Hello, all! I really appreciate everyone's support and that you continue to check in with me and see how things are going in the PC drama.
One highlight of my weekend - to sort of alleviate my frustration and dismay over the ongoing PC nightmare - was my repeated viewing of "Toy Story 3." I must have watched it - and the other 2 TS movies too - 4 times. If anyone recalls, I didn't see TS3 when it was in the theaters last year. I figured it would be at least May before it made it to Starz on cable this year, but, to my delight, it showed up in the Starz Early Previews 2 weekends ago...and then this past weekend, all three TS movies were airing back to back (in both East Coast time and West Coast time) on Saturday and Sunday on Starz. So it was a Toy Story bonanza on Starz all weekend.
Even though I knew everything that happened in TS3 before seeing it (because I read a detailed spoiler by choice last year) - so it was surely no surprise - I cried and cried at the end during each viewing! Yes, that's right - I not only sobbed and wiped tears from my face on the first viewing, I cried EACH TIME!
My friend from Idaho was saying that she, too, cried each time she watched TS3, which was odd to us because we already knew what was going to happen!!
And it wasn't like it was a terribly tragic ending. It was...bittersweet. But there was something so touching and heartfelt about it. That scene where all the toys clasp their hands together near the end....so harrowing! And the scene at the very end where Andy drives away....just heartbreaking. As always, I loved the Little Green Men, and I also love the Peas in a Pod.
Yes, I am an adult and I cried over a movie about toys - so get over it!!
(I think I cried a bit over "Finding Nemo," too - but not each time I've seen it.)
It really reminded me, though, about how the Toy Story characters and stories really resonate with people, I think. There is more of an emotional connection to them than some of the other Pixar movies or regular Disney movies. Something about that whole Toy Story franchise really taps into what it's like to love your toys as a kid - as if they were your friends.
And it made me wish there was a dedicated Toy Story land at DLR. I think the creative possibilities and the visual/aesthetic possibilities for that kind of a theme would be bountiful. Oh, the colors and shapes and designs that they could come up with!
I also wish there was a proper Toy Story-themed ride. Yes, I
LOVE TSMM at DCA (it's one of my favorites), and I love BLAB in DL. I even love the weird looking, not-quite-Pixar-esque Toy Story dolls in IASW.
But I wish that DLR would build a 'real' Toy Story ride, complete with Animatronic figures and lots of whimsical colors and things, along the lines of what I expect the Little Mermaid ride will be like. They could even have a little story, like something revolving around Al's Toy Barn or the evil Lotso or whatever. The TS rides that we have now, while fun, are not full-fledged story rides.
When explaining to my friend in Idaho about the upcoming CarsLand, she was also saying that, while CarsLand fits in with the California Car culture thing and, thus, can fit into DCA, to have a whole land in DCA based on that movie is questionable (which is my feeling, too). She and I both agreed that we would have liked to see a Pixar-themed park, with each land devoted to the most popular Pixar movies. MonsterLand, ToyLand, NemoLand (well, it would have to have a better name than that, but something with an ocean/undersea theme), etc., etc. Maybe they could do a combo Wall-E/Incredibles land. In that case, a whole land devoted to Cars would make sense. But right now, even though I am excited to see what's in store for DCA and how it will all come to fruition next year, I can't help but wish that we were getting a ToyLand instead of a CarsLand.
So on to the replies!
What mess. The effort to reorganize and rename is overwhelming. I crashed 2 summers ago and spent days(weeks?) just reorganizing my photos. At some point I just kind of left some all amuck knowing they were there when I got back to it.
Sending you loads of pixie dust!
Hi, Karenann! Welcome! I'm so glad you joined us here - even though it's in the middle of my PC crisis and not something fun like a DLR trip! Hopefully I will have another DLR trip to report on soon. I have ideas in the works - just have to pull them off. It will be hard for me to top my Christmas DLR trip, but I will try!
You are soooooo right about the reorganizing and renaming of the PC files being overwhelming. It can easily take weeks, I'm sure, unless you just sit there at the computer non-stop, all day and night, never moving.
I am at the point now where I am not even trying to rename everything and reorganize it. It drives me nuts when I see that all my previously carefully organized photos and work documents have now all been lumped together (1987 photos with 2010 photos, for example) That part can always be done later. Because I am sort of on borrowed time with this PC and it is very unstable (prone to crashing again at any minute), my main goal is to go through the recovered folders (the "FOUND" folders, as they are labeled), one by one, and delete all the CHK files from them & send the regular, 'good' files over to another folder, which will eventually be backed up somehow. I need to do this first because I need to keep clearing space on the hard drive. So it's basically just a lot of deleting, cutting and pasting that I need to do right away. The renaming and reorganizing will be a massive task to take on later, hopefuloly after I get a new PC.
