Picnic delayed due to stormy weather (or the Dark Planet)

It is with huge disappointment, fury and crabbitness I have to announce what sounds like a pathetic excuse but sadly is not. My nice new, powerful, shiny, took me months to save up for pc is sitting here beside me dead as dead can be.
At this point I don't even know exactly what has gone wrong but I am favouring a complete Hard Disk failure. The good news is that it is still under guarantee, the bad news if it is the HD I may never recover the stuff on it. As well as loosing the latest work in progress chapters for Home- a personal sore one to loose although its some compenasation to have posted some on here or i would have lost all of it- but this also means Orwells music video, the Forumshire animation and the fireworks display into which hours and hours of work have gone in are also lost. Depressed does not even begin to cover it.

There will be a picnic- you can be damned sure of that and it will feature Orwells video as its center-piece come what may, even if it means starting all over again from scratch- I made you a promise Orwell, one which I shall keep. And it is to Orwell I feel I owe the most apologies as I know how much he has been looking forward to seeing the final project. I am so sorry.
Almost everything else is replacable if just inconvient to get again but less so all my work.
I had hoped it was a fixable problem- it went off on Friday leaving me to resort to borrowing a lap top again. I didn't say anthing then as I was hoping beyond hope not be in the position to dissapoint today, but I am in such a position and its breaking my heart to let you folks down. Im sorry. Honestly and truelly sorry. I feel lousy about this, just miserable.

{{I can't even mock my own failure with an edition of NotP as everything needed for it, templates etc are all as lost as everything else. }}

My goodness, that sounds convincing I thought it was true for a minute... Actually, I think it sounds so true it is true! My beloved video!!! All that work, my friend! Gone! Worse still, you lost some of "Home." That would be a bitter blow. For me too, as I was waiting patiently for more of that, you know, because it's top shelf. You know, I once worked solidly on Jack for about a week, new work (you'll remember Tangles and Hatch) and had done heaps upon heaps of editing, as well as expansions and rewrites across Book 1 - I estimate a minimal of 50 hours work (I was working on it like a machine, 10 to 16 hours a day). I was saving as I went, but not backing up on the copy I kept - don't ask me why. When I went to refresh my back up copy with the new stuff I backed up backwards and lost EVERYTHING I had done! Though I saved the old stuff successfully, which is better than losing everything, but at the time --- well, I couldn't sleep for three days, true story. Mind you, I battled on, and so in the end it sort me out as to how serious I was about writing a book, and how to suck it up when obstacles arise. In any case, I think I know your pain. (Of course, I'll expect both Home and the video to exceed my previous extremely high expectations. )

Thanks for the understanding Orwell. Losing the most recent chapters of Home is one I am losing sleep over, its like a continous dull throb of loss. But letting everyone down is even more bitter.
Pc's they change your life and present so many possibilities for creativity then betray you just when you need them.

I'm still pained by the time that I accidentally deleted 7 months of my GCSE ICT coursework a few years back Or even worse the time I accidentally deleted my friends English essay on of Mice and Men when she wanted to print it on my home computer the day before the deadline (to this day I have no idea what happened) but it really does suck when stuff like this happens!! Is there no way you can retrieve any of the data? Anyway, I know how you feel about computers

"Is there no way you can retrieve any of the data?"- Ally

I am holding out hope I can. But honestly at this moment I don't even know what it is has broken. I can get as far as the bios but can find no sign of the HD. So its either the drive, a connection to the drive (I've had a look and if its a connection its nothing obvious, like an unplugged cable) or its a mother board problem. I just don't know.
I am getting a friend to bring round their HD and I'll try it- it if works fine with it then I know it's my HD. Not sure what to hope for- if it is the HD then its easy to replace and little hassle but I lose everything most likely- if its not the HD then everything is safe but getting the pcr epaired will be more hassle and take longer. But still on balance I hope its the latter given I've lost close to a terabyte of data.

I'm sorry to hear that Petty; that really sucks. I hope that you can get your computer troubles resolved. Even if the HD is toast you might be able to take it to a shop where they can recover your data anyway. I hope so, at least.

For my part, I wouldn't be able to make the picnic today anyway. Hundreds of thousands of people across Maryland (and even more in nearby states) lost power due to Hurricane Irene last night. In my neighborhood we lost it around 1 AM local time - almost exactly 12 hours ago - and there is no indication when it will be back. The local power utility had crews standing by even before the storm hit the weather didn't let up until hours afterwards and we're in a low priority area anyway. I'm posting from my phone right now (I don't know where I'd be without a smartphone ) but to preserve battery I'm keeping it switched off as much as possible. I turned it on now to check e-mail and texts and stuff but I only have time for a few posts before I need to turn it off again.

Anyway, I hope everyone else is doing okay (and Petty, that you get your computer some help!) and I will let you all know as soon as we have power again.

AH! this has happened to me before. I was writing an autobiography for my english class, and my computer crashed! I lost ALL of the chapters I had written (I think there were 10 of them) And now my laptop isn't turning on, and I just wrote 8 pages on it!!!! Damn computers!

Just a quick update: the latest estimate for when there will be power back in the house is up to a week, but I just moved back on campus and am in a dorm room here so I have electricity, Internet, air conditioning, lights, and all that jazz. Hopefully I'll even have time to be active on here.

Glad you and yours came through the storm Eldo. Power they will get back on in time (probably in time for the next big storm!) so long as everyone is ok thats the main thing.
As to my pc- well I contacted the compnay I bought it from and they had eme run some bios checks (I aleady had myself anyway ) and they reckon it is the HD. But theres an outside chance it might not be. So I have a choice. 1. Send off the HD and they will send a repacement I will receive back within the week. But if its not the HD that will just be a waste of time. 2. Send of the whole system which they say I can't expect back for at least two weeks.
Haven't decided which yet.

Technology is plotting to destroy us, I just know it! Look at my own computer. Not that the hard drive's crashed or anything... er.. or is as much trouble as it sounds like Petty's computer is... um... yeah, hope your computer is better soon, Petty, or that you can boot it out the door and get a new one!

"Technology is plotting to destroy us"- Baingil

If its made by the same people who made my pc I think we will be all right!

True...

Has it cleared yet?

The picnic is back on, and it's happening right now! You guys are really missing a great time!



{{{ }}}

I do miss the Baingil avatar, it's one of the great ones.

edit: I just noticed and fixed it, but shouldn't she spell it BaingAl? Like son of Bard the archer but female.

halfwise wrote:I do miss the Baingil avatar, it's one of the great ones.

Agreed about her avatar. I'll pass on what you said.

edit: I just noticed and fixed it, but shouldn't she spell it BaingAl?  Like son of Bard the archer but female.

It's a Sindarin name (original, not from the books) so etymologically unrelated to the son of Bard. Technically it's Baingíl but she left the diacritic off when she registered her account here. It should be pronounced BINE-geel (first syllable rhymes with "dine"; second begins with a hard G) but a number of people from the Plaza, including myself, pronounce it BANE-gill since that's what it looks like in English and in my case I just never broke the habit.

Seems like I've started a ''resurrect the most random old thread you can'' contest...

Couldn't we all use a picnic in some nice weather though

This thread has been blessed by Eru.

Eru wrote:This thread has been blessed by Eru.

Praise be!

Our picnic has been blessed. Glory be to god.. err... eru

So, can one have a picnic in the snow?

I don't do snow. Its lovely to look at but, its cold. There's the hint, it being COLD. I don't do cold. Put the snow somewhere warm & your on

Quite.