Another update on the still uncertain future of the blog.

The good news is that the computer seems fully willing to turn back on after it turns off.  The bad news is that the internet connection seems to be degrading.

Mechanically this can be fixed by any piece of shit that has an internet connection and a word processor, though for .hack posts I ideally need a DVD player too.

Actually it's not that simple.  This has, quite simply, emotionally fucked me over.

I don't remember the last time I had a new computer.  I know what computer it had to be because I sure as shit haven't gotten a new one since then, but when that was: no idea.  I have spent so long doing things like, "If I flip it over, open it up, remove the RAM card, blow on it, put the RAM card back in, flip the still open computer back over, and hold the RAM at a 30 degree angle I can use the computer for ten minutes give or take five."  Or, "If I constantly hold the power cord at just this angle I can use the computer but if I move or slip or flinch it'll crash and lose everything that isn't saved."  Or, "Maybe I can take this part out of this computer, and these parts out of that computer, and put together something that works."  Or, "Ok, I'm going to need wood to make a frame, lexan, a drill, screws, bolts, and industrial strength hinges and that's just to make monitor stay on, making it compute will take even more work."  Or, "Computer, meet drill press, I swear you'll feel better afterward."

Or, "Yes the motherboard is in a state of slow decay with components going out one by one but until the last light dies this is all I've got."

And so forth.  Right now the two most functional computers I have are second hand ones (thank you both, again) that are showing their age as components fail here and there.  Put them together and if the internet on this one weren't apparently on the road to failure you'd have more or less a working computer.

But when everything went wrong last month and I couldn't use my own money to fix things because it was frozen in place and had to ask for help from the readers, the readers came through stunningly.  It was brilliant and wonderful and I realized that, because of the help, once my money was no longer frozen I could finally have a new computer.  A computer fresh out of the store with a warranty.  You have no idea how much I love three year warranties.  "Something goes wrong and I don't have to try to fix it if I can or, more likely, work around it if I can't fix it?  Amazing!  You'll do that for years?  I may love you."

And that's why I put so much toward the Discover Card.  The computer needs to be a laptop --not a desktop not a net-book-- and those aren't cheap.  Not cheap is no fun, but proportional cash back on not cheap is better than nothing.

I cannot describe how much I was looking forward to being able to work from a fully functional computer.  How full of hope I was.  It was going to be wonderful.

Then it all shattered.  On the same day that I learned the Discover Card had ceased to exist before I paid all that money to it so I could use it to buy a new computer (meaning all of the payment beyond the minimum necessary was useless; 18 months interest free, it could have waited) it also appeared that my only computer with useful internet connection died.

All of that hope was shattered on the floor.

Even though this computer turned out to be not dead yet, the hope is still shattered.

Don't get me wrong, I'm glad that this one turned out to be revivable, and I'm glad that the internet on it is on a slow die plan rather than just plain dead.

But the problem is that I've really reached my limit.  I can't take all of this, "The internet just went out, will it ever come on again?  The screen froze, will it ever unfreeze or should I cut the power now?  The mouse isn't working right, maybe turning it off and on three times will fix things.  Classic blue-screen death.  Crash without even a blue screen.  Why the fuck are you not working?" and so forth.

I shouldn't have let myself hope, because once the hope got in it changed things.  After that hope I just can't take going back to this.

Reading comments, sure.  Making comments, sure.  Sitting down to this and making a blog post when this is when I thought I'd have a new computer?  I can't do it.  Except, apparently, a blog post about how fucking depressing this is.

So that's what's going on.

When, or if, I return to blogging here depends on when one of two things happens (whichever one happens first):

1. I get a new computer.
2. The hope that was destroyed becomes a memory dulled by time to the point I don't give a shit.

If either happens before I've acquired too much emotional distance from the blog, expect to see me back then, be it in days, months, or years.  If not, don't expect to see me outside of other people's comments.

Number one isn't as unlikely as it first seemed to me.  I got two donations.  The one that was specifically intended to go, in part, toward a new computer gives me hope that it might be possible to get one.  Not on that alone, but maybe if other people donated too.

After being lectured by Lonespark et al. I'm not going to talk about deservingness and such.

I'm just going to leave you with this information: if you want me back blogging, donate to help me buy a new computer.  With what I've gotten I think I can make it through the month so that's not the primary concern anymore.  Getting a computer to blog on, on the other hand, for that I need more money.  I don't have more money.

If you want to help on that front, do.  If you don't, don't.

-

I don't want to say goodbye.
---Redcrow

Neither do I.

I'd like nothing more than to be writing more Edith and Ben or Snarky Twilight, or when post-vampirification Snarky-Bella saves Éponine at the barricade by making her a vampire and later tries to talk Javert out of suicide, or more of the Princess Story.

But all of the shit I routinely put up with when writing for the blog is writ so damn large because the hope that I wouldn't have to put up with it anymore seemed so real and so close and I seriously cannot take this shit anymore.

Realistically there was always going to be a breaking point if something didn't change.  It just came sooner because something did change.