Time Doesn’t Change For The Better

Case in point, today.

Let’s say five years ago. Maybe six, but let’s go with five-

• I decided to upgrade my computer, which I had built myself from off-the-shelf parts.
• Computer has a brain-fart.
• Brain-fart is bad enough that I have to replace the motherboard.
• Much cursing, and checking on my budget to see if I can afford a replacement.
• Drive to Fry’s Electronics, get a new motherboard, get a milkshake (they had good milkshakes at the Concord store).
• Drive home, put the new motherboard in, order a pizza and probably by the time they deliver it, the new motherboard is in and I’m downloading the drivers. Yay!

Now?

• I decided to upgrade my computer, which is a Dell XPS system…back in the day when those were still good.
• Computer has a brain fart.
• I can’t figure out where the brain-fart is.
• Take it to the shop because I know I’ve hit the point where I can’t figure out what had gone wrong.
• Shop calls, and the motherboard is bad. Need to order a new one.
• Because this is a Dell, they don’t make a new motherboard for this, because Dell has specialized form factors for their hardware. Good news, I can get a refurbished motherboard…
• …by Friday. They’ll have the computer ready by Monday.
• I can’t buy a new computer because all the prebuilt stuff in the stores is crap, and ordering a new computer is going to be at least $2-3K to get what I want. If I can find a computer maker that can get what I want.
• And, the earliest I could get a computer built to my specs would be in a month.
• (And, don’t say “get a Mac,” because outside of a few specialist applications a Mac is just a crappy PC that you can’t upgrade.)

So, now I’m sitting at an improvised work station involving my bedroom TV, my laptop, and an incredible amount of frustration. I haven’t lost anything-I backup everything and have all of my passwords written down on a physical sheet of paper for just this circumstance. I’m just frustrated, because this wasn’t what I wanted today. At least I can get away with not having to buy a new computer for a while longer-which is nice.

This is exactly how I don’t want to be starting my week.