Well then. For those of you keeping score, I've managed to confuse at least three or four Gateway Support people enough to get it escalated to a higher level team, enough that they suggest I'll have to send it in to be fixed.
I've had PC issues before (like I said, I must be a wizard from the Dresden universe, as I have a knack for causing electronics to do weird things), and in the past I uusally had my techie big sis figure out the problem, but I think this is the first time where a PC had this big of a problem. Not sure what, and though I admit to some futzing with the system to get it to work, I never did it to a damaging degree.
So--tonight, after cleaning up a few last things on the PC, I'll be boxing it up and driving over the local UPS store to send it out to be fixed. It'll be gone for about two to three weeks. In the interim, I'll be using a laptop for writing and online stuff. And maybe actually using a non-PC cd player to listen to some of these CDs that are gathering dust on my desk.
That said...
Perhaps it's time to do a little experiment.
Maybe it's time I unplugged from the internet for awhile. Not cold turkey of course, as I can still access it with a laptop, but basically tone it down a bit. I've been trying to be good lately by not being distracted by emails and LJ and whatnot, especially when I should be writing, but this might help me even more. Besides, I keep griping about not having enough time to write, so perhaps this will open up more time for me.
Perhaps I could also look for a cheapo desk radio, one of those little dinky ones, that I could set up in Spare Oom to listen to instead of
obsessing playing around with my mp3 collection. Y'know, listen to terrestrial radio, something I haven't done in ages. [Note: I should probably add that the only goofing around with my collection should be for researching discographies for my
Walk in Silence project.]
And even more importantly, write out in the living room on the laptop so I'm not leaving
emmalyon out there by her lonesome. ;)
So yeah...maybe a bit of tech unplugging might be in order, get myself removed from all the gadgetry that distracts me too much, and be spartan with that as well as with the programs I put on my PC from here on in. So if you don't see me posting on LJ/Facebook/etc. as much as I have lately, that's the reason.
More on this as it evolves...