My Computer Lies in a Coma

I didn't get the chance to blog yesterday as a minature assassin - posing as 15-year old Dell technician - killed my laptop. After spending countless days of network problems, slow mouse movements and the dreaded blue stop screen, I called Dell and requested a savior. But instead of sending a savior, they sent me a minature assassin who struck deep into the heart of my computer's motherboard and left her for dead. Now, my laptop lies in a state of a coma on a DHL truck on its long journey back to Mount Doom -- a.k.a. Dell's Computer Depot.

The worst part about it is that I was only able to salvage a few important files before the assassin arrived. Hopefully my files will still be there when my computer returns.

In the meantime, I am completely and utterly lost without my computer. My entire life - sans my lovely wife and my beautiful cat - is on that computer. Every single file dealing with my professional and personal life is on that computer. Now, I'm forced to borrow another laptop in the office to work for the next two weeks. The mouse pad is in a different place. The keys are slightly raised making it awkward for me to type. I can already feel carpel tunnel setting in. Not to mention that I have to curtail my daily web browsing to because I'm using someone else's machine.

It's true that my computer will be back in my hands in Dell's words "5-15 business days" - a lifetime to me - but what will really will return? Will my lovely laptop return a shell of its former self? Will the hard drive and my files still be intact? Or will a brand new laptop, nothing like my lovely laptop, be staring me in the face tempting me like a new lover asking me to climb into bed with her. I will not be tempted again by the computer seductress.

I will back up my files in the future. All of them. I will not give my life to another computer again as I gave to this one. I will not depend on her like I would depend on real person. I will not be tied to her like a ball to its chain.

This incident only further leads me to believe that humanity is on its way down the same dark path as mankind in the 1984 movie Terminator. According to the movie's futuristic character Reese: "Defense network computers. New... powerful... hooked into everything, trusted to run it all. They say it got smart, a new order of intelligence. Then it saw all people as a threat, not just the ones on the other side. Decided our fate in a microsecond: extermination."

First the extermination of my Dell Latitude laptop. ...Next up....humanity!