The two men in my life
I have two very important men in my life; the man I am in love with, Lawrence, and my computer, whose name is FRED (Effin' Ridiculous Electronic Device). Lawrence treats me like I am the only person in his life — he calls, writes me love poems, emails me, does things I cannot do because of my illness; and he does it without asking. And his laugh! It just kills me — it is so chaotic and infectious. I should have grabbed him five years ago when I first met him.
FRED, on the other hand, has been in my life longer, in various shapes and forms, and his only goal in life is to torture the living crap out of me!
My latest adventure started back in July. On the 11th month of my 12-month warranty, Fred was dead. I took it back to where I bought it and after a lot of flared tempers they denied my Xeroxed copy of the receipt (even though they had the original) and sent me off into the world.
So I found a place where I could trust the owner, only to find my motherboard had fried out along with a whole number of other parts. Goodbye $500 bursary cheque.
Fast-forward four months and my mouse is not happy, so I decide to play around with my old roller ball mouse. NOTHING. It is all locked up in the middle of the computer and CTRL-ALT-DEL shows that the System Idle Process is at 99 and will always stay there. After about two hours of farting around with it, I decided to take the mouse out for the night before I stomp it to death and give it a try the next morning.
It is now a typical Monday morning; the mouse is working but my DSL modem is not. Three hours later with technical support, my ISP says I need a new Ethernet card or I can be transferred to good, old and slow dial up. Of course, I don't HAVE a dial up modem in my computer because who (other than my parents) uses dial up these days? (I got my parents to switch six weeks ago, which does diddly for me.)
So, back to Ender's Direct it seems I am going. Although there is nothing showing wrong with my network card, (I used to be a DSL technician in a former insipid life) here comes the credit card bill again going up and up. And I am not even an Internet junkie. I use it to email friends from far away, for work and for emailing these columns in. No chat rooms, no endless surfing for jokes and games: just the Public Library site, us.imdb.com (I am a movie freak) and eBay (I am a slight addict as I am swearing to do all of my shopping online this year!) FRED may be dead, but that bastard deserves it!
I wonder if there happens to be a special ward at the “Highbury Hilton” for people who have had it with their computers and just need some time away from technology? “The Luddite Lounge” would be a good name. FRED is just putting me over the edge! (And at least Lawrence, my sweet FuFu can visit me there as he is in the medical profession. He hates computers more than I do, although it's hard to think that is possible.
Janet is a second year Hospitality Student on an extended medical leave. Her proudest achievement is not having thrown FRED out of the window yet. She cannot be reached at djembejanet@hotmail.com right now but hopes to have the monster fixed and up and working in a reasonably short time.
Editorial opinions or comments expressed in this online edition of Interrobang newspaper reflect the views of the writer and are not those of the Interrobang or the Fanshawe Student Union. The Interrobang is published weekly by the Fanshawe Student Union at 1001 Fanshawe College Blvd., P.O. Box 7005, London, Ontario, N5Y 5R6 and distributed through the Fanshawe College community. Letters to the editor are welcome. All letters are subject to editing and should be emailed. All letters must be accompanied by contact information. Letters can also be submitted online by clicking here.
FRED, on the other hand, has been in my life longer, in various shapes and forms, and his only goal in life is to torture the living crap out of me!
My latest adventure started back in July. On the 11th month of my 12-month warranty, Fred was dead. I took it back to where I bought it and after a lot of flared tempers they denied my Xeroxed copy of the receipt (even though they had the original) and sent me off into the world.
So I found a place where I could trust the owner, only to find my motherboard had fried out along with a whole number of other parts. Goodbye $500 bursary cheque.
Fast-forward four months and my mouse is not happy, so I decide to play around with my old roller ball mouse. NOTHING. It is all locked up in the middle of the computer and CTRL-ALT-DEL shows that the System Idle Process is at 99 and will always stay there. After about two hours of farting around with it, I decided to take the mouse out for the night before I stomp it to death and give it a try the next morning.
It is now a typical Monday morning; the mouse is working but my DSL modem is not. Three hours later with technical support, my ISP says I need a new Ethernet card or I can be transferred to good, old and slow dial up. Of course, I don't HAVE a dial up modem in my computer because who (other than my parents) uses dial up these days? (I got my parents to switch six weeks ago, which does diddly for me.)
So, back to Ender's Direct it seems I am going. Although there is nothing showing wrong with my network card, (I used to be a DSL technician in a former insipid life) here comes the credit card bill again going up and up. And I am not even an Internet junkie. I use it to email friends from far away, for work and for emailing these columns in. No chat rooms, no endless surfing for jokes and games: just the Public Library site, us.imdb.com (I am a movie freak) and eBay (I am a slight addict as I am swearing to do all of my shopping online this year!) FRED may be dead, but that bastard deserves it!
I wonder if there happens to be a special ward at the “Highbury Hilton” for people who have had it with their computers and just need some time away from technology? “The Luddite Lounge” would be a good name. FRED is just putting me over the edge! (And at least Lawrence, my sweet FuFu can visit me there as he is in the medical profession. He hates computers more than I do, although it's hard to think that is possible.
Janet is a second year Hospitality Student on an extended medical leave. Her proudest achievement is not having thrown FRED out of the window yet. She cannot be reached at djembejanet@hotmail.com right now but hopes to have the monster fixed and up and working in a reasonably short time.
Editorial opinions or comments expressed in this online edition of Interrobang newspaper reflect the views of the writer and are not those of the Interrobang or the Fanshawe Student Union. The Interrobang is published weekly by the Fanshawe Student Union at 1001 Fanshawe College Blvd., P.O. Box 7005, London, Ontario, N5Y 5R6 and distributed through the Fanshawe College community. Letters to the editor are welcome. All letters are subject to editing and should be emailed. All letters must be accompanied by contact information. Letters can also be submitted online by clicking here.
