Just the fact I can say it is one flash drive particularly, and that is not Nemo (Linux Mint's file manager), is all progress.

I routinely considered the events of note preceding the great fuckening: I had accessed my flash drive on Windows 10; I had unmounted the flash drive but pulled it out before it had completed unmounting; and I had done a hard shut-down when my boot-up slowed to a crawl (thanks to NordVPN, which initially I blamed for this entire clusterfuck).

I accessed the flash drive in Windows and ran a repair function on it; it claimed the flash drive was fixed (Nemo said, "I'll be the judge of that"). I also changed permissions on the flash drive to everybody and their dog. Windows was fine with all of this, as well as all reading and writing of every kind. Windows is very cool with my flash drive. Very chummy.

In Linux, I changed permissions on the flash drive itself; then in Nemo. I discovered that my file manager is named "Nemo" and that there are other ones I can test. I tried "Nautilus" and "Thunar." This is when I realized the problem is probably with my flash drive: other people with my problem reported that Nemo was the problem child, and that the other file managers would work where Nemo didn't. Neither one would write to the flashdrive.

I noted that if I left Nemo open while waiting for a document to transfer, a second dialogue box would pop up, frozen in the act of transferring the file. If I shut down my OS I would sometimes get an error message from Files telling me that it was busy.

It is so muddy and dark and ugly.

It is definitely made for children, complete with fart jokes (and I have to get over that)

Leonardo's major arc involves dealing with a wise Yoda-esque character who does nothing but crack ass and it's really hard for me to get through

Which is a shame. It's definitely the TMNT I longed for as a sprog.

Will someone watch it with me

Speed readers sat in big rooms with slanted tables and read a zillion newspapers a day looking for keywords for clients, marking articles of note with pencils before sending them off to be snipped and mailed. Yes they were all ladies and they were paid shit because idk ovaries curse our eyes or something. Medical science sure has come a long way

I found out about this service from an HP Lovecraft short story and I have been dying to employ this knowledge in a story of my own.

My time has come! My interesting period-specific fact slouches toward Bethlehem to be born!!

Let's find out what the pricing plans were for newspaper clipping services in 1967!!!

This is an extremely important factoid because press clipping was kinda expensive, and the character I want to employ it is a low-tier journalist with a house, a housewife, and a housechild. In 1932, you paid a flat $5 fee per month if you received no clippings at all. $5 in 1932... let's just say most folks got psyched about a stray penny in 1932. So I'm assuming a low-tier plan would run about $10-20/month in 1967. That was some expensive bullshit back then.

(technically this service is expensive now, too. it still exists. but fuck it. it's turned into some kind of automated hellscape involving bots and AI)

But knowing the general ballpark won't help me because different plans come with different services. You might be Granny keeping an eye out for your old flame's obituary OR you might be a big industry looking for thousands upon thousands of pieces for marketing purposes. You might be charged for extra clippings past a certain amount. You might be charged per clipping. what do you want bitch? we can do anything. we're underpaying all these vagina people so i mean. whatever you want

ok.

so

this is really difficult because "newspaper clipping" is used as a modifier or noun more often than it is referred to as a service, especially these days. So I keep ending up getting newspaper clippings of price plans in general, or newspaper clippings ABOUT the companies or ABOUT the companies' workers, but I never fucking find a document of services offered, which is absolutely fucking bizarre.

This had to exist in print. It had to exist in print everywhere. It had to be updated regularly. It had to!!!! This is a huge service that once surpassed the US Library of Congress in terms of documents archived!!!!! In the US all clipping services primarily went through just three companies during my time period and you could sign up for clipping services through any newspaper in the USA!!!!!! You would think this would be one of the easiest things to look up ever!!!!!!!!!

Facebook memories brought this image up for me yesterday.

Objectively, this is a terrible photo. A box of tissues is central to the composition. You can't see the eyes of either doll, rendering what should be a pleasantly deep blue and and a sporty red to deep vacant pits. I am responsible for the face-up on the Eugenie, and I did not do a good job.

Subjectively, it makes me so happy. These are two of my favorite BJDs. I haven't been able to get them out for years now. How delightful—that they remain mine, even if I'm not in a place I can enjoy them. It reminded me of what I'm working for: a place where I can put them on display, and dress them up in cute little skirts and sweaters, and take them on photo ops.

Anyway, Linux Mint has been a terrible idea. 2 GB of RAM is on its low end and DAMN do I feel it. The internet hurts. Word processing hurts. Manuskript hurts. Obviously, this means I chose the wrong distro.

But looking at other low-end distros is terrifying. They're for more advanced users and my Linux know-how is shit. xfce and LxQT expect me to know what I'm doing. I need to get this fixed up in a few days and what if it doesn't work for what I need?

My goal is to use spreadsheets and word processors, Manuskript, and the internet. I'm going to install some further add-ons to Firefox to disable scripts etc. I don't think my Internet experience will ever be stellar, but I would like to access pages within you know. a minute or two.

Another possibility is that I could buy a laptop before Our Wise White Leader uberfucks our collective shit. If I do that I'll have to act fast. Like today fast. Shit is selling like hotcakes for exactly the reasons you can imagine.

At one point I looked up the Macbook Pro, which frankly is one of the best products for graphic design, and it's like. what was I THINKING. I am unemployed. Where am I gonna get money like that

I thought about trying to crowdfund but that just seems... idk. It feels like a want and not a need. It's just that I keep having to leave my desktops behind so often, which has never historically been a problem until literally the last two years. Why does this KEEP HAPPENING. Should I lean into it and just admit I'm homeless

Do you guys have any opinions