new computer sweeps clean

I'll tell you when I get the gumption up and fill a big bag up with stuff, and take it out to the hallway and toss it down the garbage chute, or even better, when it's such a big bag that it won't fit into the chute and I leave it in the stairwell, I get a feeling almost as good as when I get myself something spanking new.  I have a general rule that if I haven't used something in twelve years I probably can safely get rid of it.  But there are always exceptions.  And the thing is, you can't just throw it out, you have to decide to throw it out first and that means you have to think about it a little, and you know, it isn't taking up that much space, and maybe I could just leave it there for now and make the big decision the next time I am on a purge.

Speaking of getting myself new things, I just got a new computer.  The old one conked out.  Bad hard drive.  Shit,  It had been creaky for the last few days and it was in my mind to back it up any day, and this last time once I coaxed it back to life, I was going to back it up for sure, but then I never got it back to life, and so I never got stuff back.  Stupid,  Stupid.  Stupid.  There are still a couple things to try to get the old computer working again, but I don't have much hope.

The good news is that you can get up and running almost right away.  There was an awful fifteen minutes when I was trying to remember my wifi password, and then I found it on this scrap of paper in this box of old computer crap that I should have thrown out years ago.  But once I got out to the web and in the arms of Google, who handles my mail and my browser, and this very blog, I was up and running in less than an hour.

One bad thing though, is that I lost my personal little spelling dictionary that I have built up over the years, there are all my peculiar words and words that I like to spell as one word rather than a hyphenated word.  Not a fan of the hyphen myself.  I would not be caught dead using the semi colon, though I may use a colon every now and then when it occurs to me and I feel like being spiffy.  I like the parens, but I am always a little uneasy with quotes, when to use double or single, and then does the period or question mark at the end go inside or outside?