Excessive

Today really turned into a nightmare, just thing after thing going wrong or being weird or just sucking and nothing seemed to go right. Yeah, that sounds a bit dramatic, but it's really how I feel the day has been going.

Let's see... this horrible day started in a horrible way, as I woke up to check my phone, and find that I had a missed call from Jeff at work, which on a day off, is just about the worst thing that could ever happen on a day off ever, probably a few steps beyond death or serious injury. The last thing I want to see or hear about or talk about on a day off is work. I didn't call back, because... well... because first thing in the morning, before I had breakfast, or before I had time to wake up, I don't want to talk to my boss.

I did have a good breakfast, that was my one success of the day. I made a cheddar, mushroom, rep pepper and red onion omlette, with potato pancakes, coffee, toast and bacon. It was good, although a bit filling.

While I was eating breakfast, another call from Jeff was missed, as I left my phone on vibrate in the computer room as I ate in the living room... which left me asking why he wasn't just texting me, since that's usually how he contacts me. He texted me a few minutes later, asking me to work 4pm to 8:30pm, and added a bunch of random stuff as well, but I politely said no, or at least, I said didn't want to be a pain in the ass, but I had plans, I mean, I planned to spend the day doing laundry and getting food from the store, and that all takes time, so I didn't enjoy screwing up my plans. Just having him call, and especially asking me to work and having to force myself to say no, left me feeling very anxious, very nervous, and I really hate it. It essentially ruined my day... I instantly couldn't relax, and I knew it wasn't going to go away.

I cleaned up a bit around the house, doing the dishes, taking out the garbage and cleaned the kitty litter, just the normal household-type chores. After working on these things, the only things left on my list of things to do were the laundry and grocery shopping, and I decided to go get some groceries before starting the laundry, as the laundry is a bit more of a long process that requires my attention to change the water etc. I picked up only a few things, although the few things I did get were quite heavy, so that kinda sucked. I picked up a bag of red skinned potatoes, a big bag of cat food, and a 12 pack of coke, all put in my backpack. I also got a couple bags of chips, a dessert, and just a few other smaller things. It was a decent walk, but I still felt a bit off. Also, on the walk back, I had another god damn missed text from Jeff, asking me to work tomorrow for a regular shift, and then by the time I got home and my groceries away, he texted me again saying nevermind. Just a non stop flow of shit to make me feel uneasy, and as before, it's ruining my day.

Once I got home, I played a few games, just the normal ones I've been working on lately, Defense Grid, La Pucelle and Ratchet and Clank. I know it's a bit repetitive, but I just need to repeat that I didn't feel relaxed at all while doing these things... I think the most relaxed I felt was listening to the Morning Stream while playing Defense Grid, and that was nice, but for the most part I felt weird and restless and anxious. As time went on and it was getting later, I decided on dinner, which actually took me a long time. I kept going from the fridge to the cupboards trying to be inspired to make something, but nothing was really appealing to me. I had pulled two beef tenderloin from the freezer the night before, so I figured that it's the easiest thing to do and it would be good, I just wanted to wait until I was hungry so that I would really enjoy the dinner. I got everything ready to cook, cut the potatoes and put them in water, got the veg ready and sliced the mushrooms, and all that fun stuff. I got it all ready around 5pm, but didn't cook dinner until around 6:30pm.

After dinner, I was just on the laptop and started a cpu monitor gadget to see what temp my cpu was running at, and just idling on the desktop, it was running between 87 C and 90 C, which.. I dunno... seems hot. That's like 190 F, which is hotter than chicken has to be to be safe to eat... so... uhh... what the fuck? It's been really stressing me out, all of the laptop problems, over the last year it has been a source of frustration and disappointment and I've been wanting to take apart parts of the laptop and clean it as I suspected that perhaps it was dirty or clogged or something weird was going on, especially with the keyboard problems and the case problem. So... after seeing the tempurature, I decided to take the time to look at the manual and take apart the computer, slowly and safely and inspect it for problems.

This process took me a couple hours, didn't really run in to any problems, and made a few discoveries. There are multiple issues with this laptop:

1. Case defect... the left hinge shoots up through the case causing it to seperate and break off. No bad side effects from this other than the case of the laptop is visually broken and doesn't look great.
2. Keyboard problem... if the laptop is cold, like it has been off all night by the window, it will think that the A or S key's are constantly being held down, which obviously causes problems. I'm not entirely sure what the solution is, whether it be pressing the keys a bunch to make it stop, or just letting the computer warm up to let it stop on it's own.
3. Screen problem... sometimes the screen won't turn on at all, and I need to press the external display button to make it turn on, sometimes it won't stay on and i have to mash to key... this hasn't been happening as much lately, and it used to be a bigger problem back in september and october of last year.
4. Not powering on at all... sometimes the computer won't boot up at all. It will power on, and then just beep non-stop until I turn it off by holding down the power button. It seems to do this at random, and seems to fix itself at random.

