On Sunday morning, my computer died. For the past month or so, I had been having problems here and there. I knew I had real problems because I use Linux, not Windows. Windows just has problems. I knew mine had to be hardware. Not a week before, I reinstalled Linux and the problems didn't go away. So on Sunday, when I rebooted, I couldn't X to run. X is a graphical server thingy that runs a gui in Linux. Without a gui running, you get a command prompt but nothing else.

I had a decision to make. I could re-install again and deal with the little problems and even risk things getting worse, risk loosing important data. Or, I could just accept that my computer is dead, which means stripping it for parts and building a new computer with spare parts that I had laying around. I decided to build a new one.

There was a bit of a nightmare going on with the computer business. When I got home Saturday night, I checked my e-mail, and I had an e-mail from a publisher wanting to see the rest of a submission. I'd had sent sample chapters earlier. I put off replying to the e-mail, sending the rest of the story until Sunday morning. I didn't get a chance to reply. I knew I could e-mail them later explaining what had happened and get them the story. I still didn't like the idea of having that e-mail lost. But thankfully, I was able to recover all my e-mail just fine.

It was a very weird thing to take my computer apart. I remember how much work and time went into it. I had all kinds of lights inside, fans, and crossing wires. I'd draw a picture of how I had the thing wired but it'd be just a bunch of mobius loops on top of each other. I have the custom dragon fan grill in front of my keyboard. I'm not sure it'll ever see another computer. The next one I build, the next real one, probably won't be of the same style of my old one. I thought about putting new guts in my old case, maybe even use the grill again, and use it as a server. I don't think it should be a regular computer again. I did not, by the way, take off the Frankenstein badge on the front of the case. The badge, which I think is a poor name for it, is just a logo on the front where DELL or IBM would go. Since I bought my case, it didn't have a logo on it. I had to add my own. The computer was also built in a time when you couldn't buy a case with lights in it or a window cut in it. I had to cut that myself. In fact, I've installed two windows. The first didn't have a hole for a fan, and over time, I needed to a add a fan. So I replaced that window with one with a hole for a fan. Ah, so many good memories of cutting my hands and shocking the crap out of myself.

Hey, there's a new Pope, Pope Benedict XVI, aka Joseph Ratzinger. Joseph Ratzinger was a Hitler Nazi Youth. Of course, he's not a Nazi now. But he still looks like an extra from The Omen movies.

With all the computer stuff going on, I forgot to write about BTA stickers. The lead singer of Beyond The Ashes delivered to us, jh2media, the stickers that we had designed for them. It was nice to see them, see that we earned our money. We didn't print the stickers of course. We just designed them using the dimension that band gave us.

  ¶ 1:23 PM