The Hunt

Yesterday, I went with Pete and Adam to the casting call for a new gay reality TV show called The Cruise. The premise is to follow various relationships between 10-15 gay men and their straight friends during a 7 day-long gay cruise. Quite honestly, I went to the casting call only for the experience, with no hope or intention of being cast (in contrast to Adam's sentiments), and I am fairly certain we will not be called back, but mostly I came away unsure of what to think or expect from the show.

My biggest worry? Stereotypical (one-sided) portrayal of gay men as whorey whore drama queens; it is our constant battle. For god's sake, the show is called "The CRUISE." And although it was never implicitly stated, they were most definitely looking for some willing participants of slut action. In response to the question "Why should we choose you to be on this show," they wanted people to say "I am going to go CRAAAAAZY with all of those sizzzzling boyz on the boat. Then I will snort a line of coke and create big drama for the folks at home." Being a square, my own reception by the interviewer was noticeably lukewarm.

I am not ignoring the fact that squares don't make for engaging reality television. It is obvious that watching men hook up and leaving in their wake a trail of interpersonal destruction is far more interesting. But it seems like the show is founded on an idea that is not very creative and not very flattering, that getting a free cruise in exchange for yet more muck on our already tarnished identity may not be such a good deal. I hope I'm wrong.

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Note to self

It's difficult to describe how exactly I feel right now, but in one word: good.

Surprisingly.

I've been under a lot of emotional stress in the past few weeks. At the end of January, I broke up with my boyfriend of a year and a half. Then, almost instantly, I met someone I like a lot, completely unlike anyone I've ever dated in many, very good ways. I didn't mean to meet him; I certainly wasn't looking.

I know: as you roll your eyes, you sarcastically mutter "What a sad, difficult life you have, Nate."

Believe me: I know just as well as anyone else that meeting people is a bitch, and that finding someone new in close succession to my break-up sounds hunky-dory. In many ways it has been. But I'm telling you--this kind of situation can really screw with your head. With the new guy, there is a constant need to separate real feelings from rebound-induced rationalizations, to neutralize "grass is greener" syndrome in favor of something more earnest and logical. With the ex, there's healing to be done, independence to be regained, resolution to be had. And that's only the beginning. About 200% more stuff has been muddling my head as of late, although I won't speak of it here--it's not exclusively mine to discuss.

So why, in the shadow of all of this whining, would I report my mood as generally favorable?

Well, first of all, my life is pretty okay. I had a productive day at work, a good workout at the gym, McDonald's after (I'm sorry, but I just find it so scrumptious!), and I just practiced piano to my heart's content. But also, after a fair amount of mental struggle, I've achieved a bit of clarity. I've realized that instead of thinking so goddamn much about everything, I have only to make the most of my newly single life, and take things as they come.

What a completely obvious, anticlimactic thing for me to have realized, huh? Somehow, though, I feel better knowing it, and I suspect it's easy to forget.

Note to self:

Recognize what you've got.
Don't be afraid to let things fall into place.

--------------------------------------------------------------

Thanks to labmate Yoriel for help with the clarity.

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Moon dust

Lately, my 2-year-old Toshiba Satellite 2430-S255 laptop has been sick. Whenever I did anything remotely CPU-intensive, like ripping a CD, watching a DVD, or running a virus scan, the fan would switch to ultra-high speed, and moments later my computer would shut off without warning. Also, the bottom of the computer, by the fan, would have grown hot enough to braise lamb.

This was no new illness--it happened a year ago, right before my 1-year warranty ran out. Thankfully, I sent it in, and within a week they had it back to me, working just fine. Unfortunately, I was never able to decipher the scrawl on the work order detailing exactly what they had done to fix it.

So this past December, when the exact same problem reappeared, I had no idea what to do other than than curse, bear it, and vow never to buy another Toshiba laptop. I actually did call technical support, but they wanted $300-400 up front as a kind of security deposit before I sent it in to them. When I said I would probably just open up the computer myself and muck around, the British technical support lady advised against it, saying that there was no technical information on the Web showing how exactly to do this (whose fault is that, may I ask?!) so I'd better not try.

Well, fine. That is, until I was reading some film reviews by Roger Ebert last Thursday, and again, without warning, the computer shut off. Now, is it just me, or is reading text on the internet hardly a CPU-intensive task? I didn't think so! Clearly, my computer was regressing to some kind of Apple IIe state of being, at which point I would have to boot it up with a 5 1/4" floppy and work exclusively in DOS.

So I took things into my own hands. I found a computer support forum online where many many people seemed to be having the same overheating and sudden shutdown problem with their Toshiba laptops, and at entry #27, I hit money:

Cleaning the cooling fan.

I have a Toshiba 1905-S303 that started shutting down after a few seconds of hard work. This thread led me to cleaning the cooling fan and here's how to do it without disassembling your whole laptop.

You will need:

Magnetized tiny phillips screwdriver.
Very small TORX or small flat blade screwdriver.
Heatsink paste (optional but recommended).

1. Turn it off.

2. Turn it over and find the small square cover on the bottom that covers the CPU. When the laptop is upright this would be in the in the upper left corner of the computer.

3. Remove the four screws and remove the cover. You should see a small aluminum square, this is the heatsink and the clogged cooling fins.

You will need a little tiny TORX driver or a very small straight screwdriver to get these four screws of the cover out. Be careful where you put these screws as they are very small and easily lost.

4. You should see four screws across the top and bottom of the heatsink. Remove ONLY the four "outside" screws, do not remove the two screws in the middle of each edge. The heatsink will now lift off of the processor. Use a magnetized screwdriver and DO NOT DROP those little screws into the computer or you will have to remove the entire cover.

5. Notice how much gunk is on the fan end of the fins. Blow softly through the OTHER end of the fins and blow the crud out of there.

6. Put a small amount of heatsink paste on the CPU surface before replacing the heatsink.

7. Replace the screws holding down the heatsink and replace the CPU cover. You are done and should notice large volumes of only warm air from the vent now.

Good luck and be careful mucking around in your computer.

Timpala

This gave me courage: I went down to my building's machine shop and asked them if they had whatever would fit the tiny 6-pointed-star screws covering what I suspected was my computer's heat sink, and the guy there handed me a No. 6 Torx screwdriver. I removed the cover, unscrewed the heat sink, pulled it out, and what did I see? That the so-called "heat sink" had been acting more effectively as a lint trap--blocking all airflow from the fan into the heat sink was the densest dust you ever saw. After re-assembly (which included dropping loose screws into the expanses of my laptop), I ran a virus scan, ripped a CD, and good ol' lappy turned itself off not once!

So, with my newly self-repaired computer, my question now is this: where is the line between cautious business practice and exploitation of the customer? I can definitely understand Toshiba's reticence to let end-users take computer repair into their own hands, if only because I can clearly see some dumbass trying it, ruining their computer, then blaming Toshiba. But it seems to me that $300-400 for clearing some dust is a bit unnecessary (if not profitable, and shouldn't good customer support be profitable only because it earns customer loyalty, not because it's a money maker in itself? Well, Toshiba, I'm telling you now: dust is everywhere, and every time that lint re-appears in someone's computer and it starts shutting down unexpectedly, you've lost yourself another customer). Instead of this bloated manner of dealing with a simple problem, how about "Sign this waiver, and we'll tell you for *free* how to very easily fix your ailing laptop"?

I guess that's why I'm writing about it here; and I won't make you sign a waiver.

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