Thoughts in the USA

Before this year leaves us, I would like to play this hypothetical game with you.
Exercise for the mind, if you choose to call it.
Just humor me for a while, OK?

Say you live in the heart of the hi-tech world, wireless and all.
Bytes and pixels smiling at you, obeying every whim and desire you might have.
You have two computers at home: A desktop, and a laptop.

Then, your husband goes through a short spell of flu, and gets better after 24 hours.
Rosy-cheeked and filled with the energy of the recovered-from-a-one-day-flu, he decides it’s time to dust the desktop monitor.
Now, that monitor, mind you, is a wonderful monitor.
Tall and wide, dark and handsome, high resolution and rotating, state-of-the-art, does its job on the best side, and was purchased for good money less than 10 months ago.
But, alas, it gathers dust.
Being black, the dust shows even more.
And your husband is energetic.

So he dusts.

At some point, the dusting becomes somewhat frantic, so it seems, and the monitor - being height adjustable - suddenly gets lowered.
Your husband tries to raise it back up.
The monitor resists.
Your husband insists.
The monitor does not show signs of consent.
Your husband insists even more (what ever happened to "No means No!"?).
The monitor (still dusty, if I might add!!!) then takes the Fifth, reverts into itself and sinks into a bleak catatonic state.

You get pissed.
As in, REALLY pissed, for 5 minutes.
But – Hey, accidents happen.
There are worse things in life.
It's all about proportions.

Plus - you still have the laptop, right?

So, you use the laptop, to print some reference photos for your next painting (say you also made an ArtPact with your many loyal readers).
And, suddenly, the laptop complains that it's choking - it has no power.
"But you are hooked to the power cord, you stupid thing", you reprimand it, checking the power, just to make sure.
Yep, power cord is plugged in.

Still, the laptop keeps complaining.
You wiggle the cord, to no avail.
The laptop turns itself off, with a quiet tear and a long look of farewell. (Those Dell appliances can get so melodramatic at times!).

Then you notice that the power cord does not have the green led on. which means it's not getting power.
You apologize to the laptop, but it longer hears you, being in deep hibernation.

So you take the reserve power cord that was purchased on eBay a while ago, and you plug it to the outlet.
Green light comes on, and you optimistically plug it into the laptop receptacle - - -

- - -

- - - and within a fraction of a second, all your senses get into action:

You hear the gentle noise of a power cord stopping to work.

You smell the odorous scent of something burnt.

You see a black screen.

You feel a cold hand grasping your guts.

You know that last look of the laptop will accompany you forever.

You immediately plug the cord out.

You shout for help.

Your husband, who's busy in the kitchen, comes rushing after 5 crucial minutes ('coz he was busy, can't you see?!), takes a close look, and with an astounding profound insight, tells you there's a burnt smell.

Pfffffffffffrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr - r e a l l y ? ! ?

He then takes a closer look, and informs you there's a part missing.
A part that, well, should be there, to, like, provide the right interface between the power cord and the laptop.
Small - yet essential.
Like Israel in the Middle East.

You go on all four, find the part (which was hiding and maliciously giggling under the couch).
It’s even smaller than expected.

Your husband puts it back in, plays with a screwdriver, but his face shows no sign of hope.

Remember, burnt smell?
Remember cold hand?

Your husband announces the time of death, and goes out to smoke (a major sign of stress).
A quick estimation of the situation reveals the following:
The desktop is well and fully working, but unreachable, as the partially-dusted monitor is still in its uncommunicative state.
The laptop, so it seems, has gone to the laptops heaven, pretty much in flames (well, almost... it could have!), with RIP suffixed to its name.
And it didn’t even have a name, alas.

You start to realize that you, well, have no computer.
The jitters take over the better parts of you.

You also wonder with astonishment:
"Two such incidents, on the very same day - what are the odds?"

Well, if your name is Nava, and you are married to The JohnnyB: 100%.

And now, I am blogging this over a monitor from the Middle-Ages, courtesy of TexieD, who let us borrow it on one condition: that we never ever give it back to him!
Apparently, he was too lazy to get rid of it, so he was very happy when The JohnnyB called him with a broken voice and drove all the way to fetch it.

And only now, as I try to decipher the fonts on this tiny shimmering screen of the monitor, do I truly appreciate how amazing our monitor is - and how I wish it was back with us...
And yet: THANK YOU, TexieD!!!



And The JohnnyB?

Ah, he is a very very happy man now, busy looking at the many silver linings of this cloud:

First, he is no longer sick. (he has passed it on to me, of course, but that's a different story).

Second, he was not the one who screwed up the laptop.



Third, he gets to research for a brand new laptop.

Fourth - he got a valid reason to disassemble the laptop to its parts, in order to see which part was damaged. (yet another tiny part).

And above all - and that should also make y'all very happy, due to the rich blogging potential: he gets to buy the damaged part on eBay ($25 plus shipping), and - - - try to rebuild the laptop as a science project.

Now, if you've been reading this blog long enough, you should get a certain sense of a disaster waiting to happen.
If you don't get it, refer to this, this and this.

I don't recall eve seeing such bliss, such joy in his eyes.

Not even on the day we got married...

And, on this optimistic note:

A VERY HAPPY 2007 TO YOU ALL!!!

Labels: Damn Technology, Wonders of The JohnnyB

# posted by Nava @ 5:06 PM