However, because there are almost 150 folders and thousands of files in some of thosee folders, it is taking forever just to get through them. My PC keeps locking up in the middle of the cutting, pasting and deleting process and I can't make very much progress.
The other primary goal is to kind of glance at each file (using the handy Preview feature) and try to isolate or identify the documents (both personal and business) that are extremely important - IF they are there and did not get lost forever. There are certain documents that I use for my client all the time, and if I could even find some of those it would be helpful. There are also several personal documents I had saved that I would like to find.
And then, of course, my friend has to keep loading/restoring the FOUND folders to my PC as I finish each folder, and the loading/recovery process takes a long time.
The whole thing is just very time-consuming for a PC with thousands and thousands of documents & photos on it. My client is getting impatient with me, but I am not caving in because, even though my thousands of personal documents and photos are not important to him, they are important to ME. He has other people who can do his work in the meantime, but I don't have anyone else who can replace my lost files and photos!
Thank you, Tania!
Thank you, also, for sticking with me here, even though every time you pop in there is a new dilemma happening!!!
Hopefully, there will be some fun stuff to report on in this TR soon!
Sherry,
This would overwhelm me terribly. Heck it already has and it's not even my computer. You poor thing. Hugs and good thoughts to you.
It is very overwhelming, Michele! Thank you!
As I've said, I can totally see why people just send their PC's off to repair places to deal with it. But for me to do that with this PC, it would probably cost a fortune.
Can you ask your friends if a Zip drive would help with anything? We have an iomega zip drive that is good all the way down to Windows 93, and we aren't really using it. Robert thinks it might work with your computer, maybe, but of course you and your friends know best. He says "it's a USB 1.1 protocol" "which means it's backwards compatible to the very first USB connectors".
We'd be happy to send it to you if you and your friends think it would help, and we have eight 100MB discs as well. That doesn't give you all that much memory, but it's something. Robert says they are rewritable, and if they are, he'll get our stuff off of them and reformat them, and send those as well.
Let me know if the zip drive will help!
Molly - Thank you for the offer!
That's so nice of you. I will ask my friend what she thinks and let you know. I know I definitely couldn't put a lot on a zip drive, but as you say, it would be something. Better than nothing. This PC is operating on borrowed time, basically. It's anyone's guess when it will give out entirely. We are assuming that I have to get an all new PC or a really good refurbished one, but I will have to transfer files (once I can get through even 50% of them) from one PC to the other in some way, shape or form! My friend found one offer by
Amazon to store files/folders for free - but it would only hold something like 2000 photos.
I'm sorry to hear about your cpu problems Sherry. That why when I put my stuff on my Hard Drive, I use my external drive backup to save all of my photos and videos just in case something happens to my computer. Hope you recover most of your files and I think that a trip to DL will ease the pain away.
Thank you, Bret! Yes, external hard drives are a good idea. With this particular PC I have, because it's so old there probably would have been a compatibility issue with an extrenal hard drive unless I found an old one. (This machine doesn't even have CD-saving/burning capabilities.) But with my next PC - whatever that may be - I may very well look into getting one.
I think people should back stuff up in as many ways and places as they can manage. If you can save things to a flash drive, do that. If you can save things to CD's, do that too. If you can put photos on Photobucket, good idea! You can never be TOO safe in backing up documents.
I'm still with you and sending some pixie dust your way. I hope you can use the zip drive that bumbershoot offered.
Thank you, Liza!
I need pixie dust and Disney magic, thats for sure!
Still hanging out watching for updates,,, and Liza and I have been keeping the Halloween thread out of the depths of the boards for you...try not to stress too much as you wade through all those files!
Thank you, Sherri!
I appreciate all the participation and bumping in both the Halloween and Christmas threads! It helps a lot. Those threads sure do slip down into the depths of the DIS very fast, don't they?
Oh my gosh, Sherry! I haven't been on the boards for a while now and have been trying to catch up this past weekend....I am so sorry about your computer! What a mess!
I really need to back up my stuff too, cannot even imagine what you are going through.
Hang in there!
amamax2!!!! You're back!!
I've mentioned you a couple of times here and there, either in this thread or the Christmas or Halloween threads! I wondered what happened to you! I think the last time I saw you on here, I was still making my way through my TR from the December trip. Well, I finally finished that...and posted PhotoPass photos too (even though it probably seemed like it would never end)!
Are you about to make another DLR trip before the AP's expire? When is your May trip happening?
Yes, yes, yes, back stuff up on your computer, in whatever way you can manage. I have some things saved around in different places, but it will be a huge pain to find them all and then put them together, all in one place, again. And some stuff I do not have stored around here and there, so I am forced to go through all these recovered files to get to things.
If it were only photos I was dealing with, that would be one thing. BUt this is a combo of photos, personal documents and work-business documents, so it's worthwhile to try to rescue as much as I can. But I don't think my PC will hold out much longer so I am racing against the clock!!
).
It can be continued and I really love the thought!!
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