Ariel loved his house. It was small, and it didn't stand out, but when it comes to homes, it's what's on the inside that counts. He had comfortable furniture, carefully placed to suit his tastes. He had bookshelves filled with all his favorites. This was his personal house. He'd lived in it.
He had no reason to suspect he wouldn't continue to live in it. He was sitting and relaxing, content in the familiarity of his surroundings, when he noticed a little bit of chipped paint. Ah well, he'd bring in a painter to fix it. But by the time he got there, the problem had escalated. There were now cracks in the wall. The painter informed him that there was nothing he could do.
Had it really been five years already? But there was no time to worry about that- the ceiling looked like it might cave in at any moment. Ariel rushed to preserve what he could of his posessions. He grabbed all the books he could carry from the shelves, and dropped them outside. He repeated this several times. But what about the furniture? No, there was no way he could possibly get them out in time- he'd just have to hope he could get it replaced. By this point, the other three walls all had started to crack as well. The doors fell down. Ariel jumped out of the house, and not a moment too soon, as the entire house collapsed behind him. Looking at the wreckage where his home had stood, he felt a hole in his heart.
The only thought before picking himself up and worrying about the price of a new house: "I'd like to murder that salesman."
My computer had a very small problem: it kept stuttering, whether or not I was doing anything. It stuttered even if there were no programs running at all. I hated to bring it in to be repaired, even if it were only for a day or so. After all, I had set up the operating system to work just the way I liked. I had all my favorite software installed and configured properly. More importantly, it had a special place in my heart. It's been my computer for five years. I've lived in it.
Of course I had to bring it in to Yossi anyway. With this stutter, I could not play games, listen to music, or watch video. I figured it was probably a nothing problem, and I'd get it back very soon. Not so. It turns out my hard drive has suddenly, and for no good reason, broken down. Or rather, it is about to break down completely, and this is just an early symptom. Yossi said that had I not brought it in, it would have stopped working very soon. There is no way to repair it. It must be replaced.
I asked him whether he could transfer my operating system and everything in it to the new hard drive - He said he's not sure. Under the Unified Theory of Computing, otherwise known as Murphy's Law, that means no. I've lost it all. Maybe he can preserve a few files before my home collapses for good, but that's all. It's taken me five years to get it working exactly the way I want it. Now it's gone.
Why can't I pay twice as much, for a computer only half as powerful, which is guaranteed to work from now until the day I die? A computer needs to be dependable, because it is virtually my home. Why do I need anything close to the top of the line? I don't want any of that fancy stuff. I just want to be guaranteed that when I come home, I can sit back and be comfortable. I just want to be sure that my home will always be there waiting for me. Is that so much to ask?
3 Comments:
Welcome to my blog. If my computer is like a physical home, then my blog is certainly my home on the internet. It's nice having a second home to fall back to. (Hopefully, this one has a bit more permanence.) The only regular guest here is Tamir, though he doesn't comment often. Hi there, Tamir! And I never address real people when they're not present. Um..
Anyway, it's actually a bit annoying that I can see people coming on to the blog when they do, since when they don't write then I feel bad that I didn't get to talk to them. I guess I wasn't really expecting you to comment when I saw you pop up, so I'm very excited. (You can tell I'm excited when I take four paragraphs for what ought to take only a few sentences.)
So now I'm thinking, maybe I need some sort of instant message feature on the bottom of the blog pages, where you could write in messages that go away after five minutes or so. I wonder if it can be done. That way, I'd actually be able to talk to guests.
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