Why Does Technology Hate Me?

What did I ever do to technology? I have a DVD player, a CD player, an iPod, a cell phone - see? I make nice to technology. I have OnStar in my car (which is weird at times because it comes through the radio. Now, normally, when I talk to the radio, it doesn't answer me. With OnStar, it does. First time they contacted me, I almost drove off the road.)

And I'll admit, I'm a bit of a turtle when it comes to the latest gadgets. I don't have an iPhone (but they do look pretty cool), and my cell phone doesn't **gasp** have a qwerty keyboard. But I'll catch up eventually.

I tend to hold onto things until they absolutely breathe their last breath as well. The only reason I replaced my laptop was because the hard drive was too tiny and I couldn't get a bigger one installed.

Now, I'll admit that I'd much rather use a computer than a typewriter - you should only see how many typos I am capable of - it's really rather frightening. But there are times when I swear that technology is out to get me. And the really scary thing? It's smarter than me. **shudders**

Let me share how HAL is out to get me:

Like I said, I had to replace my old laptop about a year and a half ago - I think I blogged about the nightmare that came with buying the new laptop and schmucks at a certain big (not at all best) place to buy stuff. I transferred over a bunch of stuff (twice, as I ended up with a damaged laptop the first go round and had to have it replaced) and that was that.

Well, then we moved, and I found that my new DSL and my old laptop are angry with each other and refuse to communicate. So, there went emailing the rest of my stuff to my gmail account - since I can't get the old laptop to speak to the DSL line. Got me why, except that old laptop is teed off because I replaced it.

So, I still have old files on there - old manuscripts and stuff. Well, I wanted one of those files to put on the new machine. So, I boot up the old one (which yells at me because the virus protection is flashing red and expired a year ago and oh crap, you are sooooo gonna catch everything out there because it's not protected, yadda yadda yadda) and go to transfer what I want to a CD. Okay, a DVD really.

Um. No.

The old laptop is giving the DVD the silent treatment as well.

**sigh**

Okay, find one of the older CDs that actually has the same files that I want, only a little older (I wanted the most recently saved, for obvious reasons. Remember, I am part pack rat - I have all drafts of every manuscript on one machine or the other, even the obvious never-gonna-publish-this-garbage trunk manuscripts)

Well, that CD is also the enemy. Machine can't write to that one.

**double sigh**

See what hoops that stupid machine makes me go through just to salvage something? Ay yi yi. I haven't been able to get new music for my old iPod (which is outdated as well - a new one is on my list of things to buy) because the old machine won't speak to the DSL and the new one can't use the old Apple software. And yes, I know you can go to iTunes and download an updated version (my brother shared that little nugget), but the new laptop is fussy about what I download. I had all kinds of problems with Adobe Acrobat when I first downloaded it. Adobe and the computer seem to have worked out their differences, but I really don't want to tick off the machine again. So, I'll wait until I splurge on the new iPod.

But what I can't figure out is why technology has this animosity for me - what did I ever do to it except for adapt very slowly? I wish someone could explain it. It would make my life soooo much easier....