Well, I'm back.

Reporting live from my new laptop. I was unfunctional for a week because some piece of poop inbred IQ deficient excuse for a human being stole my laptop computer last Saturday night. It pretty well sent me 'round the bend for a few days ... not only that on top of a bad vacation on top of everything else, but the incredible amount of irreplaceable stuff I lost on that little conversion. I had documents and pictures on that laptop that I can't ever replace - and of course I was too stupid to have had them backed up. Guess what lesson I learned this week. This sucker's getting backed up often, maybe every freaking day.

So what do I need to tell you to catch up? My vacation pretty well sucked. It rained, and rained, and rained some more. Saturday I spent 10 hours packing up - something I wasn't supposed to have to do at all, since I'd made that deal with my campmates about dinners and all. Well, one of said campmates decided to be a slackass Saturday, and barely did anything. I could have sat on my ass and not done anything either, but that wouldn't have gotten me home, which was the goal. So I ended up doing half the work myself (the Dread Reverend did more than his share, so my complaint is not with him!). Finally got home late Saturday night. Woke up Sunday morning to discover my laptop gone. We (the Dread Reverend and I) have left our laptops on the porch continually since early spring ... we spend all our time out here, from the time we get up in the morning till the time we go to bed at night, so there was no reason not to, and for months it was fine, no problems. Till this one asinine slug-brained moron had to ruin it all. And oh yes, I know who you are ... maybe not proof enough for the cops, but proof enough for me. You'll pay. Some day, later, when you're not expecting it.

So I sat around for a week in a state of semi-collapse, and only just this morning finally roused myself up to go out and get a new computer. I already knew what I'd wanted ... I'd been eyeing this little Toshiba for a couple months, since I'd first seen one in Circuit City when we were there for something else. I loved it because it was small, and well, yes, dammit, cute. Fortunately for me, I was in a financial position to be able to go buy a new laptop without too much hardship, what with the money from the sale of dad's house and all. This is the Toshiba U305-S5107, in case you're wondering. And so far, I love it. It took hours to get it set up, but you'll have that with any new computer - not just to get it to run, but the whole personalizing and all that crap.

After a few days I reconciled myself to the losses from the other laptop ... the book I spent a year writing, numerous irreplaceable pictures of Tyler, my dad, and our vacation, my private journal, songs I'd spent enormous amounts of time recording and editing, songs my dad recorded the year before he died that were recorded no where else ... yeah, I hope you develop leprosy, you stupid schmoo.

But ... life is often about loss, and you can't keep anything forever. I had to accept it and move on, and I have. But I'll be damned if anyone's ever getting their hands on this laptop. For starters, since it's small and petite, it's never leaving my side ... I plan to carry it around in my always-present tote from now on. Secondly, I plan to back up everything often and incessantly, so at least if something happens to the computer, I'll still have my stuff.

I can't post any pictures from Pennsic yet, because I also lost my photo editing software that let me scale down the file size to something appropriate for posting on the web. I don't know what I'm going to do about that yet - I don't know if the company will be able to find my records and let me replace that free of charge, or if I'm going to have to buy a new version ... and I don't even know if the software will work on this computer - it's got the new Windows Vista, and I've heard a lot about compatibility issues with this, since it's so new. I'll find out. Eventually I'll get picture-posting capabilities back.

Meanwhile, everyone send your best curses to the scum-bag who stole my laptop right off my porch ... it's okay if you don't know who he is, I'm sure the sentiment will still work. Me? Forgive and forget? I can forgive and forget stupidity, but not malicious cruelty. Not, at least, until I've had my revenge.