You are supposed to be reading a column about Easter, but my computer is jealous. At least that’s the only explanation I came come up with why my laptop died the other day.
I wrote while I ate lunch at work and everything seemed fine. An hour later, I popped open the lid of my two-year-old workhorse so I could listen to some of the music I had stored on there.
I don’t know a ton about computers, but the message that popped up didn’t sound good. And I didn’t know how to fix the problem it described.
I was in deep trouble, but I was a little happy at the same time.
I wasn’t completely happy with what I had written. I just struggled with trying to make sense of the topic.
Some of you probably wonder how that’s different from every other week. Very funny.
But the column was probably the only thing on the computer that I oculd not replace. When you see one of those errors screens – especially ones that say a file is missing or corrupt – you tend to panic over all the important things you have lost, like Triumph the Insult Comic dog videos and photoshopped pictures of important world figures.
I had all that covered. I had transferred all my data to my new desktop computer a few weeks ago. That set the stage for me to try and make my laptop work a little faster.
The desktop has a bigger hard drive and is faster, so it could handle being the keeper of useless information. I restored everything on the laptop back to its original settings and started from scratch.
I didn’t try to get too ambitious. First, I just wanted the new wireless networking equipment in my house to work. Because we all know that it is essential to be able to record an episode of “South Park” on my TiVo and transfer it to both my desktop and laptop computers so I can watch it at any time.
That’s just common knowledge.
I had no problems for a few days. I transferred a bunch of music back to my laptop so I could use it as a jukebox while at work. I had a few glitches, but showed remarkable (for me) patience in the process.
I took the laptop with me to lunch on Wednesday like I do most every day. I turned it on, plugged it into the network and started to write about Easter. After 45 minutes or so, I gave up and decided to finish writing that evening.
On the way back to my office, I heard some strange beeping sound a few times. I thought it was something coming from another building. When I heard it in the elevator in my building, I knew it was coming from my bag.
Maybe my computer had an urgent message for me. Maybe it had finished writing my column and actually made me sound funny. Maybe I’m really a superhero and the League of Justice is trying to contact me.
Nope. I just have a broken computer.
I don’t know why. I didn’t get some funky message while I worked at lunch, but it didn’t seem urgent and the computer kept working fune as I wrote.
I think my laptop is jealous. I have this nice, new desktop with all kinds of cool things. I spend less time on the laptop at home than I did when we had a six-year-old computer that constantly gave me fits.
The laptop should understand that I needed to give the desktop attention at first to make sure it got acquanited with how I like to do things. You’ll always be my first really-fast computer.
He’s not budging. Just giving me that same screen.
Keep that Easter column. I like this one better.