No no no no no no no no...

Dude, no no no. It's gone. All of it. It's just...

Well, that damned printer did it again. That thing is the devil, I tell you, and I want it out of my house. I can't tell you how many times it has broken my computer, but this time it has gone too far.

See, I have my laptop (Jack Sparrow), but there's not much memory, so I store all my pictures and my stories and things like that on my desktop computer (Barbossa). Well, my brother was here, and he made sure that my dad's laptop could talk to the printer. That's all well and fine. Then, for some reason, after my brother left, Barbossa decided that he didn't want to start up. So dad tried to make him start up, but apparently chose the wrong option or something.... and suddenly, Barbossa thinks he's a brand new computer straight out of the box.

My games are gone. Whatever. I've got the install discs. I'll just have to start over in Knight of the Old Republic.

My programs are gone. Okay. I can download them again.

Dude.

My pictures are gone. My concerts are gone, my videos that were too big to go on the laptop are gone, my pictures from the zoo are gone, most of my trips, my drawings that have since been given away, my brother's wedding, my nephew... gone.

My stories are gone. Luckily I've saved most of my clone trooper stories, but the original ones that came before the boys had established their character... those building blocks? Gone. Some of my other original stories are gone... Allegiance is gone. I don't think I've posted that one on the internet. I've got hard copy of that one, though. But there were other chapters that are gone now.

And Ray. I had a folder of Ray. The very few pictures I could find, two news articles, and an obituary. Pictures from the funeral as well. That's what gets at me the most. Pictures can be forgotten, stories are just fiction. Ray was real. And I do NOT want to forget about him. I'm hoping that I've got that folder on Jack, as well. If not, I imagine I'll cry for a week. Really.

So, for Christmas, I want a package of rewritable DVDs which I can backup my picture files with.

Oh yeah. Did I mention that all the system restore files are gone, too?

This may be blasphemy, especially coming from me, but I'm contemplating... well... Mac...