Failure to communicate
As you all have noticed, I haven’t been posting much. One of the main reasons is that my damn computer isn’t working most of the time. More precisely, my computer screen isn’t working most the time. When I flip open my powerbook, the bottom two thirds or more of my screen is blank. If I bang it with my hand, the screen will flicker back to life…eventually. Most of the time, I shake it or lightly “nudge” it, and the screen flickers a bunch of incoherent lines of light in which, if I stare, I can see my wallpaper, some icons, and if I lightly tap it some more, the lines flash all around the screen. Sometimes the lines cover my screen completely, its a huge mess. If I really need to use my computer, this sort of negotiation can go on for up to twenty minutes. Maybe longer, I don’t know. By twenty minutes, and most of the time much less, I get all pissy, slam my computer shut, and threaten to toss it out the window. Like threatening the computer’s going to work, they're soulless bastards who don’t even care about themselves. Sometimes, in my state of temporary insanity, I can feel the computer taunting me, giving me cheese Dirty Harry lines like “go ahead, make my day.” That’s when I know it’s time to switch to decaff, and possibly meditate or seek professional help.
This isn't apple's fault. I blame Jansport! About three years or so ago, April bought me a Jansport backpack with a special spot for carrying a computer. This bag had one major fault. On each shoulder strap, there are two strap adjusters in which the bottom one doesn't hold on to the strap well and the simple pull of gravity causes the strap to gradually slip out of the adjuster and the backpack goes falling off your back. One bright and sunny morning, I threw my backpack on my right shoulder and as soon as I let go, the strap slipped though the adjuster causing my computer inside to hit the pavement. At first, my computer seemed fine, but after a few months the symptom started to manifest. First, I would open my computer and the bottom tenth of my screen will be black. A few shakes of the screen, all back to normal. It started creeping up my screen. First it was the bottom tenth. Then the bottom fourth. Slowly marching up my screen where now almost my whole screen is affected. I could try to get it fixed, but I've had this computer for about three or more years now, so maybe it's time I upgrade (with the help of an economic stimulus check, just doing my bit to help the economy).
I don’t like this. At what point in my life did a computer get attached to me so strong, that it became a sort of symbiont? I got through high school fine without one, and even most of college. It wasn’t until graduate school that my computer became my left arm. I feel like I could probably get a hell of a lot more done at work if I didn’t have it. In my down time when I should be reading science or thinking about why my cloning never works, I see it sitting there, like the old friends we used to be, telepathically reaching out telling me “come on, check your email again. It’s been ten minutes, who knows who could have emailed you; your wife, long lost friends, parents, the Pope.” I check my email and nothing. I get a just a tiny bit down every time I check and I have no messages. It only last a second, but this happens a fair bit because I check my email more often during the day than I’m willing to admit to. I need to give myself some rules like; I can only check my email four times (or less) a day, or I can only mindlessly surf the web for thirty minutes (or less). The only problem, who's going to enforce them?
This isn't apple's fault. I blame Jansport! About three years or so ago, April bought me a Jansport backpack with a special spot for carrying a computer. This bag had one major fault. On each shoulder strap, there are two strap adjusters in which the bottom one doesn't hold on to the strap well and the simple pull of gravity causes the strap to gradually slip out of the adjuster and the backpack goes falling off your back. One bright and sunny morning, I threw my backpack on my right shoulder and as soon as I let go, the strap slipped though the adjuster causing my computer inside to hit the pavement. At first, my computer seemed fine, but after a few months the symptom started to manifest. First, I would open my computer and the bottom tenth of my screen will be black. A few shakes of the screen, all back to normal. It started creeping up my screen. First it was the bottom tenth. Then the bottom fourth. Slowly marching up my screen where now almost my whole screen is affected. I could try to get it fixed, but I've had this computer for about three or more years now, so maybe it's time I upgrade (with the help of an economic stimulus check, just doing my bit to help the economy).
I don’t like this. At what point in my life did a computer get attached to me so strong, that it became a sort of symbiont? I got through high school fine without one, and even most of college. It wasn’t until graduate school that my computer became my left arm. I feel like I could probably get a hell of a lot more done at work if I didn’t have it. In my down time when I should be reading science or thinking about why my cloning never works, I see it sitting there, like the old friends we used to be, telepathically reaching out telling me “come on, check your email again. It’s been ten minutes, who knows who could have emailed you; your wife, long lost friends, parents, the Pope.” I check my email and nothing. I get a just a tiny bit down every time I check and I have no messages. It only last a second, but this happens a fair bit because I check my email more often during the day than I’m willing to admit to. I need to give myself some rules like; I can only check my email four times (or less) a day, or I can only mindlessly surf the web for thirty minutes (or less). The only problem, who's going to enforce them?