everything's broken

It all started in July, as I was deep into the writing of my master's report. The iBook died. Now fortunately, I was not using the iBook for much of the writing, and no critical files were lost. Still, it was a blow. The iBook had been a critical lifestyle facilitator for the past 4 years. I kept it in the family room, on an end table, where I could casually pick it up to check email, tv listings, headlines.

I should have done more to save it. One day, there was no video. And that was that. It was a known issue with iBooks of its vintage, and I had heard a couple of years ago that Apple was recalling certain models due to a problem with the logic board. But when I checked, mine was not within the range of serial numbers. And I'd had no problems ...

I didn't have the cojones to try this, so I guess I just have to let it go.

Now I go and find that Apple had expanded its program, mine was included, but the deadline was expired. So I'm screwed.

Sparklebelly's car was next. We've known for a while that there were problems. Blue smoke from the exhaust is never good, but it only gets worse if you don't deal with it. Turns out this is another known problem. And another one that hits us too late. Finally took it to the shop. They say we need a new engine and they tried to find us a used one, but without success. New, we're looking at 8K$. That's a big OUCH that we don't have, not with G going off to college. Hell, that's 40% of a new car, and I can finance a car for less than I can finance the credit card debt I'd need to take on for the new engine. No thanks. We'll keep feeding it oil and see if we can squeeze out a few more months before biting the bullet on a new used car.

A few days later, I woke up and found the oven was beeping. It wasn't on--and it shouldn't have been at 6 in the AM--but it was beeping with an error code on the display. Couldn't figure out any way to shut it down except to turn off the breaker. Which turns off multiple lights in the house as well. At least the refrigerator was on another circuit. Once more, we had to call the Man. Who offered to replace the malfunctioning module. That's a 260$ OUCH. That he has to order for us. In the meantime, no lights, no oven.

Did I mention one of the AC units has been acting strangely? It's the one that cools the part of the house we spend the most time in. (We call the other end of the house the Residence, but don't have a name for this part. I think I'll start calling it the Occupance.) The AC will come on, but only blowing, not cooling. But only sometimes. Sometimes it cools. Sometimes it doesn't. I can't discern from the fancy digital thermostat display that anything's wrong. Jessica thinks its a design feature--the city overrides to save energy at critical usage times. But it seems to do it a lot. Still, it doesn't get TOO hot, and we have the fans, so maybe it can slide ...

Last week Gerry's MacBook suddenly went black. No warning, no kernel panic, just black. No sound, no reboot, no nothing.

Dead in the water. Powerless. A hardware failure for sure.

Okay, we only got it in June, so still have warranty. That's a good thing. Took it to the shop, they'll get it fixed.

But while we wait, Gerry's using the iMac700. And then we started having random kernel panics there, too.

Why is my life filled with gubbish?

Apropos of this, here's a recent song:

New Defective
(imagine a Bo Diddley beat)


we are a defective race
broken in the dna
broken in the soul of us
broken like a face

we live in the defective place
breaking up the day
breaking in the cumulus
breaking like the sky

this is a defective year
bringing fever to my bones
bringing language from the west
bringing misery home

we are a defective race
breaking up the day
bringing language from the west
broken like a face

we live in the defective place
bringing fever to my bones
broken in the soul of us
breaking like the sky

this is a defective year
broken in the dna
breaking in the cumulus
bringing misery home

we are a defective race
we live in the defective place
this is a defective year
we are a defective race