C-wod.com

So, Internet access was finally restored to my dorm, and look what happens. My computer goes down indefinitely.

(Note: I don’t like how everyone, my brother included, uses the word “irony” incorrectly. I guess we could blame Alanis. I don’t think my brother knows her, though.)

The other day, I was trying to connect my laptop up to the Internet at home—spring break! woo!—and, all of a sudden, the screen went black. I couldn’t get it to come back on, so I hit the reset button. XP wouldn’t boot up. I tried a few things (“last good configuration”), but that didn’t help. I couldn’t get into safe mode. I tried to boot from my XP CD. Nothing. I ran some diagnostics. Again, nothing.

I’ve been reading a bunch of computer forums and have realized, to the fullest extent, just how bad Dell Inspirons are. There are whole clubs out there of people who had to replace their motherboard multiple times. My computer, the one everyone in the entire world has, is just terrible. Not only do they overheat like crazy, but they go down without warning.

As of today, I am disowning Dell, Microsoft, and PCs in general. I pledge myself to Apple and Steve Jobs.

Late at night, unable to sleep, tossing and turning in my Internet-deprived state of hysteria, I ask myself one question over and over again.

Why me?

I kept my anti-virus definitions up-to-date; I had a somewhat real firewall (not the crappy Windows one); I scanned for adware, spyware, and malware; I kept my registry tidy.

Argh.

I talked to a Dell representative and was told that, since safe mode doesn’t work, I’ll need to reformat and reinstall XP.

Today, I dropped my computer off at ND’s Office of Information Technologies. I had to sign a form that said all of my information would be backed up, except for music. I immediately regretted that agreement.

Bye, 4600 songs. Errrr.

Was there anything on my computer worth saving? Bookmarks, emails, website backups, Word files…

I spoke with some woman, who probably didn’t know much about my problem. I wanted to explain how, since XP freezes at the same point during start-up, it’s probably a hard disk problem. I wanted to tell her about the errors in safe mode. I wanted to explain how I couldn’t boot up from my CD. I wanted to ask if they could install XP with SP2 onto my machine. I wanted to ask about backing up my data.

I wanted to throw objects and break them against the wall.

This week keeps getting better and better. Did I mention I got a D on my British Literature midterm? Or that my desk is still broken? Or that this website is limping along on life support?

There, I said it. It’s out in the open for all the world to see.

Luckily, approximately 6 billion people will never know.

If anyone would like to contribute some money to some worthy causes, here are two that are definitely noble:

1) Give me money, so I can pay OIT for my computer repairs.

2) Give me even more money, so I can switch and buy the iBook of my dreams. G4 processor! Mmmm.

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