post-3:00 a.m. frustration

UPDATE: In the comments to this post, Charles explains that geo-meun-k'ong means "black soybean(s)." And he, like Rory, is now razzing me about owning a Mac. One day, gentlemen, one day... the Lord will appear in all his glory and gather the Mac users unto Him...

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I did one very good thing this evening: I walked up Namsan. My Korean buddy's voice is in my head, like a drill sergeant with an accent.

"Up the hill! Up the hill! Up that fuckin' hill, maggot!"

Ah, friendship.

My Monday agenda consisted of several things, much of which I managed to do:


design fitness objectives-- check.
email two of my supervisors about pay for extra work done-- check.
get my pants (finally)-- check.
walk up Namsan-- check.
shop for victuals and household supplies-- check.
solve scanner problem-- no.
solve camera problem-- no.
finish and scan book cover design-- no.


I decided to spend a good chunk of my day trying to get my damn scanner to work again, but it won't work. Ever since I had the new hard drive installed, the scanner has been unable to scan anything. An error message about a missing plug-in keeps popping up, and I can't for the life of me find the CD-ROM with the scanner driver software on it, which is probably the most frustrating part of all this.

So I've been online for hours, searching for the appropriate links to download the proper driver for my scanner. I've found several, but the installations have all failed for one reason or another. In one bizarre case, I downloaded a compressed file that claimed to contain uninstall software (to rid you of the old, defective driver) plus install software, but as it turned out, the latter was missing. I'm beginning to suspect that most free online downloads are shite: you get what you pay for. It's been hours, and I'm about to give up for the evening. Morning. Whatever.

If only I knew where the fuck I put my scanner CD-ROM. I checked the scanner box. Nada. I checked other boxes containing all sorts of CD-ROMs. Nothing. I checked to see whether the CD in question was tucked in with another CD in an envelope or CD case. Nope.

The whole thing is pissing me off because I need to be able to scan my cover art into the computer so I can complete my freakin' cover design (which you've already seen; I blogged a prototype here, but will be replacing the Dalma Daesa image with one that more closely matches the book's title).

When you're stressed about your hardware and software issues, take heart: I've discovered that drinking a nice glass of chocolate milk can help. I took the chocolate milk concept in a freakish direction this evening by using geo-meun-k'ong (lit., "black bean") milk, another vegetarian milk that's fairly popular in Korea. The grey-brown, almost poi-colored milk mixed well with the Hershey's powdered chocolate I was using, producing a drink that seemed like a grittier, almost nuttier version of standard chocolate milk. Not as bad as the concept sounds.

[NB: I should note that I'm not an anti-soy milk snob. It took some getting used to at first, but I now enjoy drinking duyu (soy milk) and geo-meun-k'ong uyu (I'll translate this as "black bean milk" until I find the exact translation of the term "geo-meun-k'ong").]


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