Hello internets.

Old laptop still dead. Apparently PC World can't recover anything from the hard drive. At all.

So I've lost every document I was working on, can't find the backup disc (which is very out of date in any case) and... oh yes. I had stuff backed up on another disc, which corrupted randomly a while ago. I had EVERYTHING backed up on my original USB drive, which... corrupted randomly a while ago. And I didn't get round to putting the whole lot on the new USB, because I wasn't sure about viruses or whatever.

So. I have... my Torchwood fic, because I carried nearly all of that around on the USB anyway.

And that's about it. Anything I was sent over MSN is gone. If I've deleted the emails where anything else was sent... it's gone.

Anything I didn't handwrite and then type up, but rather typed straight, is gone. And if I did handwrite it, it's in among the hundreds of thousands of words worth of paper that I need to retype anyway.

All my icons are gone. All my photos are gone, unless I put them on photobucket first or emailed them to anyone.

All my music is gone. I have a stack of CDs I'm putting on the new laptop at the moment, but I no longer have any random files. Or anything from borrowed CDs. The One Winged Angel khmix. Oh, I miss that already. The Torchwood theme. My December. Bohemian Rhapsody. Toxic. Aheh. (Acquired from wonderful people! Thank you kindly.)

I'm going to be spending a lot of money on CDs, aren't I?

Downloading Open Office at the moment, because Word 2007 is evil, Vista is VILE, and Works word processor won't let me get rid of that awful, horrible, distracting taskbar at the right hand side.

Please, someone tell me how to make the Vista desktop icons a sensible size. Why do they have to be so massive? 7 down the side? I can get 15 or more in one column of the PC at home. ): It's just going to cover my entire screen.

And I've lost my Torchwood wallpapers. And the TARDIS startup/shutdown sound effects.

This laptop isn't mine. ): It's a pretender to the throne.

*sigh*

Anyway. As some of you noticed (thank you (: ) it was my birthday yesterday. I'm now officially no longer a teenager. Dang.

Had a few cards - apparently more turned up at home, and mum'll probably hang onto them until we meet up for The Hub or picking up my D of E Gold award two days before that.

Star of the show, though, has to be shadowbyrd, who (understanding the whole laptop thing, and everything else that conspired to make the couple of weeks in the run up to the birthday not all that fantastic, generally speaking), bought me a cake, to which we then added butterscotch icing. Green butterscotch icing. With an entire bottle of food colouring in it.

I'll edit pictures in in a minute. Got to put all the camera software on the new laptop yet. *headdesk*

( I have pics now! )

She also bought me fantastic presents. Bizley art! No, really: have a look around. It's gorgeous stuff. In fact, this one is the one I have. Though mine must be a print, it's not the real thing. (: And a wonderfully huge book called simply Weapon, which has pictures and explanations of everything from stone age clubs to sniper rifles. Ooh, the pretty. And speaking of the pretty, she rounded it all off with the new Torchwood poster. Jack's series 2 promo shot. Full poster. Very pretty. Love the coat. (:

And my mum wrapped up a couple of books for me (folk heroes and fairies, all good stuff), and Ladyhawke arrived in time from Amazon.

And I scrounged an inordinate amount of sweets from Freshers' Week stalls. Plus, I have Gold bars, which are truly food of the gods. Not bad, really.

Oop, Open Office almost done. Let's see if it's something I can actually work with.

Sometimes I think I may be a little too picky...

Argh.

Stupid new Windows Media Player. Would it have killed the makers to add in the old "add to library" right click feature? Sweet goddesses, how am I meant to put things in?

Stupid. Frakking. "New and Improved". Bloody. Useless. Unhelpful. Vista.



): I want my old laptop back.



ETA: No, really. Where the £%_* are my files, Media Player? Why can't you just show me "All music" in the library? Why don't you have that wonderful dropdown option in the "Now playing" bit where I used to be able to switch between any artist or album or ALL MUSIC or whatever? In what way are you an advanced model of the one I used to have? In every way possible, you are inferior, and oh so incredibly £$**ing annoying.

Repairing the other laptop is getting better and better value for money the more this one annoys me. I've never been reduced to tears of fury by Windows before. Well done, Microsoft. Well done indeed.



ETA: *insert copious amounts of swearing here* IhateitIhateitIhateitIhateitIahateit. And it won't even let me download an older version of media player and go back to that, because "there is a newer version currently installed on your computer" and oh my god, nobody could *possibly* prefer something that was made more than a year ago! Because it's New And Improved! Have What We Tell You To Have! Don't Choose For Yourself! You Know Nothing, Foolish Consumer! Obey! Upgrade!

DELETE! DELETE! DELETE!


*kills small fluffy animals*

Jack and Iantobear are no longer safe.