By the by!

[trinityvixen]

Everyone, I'd like you to meet Horatio.

Horatio came home with me when I went to Office Depot and he was on sale for like $80. I was there to buy laminating sheets for my mother (she's working on preserving the papers from the sodden basement bins), and I passed every aisle looking for them only to discover that the hard drives by Western Digital were on sale with a mail-in-rebate (and, 'cause I'm cheap, I always fill in rebate forms immediately; it's already in the mail). I picked up two, one for my family and one for myself (why not? they were cheap!). The one for my family I meant to get since my younger sister called me all in tears saying she turned on her laptop and couldn't find any of her files--docs, pics, or mp3s. She got them back when she took it to my dad's office to have their tech guys look it over, but I told her she needed to back up her files herself to prevent that from ruining her should, in the future, the files prove more resistant to retrieval. Since her laptop's disc writer is only for CDs and it's broken anyway, I suggested getting an external hard drive.

So, now she has one, and one that's super easy--plug in and use, no backup software for her to worry about syncing with (also good if she needs to share the drive among several computers, like, say, if she gets a new laptop).

And now I have one, too. Horatio wasn't even my idea for a name. My mother came up with it. I told her that the naming of hard ware is as sacred a thing as the naming of cats.. I told her about my lovely computer, Ambrose; my other, first external hard drive, Webley; and my USB key, Eustace (ooh, come to think of it, I haven't named my first USB key--must do so). She came up with Horatio--"Horatio Hard Drive."

She's very cute and terribly clever, my mum.

Comments

[moonlightalice.livejournal.com]

FUCK YOU!!! MY COMPUTER IS NAMED HORATIO!!!!

My old computer was named Hamlet, but he died. So I decided to name the new laptop (from 2 years ago now) after the character who LIVED.

I demand you rename him!!

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I can't do that! How will he know who he is?

He's not a threat to your Horatio. He's a hard drive, not a computer. Poor baby, being so loath-ed. Can't we just consider it a tribute?

[moonlightalice.livejournal.com]

NO!!!!!!


This... is.... ELSINORE!!!!!!!!!!! RAAAARAAAAAAAAAAR

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Um, what?

[ecmyers.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but hers is probably named after Hornblower, yeah? Completely different. There are more Horatios in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in your philosophy...

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

There's a good point. My mother wouldn't have been thinking Shakespeare so much as BBC when she picked Horatio.

[umeyard.livejournal.com]

LOL
very cool with the naming of cats...I love that poem by t.s. elliot and that its "Cats"

Thanks for making me smile

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Glad you liked it. It's a good one, especially in the musical :)

[umeyard.livejournal.com]

*grins*
it so is...think i need to put that cd in now...

[umeyard.livejournal.com]

Oh and ALL my computers are named "Charlotte"

although rumor has it my first computer was named "Michelle" but it did not like it, but answered very nicely to "Charlotte"
(i have only had two)

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

My first two laptops were named BuggyBug and BuggyBug2. After both died rather sadly, I made a clean break, and my lovely red computer insisted on being with an A, and it became Ambrose. Webley, I can't figure out aside from it just popped into my head. Ditto Eustace.

[umeyard.livejournal.com]

Charlotte for me was named after the song "frozen charlottle" because she would freeze up and crash if anybody else used her. Thats why i got her for free...nobody else could use her but me :D

[kent-allard-jr.livejournal.com]

Now here's the thing: If I named my computer I'd have to treat it like a pet, and I don't stuff my pets in the closet when they become obsolete, I don't toss them in the garbage when they die, and I don't throw my pets at speeding trains to express my displeasure. (OK, I shouldn't have done the last one to my computer, either, but you get the idea.) It would completely change the way I look at things.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

You don't have to treat them like pets. They're definitely targets/outlets for abuse. Giving them a name helps a lot like that.

[hslayer.livejournal.com]

Seriously. I'm a huge geek and I only started naming my computers for the sake of identifying them on the network. I still never refer to them by name. It may be a chick thing.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

cagexxx always named his stuff, far as I knew. Perhaps the naming of peripherals is a girl thing, but really, why not?

[hslayer.livejournal.com]

I don't know. Where does the naming of inanimate objects end? Do you name your shoes? Do you name your meals before eating them? You needn't ever refer to these things by name; it's just noise clogging your brain! Do you only name the disk drives because the operating system lets you? What if you wanted to create two partitions? Would it be schizophrenic? Even if it is just hardware, do you name your speakers? Surge protector? GAH!

(I don't actually care this much, I just think it's funny.)

[cagexxx.livejournal.com]

If you have the discipline to remember, I suggest waiting a week or two to send in rebates. This advice is especially worthy for products like hard drives, which are more likely to fail within two weeks than they are within three years. If you try to return a product with the box's UPC cut out, you'll probably fail and have to go through the warranty crap, and that's a huge pain.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I didn't have to cut the box apart, actually. I just had to mail them the receipt (or a copy, which I did).