I am a Mac guy. Always have been. The iMac that I have had for 7 years and two hard drives finally decided to retire. The thrill of upgrading to a new computer is the yen to the yang of reintalling all the files. With Mac's past the process of installing a new system, and re-installing all the old apps and files was frustrating, very time consuming and humbling. There is a standing rule at the Johnson house to leave the area when I am "installing" a new computer. My time honored process is to curse and scream at a blank screen, followed by throwing non breakable objects and walking away to calm down. That process would be repeated several times until the job was finished. But that was the old days when the "fast Mac was 512k".
Today there is a wonderful thing called the Time Machine. Having to reinstall two hard drives on the old machine I thought my cursing, screaming, throwing, days were past. Time Machine operations are simply a matter of signing on to my network and clicking the reinstall back up. 24 hours later you have your stuff back. That is certainly the way the day started yesterday.
At the point when the dialogue screen said that the estimated time was 93 hours to completion I realized there would be no work on that computer for a couple of days. Having found a herd of dust bunnies behind the old Mac it was cleaning time. That prompted me to clean and dust everything in the office.
I took everything from the counter and desk top and put it on the floor. I sorted it and threw out anything that I could not recognize as important. I took breaks but was at it for about six hours. It was very satisfying when the desk and counter to the office was neat and clean. In fact it was now so well organized the tangle of electrical cords under the desk looked exceptionally un tidy. So I decided to "stow up the lines" as they say on a sail boat.
It was going well, looking good, but there was a cord so tangled around the rest that the only way to free it was to unplug it. I made sure it was not the computer, that would have been a stupid mistake. In fact this was an outlet on the other side of the room from the new computer. I was particulary proud of the way the cord looked once I had finished it. At this point my Son walked into the office, he had been doing some work on line and he said, "Did the network go down?" Oops.
I had unplugged the wireless router. The router went down, the network went down and of course the 6 hours of Time Machine back up went down.
With the help of a very nice lady named Penny at Apple Support we had to erase the drive and reinstall the system which took three hours.
So I started over this morning.
Jay Johnson:The Two and Only on pay-per-view demand August 9th. DVD release on December 16th. By that time I might have a computer I can use again.
As you were,
Jay
Dear Mr.Johnson (and Bob):
ReplyDeleteI am greatly looking forward to finally being able to see this show, as I missed it live, much to my dismay. I may have to wait until the DVD releases, though (and you can read my comments on that on your Two and Only facebook page that I followed the link from to check out the app.) However, I am hoping you can help me with finding a bit of your previous work that I've been trying to track down for what seems like eons now.
Sometime back in the 80's I had captured a BETAMAX recording of an appearance you two made on A&E's Evening at the Improv (at least. I think it was that show, but I suppose it could have been another variety sort or different stand up show) where you were educating Bob on the proper conjugation of the English verb "to dig" after his response to your question "Can you dig it? " was "yeah I can dug it!"
That was one of the greatest things I had ever seen in terms of the cleverness and material on one end and just pure talent that I couldn't see your lips moving on the other. I liked it so much that I even managed to save that little clip by dubbing it over to VHS format when the Betamax went the way of the Dodo and would enjoy watching that from time to time along with the episodes of Emergency One! that also lived on that particular tape.
Unfortunately, one of the best things that happened to me was also one of the worst, when the Dodgers won the World Series in 1988, because the tape I happened to shove into the VCR to capture the victory celebrations was not labeled, and I only realized what I had done upon replaying it and seeing the intro to the show right before a cut to the locker room at Dodger Stadium and the flowing champagne replaced the clip I had so painstakingly preserved for so long. So while I will never regret being so True Blue that I got to witness the greatest moment in all of LA Sports history with that Gibson miracle home run in a miracle season, I do regret being unaware of how to prevent a tape being erased in my enthusiasm by popping out that stupid little tab until it was too late.
Is there ANYONE ANYWHERE that can help me reclaim that clip of you guys doing that bit? Even with the back episodes on Hulu of that show, they seem to be only offering a selection rather than the complete anthology of episodes, and I cannot find it after years of searching. I will happily purchase a DVD if it appears on a collection, but I can't seem to find one for sale, I think I've even dropped a similar note on a previous blog or some point of sale for two and only tickets somewhere before...
Even though I will always have the memory, I would love to share it with my friends when they roll their eyes at the word "ventriloquist." Any help would be appreciated here, even if its just a permission slip that might let me borrow or get a copy of the tape from a library archive somewhere. Most things I can find on the net even if it takes a couple years, but this one thing has eluded me even longer than when I went to track down my old seventh grade teachers to thank them for their passionate efforts after they had long moved away.
Losing that clip is turning out to be the tragedy I had feared it would be when I tried to reassure myself that I wouldn't miss it once I learned what I had done. If you can rescue me from kicking myself every time I think of it, I would be eternally grateful.
Cheers! Thanks,
Ai-Ling Logan