Don't leave me now!

The Christmas before I commenced that fabulous 4-year journey to college, my parents did what thousands of parents do for their education-bound children every year. They bought me my first computer. It was a laptop; a Dell Latitude D600 and it was the first computer that was my very own, that I didn't have to share with anybody. It came with a wireless card, and a full suite of Microsoft Office programs, and really, not too much else, save a few music-playing programs. The computer was to be my constant companion through college and beyond. I don't think I realized until very recently how much I have come to rely on my computer for the many aspects of my life.

Aside from my own acute internet addiction, I installed games and Photoshop, Flash and Javascript, Firefox and an interminable parade of various design programs. I downloaded music. I designed posters. I chatted with friends.

My computer was only really a problem in one way - it seemed to HATE peripherals or anything that might become attached to itself by wire. Not too soon after I received my computer in December of 2002, my computer earned itself the name of The iPod Assassin, brutally freezing 4 iPods within minutes of linking up to them, and slowly poisoning the 5th over the course of a year, 'til the poor thing wouldn't hold a battery charge longer than 10 seconds. All this within 3 months of my gleeful unwrapping of my new computer confidant. There were other incidents too, more about those later.

In a way, I invested so much of my love and personna into my comptuer, that it became a part of me, even despite its ocassional angry whirring and amidst it's uppity denials.

But today, it finally happened. The iPod Assassin, my worthy adversary, workspace, and noble trickster of a computer has completely given up on life.

Yesterday he was fine. Today, attempts to restart left only an insidious black screen which claimed that the original set-up file was corrupt and that I needed to install the "original CD-Rom". Dells haven't come with a CD-Rom for yeeeears. Having already transferred all my music to my mac, I'm not too terribly concerned about my media files, but I AM fairly worried about my Adobe Photoshop and CS1 which I only have installed on the PC.

A new copy for my mac will run me about $999. Money I'm not prepared to spend. Also, my Mac has NO internet connection to speak of when I'm at home, which means I'm writing personal thoughts utilizing my work computer. It's bad form. Plus, my work laptop (eerily, the same model as the Assassin) has no AIM to speak of, no firefox and only an old (old, old, old) version of internet explorer. And I'm not allowed to install new programs on it.

Part of me worries that The Assassin somehow knew I'd brought a computer home of the same exact model and decided in its crotchety old way to make me pay for my indecent two-facedness. By finally committing the greatest of all computer sins, suicide.

Be warned: this computer looks normal enough. But actually, it's quite evil.
It has a propensity to overheat to the temperature of a hell-mouth, and attempts to restart
lead to a sad, half-hearted series of whirrs and clicks. Also, it will eat your soul.

I'd always frowned and then laughed it off when it sent it's electronic brethren into the deep electronics void. Killing off iPods left and right; annhialating digital cameras and printers with wild abandon; dooming yet another USB hub to the garbage (3, so far), and growing crankier and crankier in its old age. It even incapacitated the USB-powered lavalamp Techkat gave me for my 20th birthday.

The Assassin is fully 6 years old now, practically ancient for a computer, and I probably should have realized that it was getting on in years, but still, I'd hoped we'd have a bit more time together than this! I'll be bringing him to a friend who's a computer expert tomorrow and hopefully we'll be able to get him back on his feet. What will I do without him? Is it time to start my search for a new Windows-based laptop? What a terrifying thought.