Thursday Thirteen

I have computers on my mind this morning.

1. My computer, a Dell, has developed a hiccup. It has stopped reading my external hard drive and the fonts changed in Internet Explorer and I can't figure out why or how to change them back. When my computer isn't working right, I get very frustrated.

2. The first computer I ever used was a Commodore Vic 20. My mother bought it when they first came out, which was about 1981, and I immediately took possession of it. I learned a little BASIC programming on it and played a few games with it.

3. My next computer was a Commodore 64. This actually met my basic needs at the time; it ran a dot matrix printer and I had a word processing program that I used with it. I wrote articles for the newspaper on this computer. This was in 1985 or so. Oddly enough, in looking this up I discovered that there is a new Commodore 64 out, one that will run Windows.

4. My next computer was a Tandy T-1000, which was sold by Radio Shack.

5. That was followed by two computers that were built by a computer dude who had opened a local shop. This is probably the best way to go, but it is hard to find this as option around here anymore.

6. Then along about 1998, after the guy closed his shop, I bought an HP. I might have had two HPs, I can't recall for sure.

7. I know I had two Gateways somewhere in there. And then I bought the Dell.

8. I end up purchasing a new computer every three to five years, mostly because something starts malfunctioning. Either a piece of hardware stops working or the software configurations become frazzled that the computer thinks it alive and should get up and walk around the house. I don't know what happens to the darned things when all I do is turn them on and type on them.

9. Personally, I think I should still be using the Commodore 64 from way back when. Or at least my first HP. Shouldn't the things last longer than three years? I mean, that's about $300 a year when you get right down to it. I don't know about you, but I generally spend a $1000 every time I replace one.

10. At the moment, I have my old Gateway computer with Windows XP on it sitting on the floor of my office. I have a Toshiba laptop in a closet, and a Gateway laptop sitting on my desk. I have a Nook Color in the living room, and I'm writing this on the Dell. My husband has an HP computer in his home office. Shouldn't that be enough technology for two people? Shouldn't this damned Dell work right?

11. In spite of all of that, I do not have a smart phone. I have a six-year-old Nokia phone that doesn't take pictures, have a keyboard, have applications, or any of that stuff. I could text on it if we were signed up for that, but we're not. All I do is talk on it and I don't do much of that. We have lousy cellphone reception in the house so the phone stays in my car and I mostly use it for emergencies, like calling home to see if I need to stop and pick up a loaf of bread. My husband and I have 550 rollover minutes between us and we roll about half of those over every month.

12. I suspect if I bought a new phone, it would work better in the house. Other people's phones work okay when they are visiting here. I know because they came to see me and then sat and played with their applications instead of having a conversation. Which is why I have resisted purchasing a smart phone. I prefer to interact with people face to face.

13. This is a lame Thursday Thirteen, but what do you do? When you have something on your mind, it's on your mind.

Damn computer.


Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here. I've been playing for a while and this is my 219th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday.