was in the clear. As I waited for the app to download, I came up with some more jokes, such as… Why was the 60th minute abusive? It was an ow-er!… Even though things were looking promising, I wasn’t exactly 100% fine watching the download time. Here’s another joke: Why was Bob Hope’s wife sad when he died? She was Hope-less. Here’s another: Why were confused and excited people in hospital? It was eh? and eee!

Anyway, the new download time got stuck on 28 minutes which scared me, as that was around the same time it got stuck in the first place. Not exactly, though. I was wondering what would bother me more, a crashing computer or a constantly yellow background. In the end, I thought to myself ‘No, I’d rather my computer did work’. As I couldn’t wait anymore, I restarted my computer and tried downloading again. I got another blank wallpaper, but at least it was black that time, it was much less annoying. Even so, again, I’d prefer a working computer. Did you know that white is the colour that brings to mind thoughts of death? You’d think it would be black, wouldn’t you? Imagine if I had a computer fixated on death, that would be dark. But again, black isn’t the colour of death, so it didn’t matter. When trying to download the app again, it got stuck in the same place, but I was more patient that time and to my great surprise, I suppose I should have been more patient before. It worked!

Do you know what this whole situation reminds me of? A song called ‘Alchemist’ that I coincidentally watched on Youtube a couple of days ago. It’s about someone who wasted his hold life trying to turn things into gold, and the metaphorical gold in this case is a working computer. Here’s another joke: What’s the difference between something that’s small and my pet baby frog? One’s minute, the other’s my newt. Sadly it doesn’t work as newts aren’t baby frogs as I previously thought. How about this one? Why was the man covered in black in the Winter? He was coal-ed. When everything was sorted out, I went to the gym, and I think because of the adrenaline I had throughout the whole day AND night, I had a pretty good session! The start of the day was even worse than the steam fair and that really sucked, but later on things were pretty good! To sum up, even though what I did to my Mac was seemingly simple, I did work with code in the Terminal program. Sure it was just one line and I was told what to say, but it WAS code. I think. And… bye!