Summer is almost over for us up in the North. But for now there are still plants growing, still life.

My computer decided enough was enough the other day. Well, not my computer -rather the adapter that lets me power up the thing. It's been struggling for a while, but it finally gave out completely. No opening, prodding, shaking and beating, worked this time. It's not too dead to still shock me with electricity, even unplugged, when I start poking around its insides, but it's definitely deceased enough to be of no use to me whatsoever.

The beauty of the matter? It's a HP product, and like many of the major players they don't like it when people can substitute their spare parts with generic models. Meaning -the original parts for the computer can only be substituted with spare parts from the same maker. Nothing else will fit. So instead of just going out to buy a generic adapter for a humane price, I'm stuck with having to order a spare part for a rather silly amount of money. Expensive doesn't even begin to cover it. It's a freaking adapter for pity's sake!

Even better though -it's been just about two years since I bought the computer, new from the store. In that time it's become an obsolete model, the spare parts are not available from HP through ordinary ways. I'll have to go through a supplier and see if they can scrounge up a part from somewhere. Price-y, I kid you not. Considering the amount of time I need on my laptop computer each day having to substitute it with a desktop that does not carry any of my software in the mean time really sucks too much to be believed.

The people who design in this manner should be shot. There is no excuse for the shittiness that is HP. None.

I usually put my writing up for peer review at some point. Of course good feedback is always hard to come by, but there are places and persons willing to lend a hand. This time I wasn't too pleased with the writing, but it was at least a finished vignette which was more than I'd been able to accomplish for a while. It was really a pice I wanted to convert into using in one of my other stories, but I wasn't too sure about the style of writing I'd chosen and wanted input.

That's maybe a bit more background than you need, but I'm getting to the point I swear. Long story short - I put the piece up for shredding and got some responses. One thing that really made me pause was the words "not quite up to [your] usual standards". Now you may think that this was a negative remark and indeed it was, but it brought me genuine joy just the same. Why?

Because for something not to be up to its usual standards means that there are actually standards to be (and usually are) met. You with me? Being up to ones standards means being good, great, excellent. So this person had expected a standard quality for me that I didn't produce this time. And because this was actually a negative remark and not praise I can be pretty sure they meant it. Which means I'm a good writer! Yay!

Ok, so obviously it's not the first time I've had that particular notion reaffirmed, but there is just something about this sort of backhanded compliment that makes me feel all gushy and gooey inside. Praise is so hard to take. We look for it, but once we get it we rarely put much credence to it since we all know that -you're supposed to be nice. Comments like this confirm the praise however, because they're brutally honest while still implying that they think we're good at whatever it is we do.

I like being good at what I do. Makes me happy.
^^

There, I'm done.
Have a great day!

...but I'm not that naive. Yes, my computer is dead, again. I wasn't going to write about it since I'm afraid people will think I'm cursed or something, but the frustration got to be too much. The gods must truly hate me, which yeah is understandable since I don't worship any of them, but still... Did the techno stuff really have to give up on me completely? I'm sitting by another computer right now, but it's not mine, doesn't have my stuff on it. This is pain people, you have no idea.