imbecamiel | Did you know a laptop can stop a shotgun blast, if you hit it in the right spot? Tempting.

I wanted a Sherlock wallpaper for my computer, but couldn't seem to find anything with the sorts of quotes I wanted. So, naturally, I asked my super-talented sister to make me one. And she did. And it is lovely. :D

(This is a cropped, downsized part of it, for better viewing on LJ.)

Sadly, it appears that I may be headed for impending dual hard drive failure. The figurative kind - I seem to be coming down with the same thing Nef's had. And the more literal variety - after my brother completely wiped and re-installed everything on my computer and confirmed everything was free of viruses and shiny and running correctly, everything seemed to be going great for a while. Unnntil I had another crash, much weirder than the ones I'd had previously. It didn't just lose things that I'd saved immediately before the crash, or was working on at the time, but separate files that I'd saved to the desktop some time earlier completely disappeared as well - it was like the stupid thing had amnesia regarding everything that'd happened for 3-4 hours before that point. Scanning confirms still no viruses that could be causing weirdness, so... I dunno. I'd hoped to get this laptop to last another six months to a year, but... starting to really doubt that's gonna happen at this rate.

Between one thing and another, I'm really starting to get that itch for new technology again. *g* I'm actually seriously contemplating getting an Apple laptop this time around, much to my own surprise. I got so aggravated with our Macs when I was younger - I thought for sure I'd never want to go back to them after I got my first Windows laptop. But seeing how shiny Nef's Mac desktop has been, and looking at a few of the laptops in the store... hmm.

On a totally unrelated note, a question for my various friends who live in other states/countries (which would be, um, all of you, I guess XD). I've noticed a growing trend of people who leave "to be" out of their sentences when writing. That is, they would say, "It needs fixed." or "It needs changed." The first few times I noticed it, I figured it was just an odd typo. But I've been seeing it more and more, even from people whose writing is not otherwise riddled with errors, and it's just... odd. And has been kind of driving me crazy. So I'm wondering if you all have any ideas. Is t just a particularly common mistake? Laziness? Or could it be a regionalism that I'm not familiar with? (

scarvenartist, I think you mentioned a similar quirk in the way people talk where you are, but it seems to me that you said it was a bit different - i.e. that people would say "It needs wash." instead of just leaving out "to be." Or am I remembering that wrong?)

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Ugh, I hope it's not some new vernacular trend, especially where writing is concerned. I'm having a hard enough time dealing with people who say "I could care less" rather than "I couldn't care less." Do they not see the difference!

Sorry, just... can we stop butchering the written language, please? It's been butchered enough.

Shiny new technology is fun:D My mom finally going out and buying a brand new computer rather than having my brother build us another one was the best thing ever - mostly because the new one worked faster and I could actually play games on it.

I think my own laptop may not be long in the "screwing everything up in the worst way possible" department. It's actually a very good laptop for being as old as it is, but there have been little hiccups here and there that are starting to make me nervous.

Gaaaaah. Yes. "I could care less" instead of "I couldn't care less"... it makes no sense. (I actually found an instance where I'd written "I could care less" in one of my stories a while back. I was horrified. No idea how it happened, because I very much know the difference, and it makes me twitch every time I hear it. XD)

I really hope that leaving out the "to be" doesn't catch on. ;_; At the beginning I just shrugged it off, but the more I see it the more it makes me wince.

New computers are just awesome, aren't they? ;D I think that we do appreciate them so much more, too, when we stick with what we've got until it's really not working, instead of upgrading every time the "new tech" urge strikes. The contrast after limping along like that just makes it all the more shiny.

Hmm, I don't know about the lack of "to be". It might be a regional thing. I know in conversation, I'll use "It needs fixed" but I doubt I'd be that informal in writing unless that happened to be the voice of the character. Hard to say.

My sympathies on your dying 'puter. Don't these things know they're supposed to live forever???

Yeah, it must be a regional thing. It just looks so odd to me, I've been bewildered by how common it seems all of a sudden. XD

LOL. Yes indeed. One day, they will invent the everlasting computer... and promptly bury the secret as deeply as they can, because it'd cut them out of a whole lot of money if people no longer needed to regularly buy replacements.

I think that particular verbal quirk might be a Midwest thing. Or parts of the Midwest. I never hear it here in the western part of the US, but when I was living in southern Illinois, people said it a lot. I found myself picking it up and still say it occasionally.

I certainly never remember hearing it in the Minnesota/Wisconsin area, so I think it must be more common a bit further south, and east possibly. It just sounds so weird to me, it's been bizarre to see it all over the place suddenly. XD

The wallpaper is awesome. I love Nef's graphics. <3

That seriously stinks about your laptop. Though you're right, nothing like technological difficulties to make you want...NEW AND SHINIER TECHNOLOGY!! I had already been aiming to get an Android something or other soon, and on Nef's recommendation, I went for the Nexus. (And oh, is it ever shiny.) Anyway, I am sorry for your woes, but I hope you can either get them resolved soon or get something better. :)

Yes, around here, I'm always hearing, "it needs washed" or "it needs fixed," but you know, I'm more used to hearing these phrased as questions, than statements. (I.e., "Does it need fixed?") From what I've read, it's debatable where it comes from--one source I read said that it is actually fairly common use in parts of Scotland and Northern England!

Isn't it just preeetty? ;D

Hehe, I do think it helps with the appreciation for finally getting something really shiny and new when you've stuck with your current tech until it's reeeeally limping along. Ooo - you did get a Nexus, though? I hadn't thought that a tablet would be much more useful than an iPod overall, but... Neffie's and Mom's are rapidly convincing me otherwise. *g*

Huh. It seems like the vast majority of the time I see it written in the context of a statement rather than questions. It just seems so odd, because I really don't remember seeing it around until quite recently, and not it seems to be all over the place. XD

I'm not sure that I've ever heard that except as an example of things to avoid in my A Beka grammar text in middle school. We always thought the mistakes they said to avoid were hilarious, because they were regionalisms that no one in our area said.

:-P

It just strikes my eye as so obviously odd and wrong that it's been weird for me to see it around so often. But I guess a lot of regionalisms are like that - if you hear everyone around you saying it, you're probably not going to think twice about it, even if the books are telling you it's wrong.

Sorry about your laptop. How old is it?
No one round me leaves the "to be" out of anything! More common usage in the UK, though would be, "It needs a wash."

It's about three years old, so... kind of borderline as far as replacing goes. Not quite new enough that it'd be worth putting much into trying to fix things, but not quite old enough to be at a place where it's obviously lived its life and it's time to move on. *g*

Yeah, "It needs a wash." makes excellent sense to me - perfectly reasonable construction. But just leaving the "to be" out seems so odd!

That seems very soon for a laptop to expire. I know folk who have ones 7 or 8 years old and a friend gave me one of that vintage. IT won't go online and weighs a ton ,but is OK for typing. How frustrating for you!

Yeah, I think my first laptop lasted... six years or so before I needed to replace it? But at that point I was pretty much just typing up Word documents and occasional emails.

Now, I do quite a lot of digital art, among other things, which involves some massive files for a computer to handle. So I do expect to need to upgrade more often, in order to keep up with more recent heavy-duty programs and such. But I still hope to have them last about four years before needing to be replaced. (For a desktop it'd be longer, of course, but I really need the portability of a laptop.)

Did you know a laptop can stop a shotgun blast, if you hit it in the right spot? Tempting.

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