All of these problems are frustrating and worry me, a bunch of anxiety I wish I didn't have to live with, as I rely on this god damn laptop for my eductation over the next three years or so. Anyway, after taking apart the laptop almost entirely, the only things I discovered was... there doesn't seem to be any obvious defect with the keyboard, I have no idea why it malfunctions when it's cold. The biggest thing was the hinge on the screen... it's supposed to be screwed down in place, but the base that the screw gets held into was literally not there, and the hinge wasn't attached to anything, so when you turn to open the screen, the hinge didn't turn as a hinge, it literally just rotates, forcing the top part of the case to split from bottom, popping it open essentially. So, it kinda sucked to learn that it's not a problem that can be fixed, and I tried my best to modify the position of the hinge, but it's pretty much the same, maybe a tiny bit worse.

Nothing else of note was found, the cpu fan was a tiny bit dusty but nothing out of the ordinary, and there wasn't anything else that could have been causing any of these problems, so basically it was just a huge waste of my time. When I got the laptop put back together, it wouldn't turn on. Well actually, it would turn on but there was nothing on the screen, and this was preeeetty much my worst case scenario. I knew the risk of me fucking around with taking apart the computer was that I might screw something up, so it was basically my worst nightmare coming true. I spent some time looking up HP support information and warranty information, but HP's support website is pretty terrible, and everything was basically a deadend that lead me nowhere.

I tried one more time to turn on the laptop, and voila, it just turned on like normal. So... fuuuuuuuuuuuuu. So much bullshit... So now I don't know if it's going to not turn on next time, or if there's going to be new problems, or if some of the old problems might go away. My whole night was ruined by this god damn computer, and now here I am writing on it like it had never happened, except my day is over, my hands are sore from fucking around with it, and I'm worried about what might happen in the future. Knowing my luck, the god damn thing's going to break the first day back to school. I was talking to my Mom and she said that if the laptop does break, she would just give me her laptop, so that I could use it to school, which I dunno, I don't think I could live with. I would rather buy a new one, put it on the year plan again, and go back into more debt, than just take my Mom's computer.

She also talked about how the fact that I pretty much use this laptop 24/7, and play games on it a lot and basically run it at full speed all the time, it's probably not the best for it, and if she was me, she would only use the laptop for school, so that it lasted longer and there would be less problems, and then have a desktop dedicated for gaming stuff, which is actually a good idea, and was my intention years ago, and then when I got the laptop, I kinda got distracted by Steam and how many fucking games I could play, and forgot that desktops run games better, and I had money.

So yeah, the idea of getting a desktop for gaming has re-entered my brain, and the possibility of my current laptop completely breaking has also entered my brain, and it's quite possibly the worst time ever for both of these things to happen. The financial situation I'm about to enter in the next month, in September, means that I will be barely breaking even... well actually, I don't even know for sure if I'll be able to break even, I don't even know for sure I will be able to stay where I'm living, so the idea of saving for a computer or putting one on a payment plan is like... this added insanity to an already anxious and unstable situation. I'm worried about money... I'm good with money, that's why I never worry about it. Lately I've been spending more; Steam sales, extra food that I don't need and special food for special meals that I didn't need... other random shit that I don't need. I need to snap out of it, to be smarter and safer.

I won't be able to budget or really know what's going to happen until September... October... November... So thinking of these problems now is only making me worry without the ability to take action to resolve them, and that's a recipe for shit. Not the good kind of shit, but the bad kind of shit that will drive you crazy and make you pissed off. I can theorize my budget, I can guess, I can look at pay stubs from school time, and pay stubs from summer, and I can average it out and hope that it stays the same, and I can always take extra shifts if I want, and work full time hours and go to school full time, and go crazy, but yeah, I just have to sit here and worry, and not know what's actually going to happen.

I guess I should focus less on my worries and move on from it for now. Maybe the laptop will work without issues from now on, and I can stop worrying about it and I'll start to feel relaxed and better about it.

Tomorrow is another day off of work, regardless of how badly Jeff wanted to take it away. Obviously my goals are as they always are, to relax, to play games, to stay sane; To feel comfortable. I want to sit on the couch without a worry in my mind, I want to smile and feel good, and be excited about progress I've made in some of my favorite games. I don't want to feel restless, and I don't want my mind to race. I don't want to think about money, or computers. I don't want to think about work, or how... something.. friendship.

I suppose I could just keep writing, I feel like I've got more to write in me, but I realize that this is getting a bit long, and I would be surprised if anyone has made it this far, as it's been perhaps a bit long winded. I'll head to bed soon, and I'll wake up tomorrow, and it'll be a good day. It will, just watch.

2327 words

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