And so begins the rejuvenated, out-of-the-woods, post-hard drive crash, five-pounds-lighter-due-to-stress phase of Hollywood Elsewhere, with only five days to spare before the flight to Cannes. The new hard drive is installed, all the programs are re-installed and running, and pretty much everything is back to normal.
Before anything else I need to give a shout-out to Angelo Moratta, the guy who got me out of this mess more than anyone else. Angelo runs a shop about 50 miles north of Manhattan called Mindtrain Computer Services, and if you’re ever in any kind of serious dutch with your computer you need to call this guy, seriously. He’s got one of those great remote control hookup systems in which you let him see your computer screen and access everything in it, and it’s just like having a house call. Plus Angelo’s got a relaxed and gentle voice (with a slight New Yawk accent), and he never gets riled and always figures it out, whatever the issue is.
Never trust the Geek Squad, never trust the Geek Squad, never trust the Geek Squad. They’re nice guys and they know what they know, but they’re not smart all the way around the track and they charge too much and they take forever. Or the fairly smart guy you spoke to the day before is taking a day off and the other guy who’s half-acquainted with the situation doesn’t come in until 3 pm. Forget ’em, bad news, exasperation time.
The only problem now is that it’s pretty warm outside and fairly stuffy in here, and the Oscar-winning lease holder on this apartment removed the air-conditioner — the one I bought a couple of years ago from the second-hand guy down the street — and put it under a bunch of boxes in an overstuffed hall closet. Do I spend an hour hooking it up (i.e., buying an extension cord and electrical power strip, cutting out a precisely cut slab of cardboard to seal off the window, finding masking tape to make sure it’s nice and tight) or just get down to today’s column items? These are the choices and the terms….and it’s always something.