Today on "or, to put it another way..."

i deciphered an ancient text today, written in a dead language. When i was finally able to read the text, it was a picture of me from the past.


Today i was looking for an old floppy disk containing some short stories i had written. When i found the disk, i remembered i had made the disk on an old computer, before i got this current one. When i opened up the disk, the files were compressed in some weird Windows backup format. That the current (okay, new-er) version of Vindows i was running didn't recognize. Shit, how am i going to get to my stuff? Went to Google, searched for the string "reads .QIC files". Three or four people asking exactly my question. One answer was, go to (this software manufacturer (honest, i've forgotten already)) and download the free trial version of their multipurpose file backup software to read your files. i went to their site, they were trying to sell you full versions of their software, of course. i looked carefully for the 'free trial version' download. The link sent me to Downloads.com, who i infer they rent bandwidth from. i downloaded it, installed it, ran it (it said it had to restart my computer, but i didn't want to cancel the dial-up _and_ stop the music i was listening to, so i said restart later. Fooled you, computer!) fiddled around with it, and got my files. Then i uninstalled the program. Then i read my stories. They were very short, really just literary sketches or random thoughts. But they really gave a sense of me at a particular point in time. A snapshot.