The Week The Computer Died.

About 3 months ago, Rafe in a mad fit of playing some age inappropriate Nickjnr game seemed to have done something to the sound on the computer, ie he successfully created total silence. We kind of lived with it, I watched my video clips of Britney on TMZ, in silence, we watched Youtube, in silence and we stopped using the video calling thing on MSMessenger. It was ok, until Dan asked that in the interests of cheaper trans Tasman communications, I should get onto Skype. Aah, I thought, need to sort the sound problem. So picked up the very local Manly Daily, looked at the 10 businesses listed in the classifieds and called the first one I saw. So it began.

Now I really hope that my very smart friend Selwyn who builds computers from scratch in his spare time, and who has given me many hours of guidance on IT related stuff over the years, isn't reading this, as it will make for some unpleasant reading.

Mike, computer man and I started chatting, I asked him to help get the computer all healthy again and answer my dweeby questions that I always have. He started, however a couple of hours into it, disaster struck. The computer got very sick, slow and pretty much collapsed. I felt an indignant case of finger pointing coming on, but Mike, bless, said he'd sort it, at his office. He left took the computer with him, and I didn't hear from him again, until I had rifled through the rubbish bin, found the Manly Daily and his ad, and called him. Things got worse, in the blur of panic I heard hope, then let down, then more hope, then the relief of "leave it with me I'll sort it". But I did hear the words, "motherboard...cheap....crap...failed..hard drive...backed up? 48 hours later, he was back on the phone, I was relieved that he'd committed to only 3 hours labour , even though he'd put many more in, the clock had been ticking a long time by now. This time, I started to feel sick, and maybe it was because I'd eaten potato chips and wine for dinner, or maybe it was because of the numbers he was now talking about . I was certainly stuck with Mike, he had my data and I had already spent a lot of money with him for nothing to show, it wasn't a simple case of pop to Harvey Normans for another, cheaper computer.
So long story, shortish. I now have a new computer, rebuilt by Mike, he has shaved a huge amount of due to the nature of my business (and I think he could see I was about to cry), I'm back online, I'm blogging again, I'm back on e-mail, and I feel great!!! Time for some catchups with e-mails and TMZ!