Uugh. Hard drive crashes. Very sucky. My iBook lies on a Apple-certified repairer’s workbench. The hard drive is actually no longer the problem, since I successfully tore open the plastic case, unscrewed 30-40 screws, popped off the aluminum shielding, took out the clattering 40 GB factory-installed hard drive, and popped in a fresh 100 GB 2.5” hard drive from (you guessed it) Fry’s Electronics. The iBook actually works OK. The problem is that (1) I’ve managed to render the CD-RW non-functional and (2) the latch has snapped off, so that the laptop fails to close. I won’t even mention the lack of audio. I had accidentally torn out the wires that connect to the built-in speakers. (I had also accidentally torn out the wires that connect to the power switch.) I managed to fix the power switch, but since I didn’t want to go screwing around trying to figure out which wire was live and which wire was ground, I just remnants to the inside of the case and let it be. That’s what external speakers are for, anyway.

In any case. What did I do today, one more year closer to that notable epoch, that dreaded age? My sister thinks I’m insane for thinking a year ahead (and I probably am) but I tell her, no one cares about turning 29. the only reason anyone cares about turning 29 is that it’s one year closer to 30.

Not that 30 necessarily has any significance personally. Sure, society at large seems to make a big deal of it, but in reality, I find myself using 32 as a rough guide, the age at which my father married my mother. Then there is 33, the age at which Jesus Christ was crucified. And then finally there is 36, which is currently the half-way point if you subscribe to the putative life expectancy of an American human male, which is 72. Of course, since I’m a person-of-color, that is probably lower than that, and because I’m overweight and borderline hypertensive, probably even lower than that.

Ah well, I’d rather die young anyway.

In any case, all I did today was turn in my poor battered iBook for attempted resuscitation, then got sucked into the vortex known as Target. I now have two unassembled fusion maple file cabinets sitting in my living room. I then went to Fry’s because I felt a little antsy not having at least two working computers in my apartment, but I managed to stave off temptation and actually left that godforsaken hellhole empty-handed.

After that, I went into a bit of decline….

I did manage to tame a few meters of the unwieldy wires traversing my apartment. Right now, it looks like my front door is booby-trapped, what with the thick ribbon of wires running up and down the siding. There are eleven different-colored cables, and it is quite aesthetically displeasing to look at, but I can’t figure out an alternative. I need a Feng Shui expert’s opinion on how to run my multitude of cables through my apartment. In any case, the decreased amount of entropy in my apartment is actually almost palpable.

Definitely not my worst birthday, though. People called, I chatted and caught up, and I hung out with a few folks for a little while. I’ve decided that my worst birthday is probably when I turned 23 (nobody loves you when you’re 23) and I was all by myself stranded a good couple thousand miles or so from anyone who gave a shit about my existence, and I managed to miss everyone’s phone call, and I didn’t talk to anybody, and all I did was cower in my apartment, completely overwhelmed by being marooned out in the Midwest.

Heh, this is the first birthday in a while where I haven’t been delirious and/or drunk. (Last year I didn’t even blog my birthday because I was on-call, and while I wasn’t drunk, I was certainly delirious, not to mention the fact that I literally passed-out and I was offered IV rehydration.)

But, yeah, I’m in a contemplative mood now. The fall has never been my favorite season. It’s always bittersweet. On one hand, September heralds my birthday, on the other hand, it means summer is over. And in the past few years that I’ve traipsed over this earth, September always seems to be the time when really bad things transpire, or when things I hope dearly for fail miserably.

Ah well. Good times for a change. See the luck I’ve had would make a good man turn bad. So please, please, please, let me, let me, let me, let me get what I want…. Heh. No cake, no candles, but I’m making wishes anyway.