If I thought you could find the way I would tell you go get lost.

[venta]

I don't think the world likes me very much today.

Number one: last month, I bought a dress from eBay. I realised yesterday it hadn't arrived, and mailed the seller. She tells me that she posted it, and a fortnight later it landed back with her undelivered. She has my address correctly, and it came with no explanation.

Much worse: number two. At the weekend I went to a wedding of a university friend. There were five of us who hung out together in that particular group: one married years ago, one has expressed his intentions of not marrying, the third was this weekend. That leaves Rachel and I. Rachel has been engaged a while, and was chatting happily about her own wedding plans.

It seemed the wedding was reasonably imminent - May - and I realised that I obviously hadn't been invited. "I take it as read you're going?" said Andrew in conversation. No, I said, I wasn't. I was a little hurt, but fundamentally weddings are expensive beasts and I guess you have to cut people off your list sometimes. A disappointment for me, but there we are.

The following day, it transpired that Rachel had sent out American style save-the-date cards a long way in advance, last July. "You did mark it in your diary?" she checked with me. Well, no.

I've had no card; the post office has obviously eaten it. Since the RSVP-inviations have not yet been dispatched, no one had realised I wasn't informed.

In the intervening months, that weekend has been booked with the rapper team. I briefly considered asking if I could welch on the commitment - awkward, but hopefully excusable - but now I remember that that weekend we have a bare minimum. We've accepted a booking at a festival, and for me to go to the wedding would involve the whole team backing out. I could do it, but I don't think it's a reasonable thing to ask.

Still, I guess weddings can take place without me. I just reserve my right to be cross with the PO about this one.

And today my giant external hard-drive, which houses my mp3 collection, appears to have eaten its own head. When I switch it on, it no longer spins up but emits a slightly melodious series of beeps[*] followed by a distressed crunching noise.

No, I don't have back-ups. My mp3 collection is the back up, since I only really keep mp3s of albums I own in phsyical form. Except... except for that one directory called Random_Shite. That was full of mp3s downloaded for free from band's sites, mailed to me by friends, and filched from message boards; some legit and no longer available, some stolen at dead of night. As a proportion, there's very few of them, but there were some gems in there.

Please don't be dead, hard-drive.

[*] Do hard-drives have POST codes ? I didn't think so, but can't quite work out what else it might be. I don't know its make/model (and getting it out of the USB caddy is a nightmare) so can't investigate what that particular beeping might mean anyway.

Comments

[kneeshooter]

Poor HD. I remember when mine died the other year it was the case/PSU that was deceased and I was able to recover the contents. It was a tough moment deciding whether to send it back under warranty sealed - with the promise of a new unit but no data - or go at it with a hammer.

I'm glad I chose the hammer.

Now all that data lives on a paired RAID setup. I couldn't face all that ripping again.

[uitlander]

I believe you once gave me carte blanche to raid your mp3 collection at work. I only took selected bits and bobs, but you are welcome to rummage through what I have and copy whatever you like.

[lathany.livejournal.com]

That's all really naff and annoying. I expect better from the PO too.

[octalbunny.livejournal.com]

:( in general

That's the first I've heard of hard disks having speakers, but they have the logic for it.

[shrydar.livejournal.com]

There was a wedding in the UK for which I was saddened to not receive an invite, but I never had the courage to ask if my invite had been lost in the mail. I didn't want to risk putting the prospective bride in the position of having to explicitly deny me permission to attend.

Think I'd been living in England too long..

[snow-leopard.livejournal.com]

Number one: last month, I bought a dress from eBay. I realised yesterday it hadn't arrived, and mailed the seller. She tells me that she posted it, and a fortnight later it landed back with her undelivered. She has my address correctly, and it came with no explanation.

As someone who sells stuff on ebay I can tell you that this happens a lot (about 1 in 50 parcels). WHY I don't know (I have never been offered a reasonable explanation by Royal Mail)!

[(Anonymous)]

Oxford Royal Mail has a black hole into which anything which really matters is thrown, including recorded delivery letters (sender's sorting office explanation: the college porters don't sign for them. Oh yes they do, and put them on the parcels list, so were very annoyed). If you live in a shared household, Royal Mail says your housemates are careless with your mail.

[ebee.livejournal.com]

HLM might be willnig to help on this as he just procured a shiney new ipod so his old one with all its stuff may be up for grabs..