[Sad trombone]?

Far from being an opportunity to pause and consider the existential underpinnings of knowledge, or data, or memory, this little symbol means just one thing:

BAD.

Badness. Lots of badness. That’s what it points to … this morning, my MacBook couldn’t find its brain. So instead appeared this cry for help. Since I live alone, no one heard my audible cry for help. I restarted twice, to increasingly ominous clicking noises. On the third time, becoming desperate (because you see, although I have an external hard drive and the sheer awesomeness of Super Duper, I am a lazy git and have got out of the habit of backing up regularly. Why, you might ask? Because (heavy sigh) my computer has to be hooked up and plugged into the hard drive at my desk. I know. It’s CRIMINAL, the inconvenience. So much worse than losing however many weeks of unbacked up data), I closed the lid and uttered a fervent prayer that it would start just One More Time so that I could back it up properly. (Don’t look at me like you’ve never run the ‘Just One More Time And…’ play a gazillion times.)

Miracle! It did. Data = safe. I have not shut it down (I may sometimes be lazy but I’m not stupid). I have scheduled an appointment with the Geniuses, on Sunday. Before then there are some cursory checks I have to make, but I won’t lie; I fear for the life of my hard drive. Thank goodness for extended warranties.

I guess this is a provisional sad trombone then.