Computer Hope

This is a completely off-topic vanity post. Ignore if you were looking for more self-righteous snide poli-commentary.

Part One: A Woman I Admire

There's a woman I admire. Most days I'm not like this. In fact, I intend to admire strictly women's physical forms. This is due to the tendency for women to be rather deeply unconfident about themselves. They don't necessarily have to be unconfident about their looks, or even their personalities. In fact, a lot of the time it's the future. The feeling that maybe they somehow won't have the life they've settled on having since they were 8. What if I don't marry a doctor? What if I'm not vacationing in the Mediterranian? What if I'm not one hundred percent secure in my house, family, belongings, credit, relationship, body, mind, social class, sexual life, education, status or sense of accomplishment?

I suppose this is where the man comes in. Sweeping down from the heavens on a flying horse, the man of a thousand faces lands in front of the Cinderella girl and takes her away on a magical journey; all expenses paid, Visa or Mastercard. This guy, Mr. Denzel-Cruise-Pitt- Banderas-Usher-Trudeau-Kennedy Jr. has no past. He was manifested in college. Studies, has solid grades, writes insightful essays on post-modernist social theories. Tutors calculus on the side. Majors in Health, but of course, he intends on getting an MBA.

Aside from the serious side, he loves to have fun, goes out with his invisible friends. Loves harmless things like futball or hockey or poker, gangster movies and magazines with women celebrities on the cover. Naked women celebrities. Oh sure, he can be sensitive and has to be able to listen to you for hours. But it comforts you that he has this manly side to him.

He's got to know how to dress, and how to smell, and how to fix his hair, and how to shave, how to floss and how to have a good smile. 'Course, all that's useless if the poor bloke is just plain ol' ugly. No, he's got to have great, fantastic, piercing eyes too. A lack of facial hair. Short, well-cropped hair on top. Shaves down there too. Strong jaws are great, as are clean eyebrows. Can't have ears that are too big or noses too long. Sparkling teeth, a must. I mean, nothing worse than going to bed with a guy who gives you a reeky, unclean feeling.

But this was about women.

This woman, well... it started with a cellphone call on a Wednesday afternoon while walking from Tim Hortons to my car. The day was bright but cloudy with a lack of shadows anywhere and a white-gray hue colouring everything else. I answered the call from my friend Anthony, or Tony. As he was explaining, he had been having some computer trouble and required my help to restore the device to proper working order. So I head on over.

He invites me in and we go to his bedroom where the machine has had its steel casing removed, exposing the motherboard circuits and fans inside. The computer's about 2 years old, so it's pretty much on schedule for fucking up. Tony explains that the machine is just not booting up and that when he starts it, the machine displays a message:

"Invalid system disk."

A troublesome situation. I get on down on my hands and knees and try to examine the insides for any signs of physical damage, i.e. burn or scorch marks, unplugged cables, cockaroaches... Nothing. Things seem to be alright. Tony stands a few feet away, arms crossed, an expression of concern on his face. I try to remember my youthful days fixing errors like these. Unfortunately, many of those "fixes" resulted in formatting the hard drive and thereby deleting everything that was on the computer. I volunteered the question anyway.

"Uh say Tony, you didn't happen by any chance to backup your stuff?"
"Backup?"
"Yea, like burn a CD or DVD with your important photos and documents, just in case something like this happened."
"Uh no, I didn't."
"Oh."
"Are you saying all the stuff is gone?!"
"Naw bro...um not yet at least."

He fretted and squinted his eyes a little, then arched his eyebrows.

"Hold on, let me ask my sister."

He took out his mobile phone and dialed a number. A few terse phrases were exchanged and he hung up.

"Uh no, she didn't back anything up."

"Um, this is your sister's computer then?"

"Yea."

I paused for a brief moment before turning back to the dusty innards of the machine. Thinking for a few moments, I re-evaluated the situation and decided to try a number of different options. First, I tried starting the computer and entering the BIOS mode. That didn't work, because the computer was not even getting that far ahead in its bootup process. Then, I removed the hard drive and stuck in another one that I had to get from home. Still no good. That isolated the problem to something besides hard drive failure. Unscrewing the power supply (while precariously being grounded to Tony's chrome floor lamp) and installing a new one, a process that took a good hour, didn't have any effect either. Same old "Invalid system disk."

I figured I had to take a break and reconsider my options. I went out for a smoke, taking a walk around the block with Tony keeping watch for his parents.

"So what's your sister's name?" I asked with the most innocent of intentions.
"Fay. Why?"
"I dunno. She has important stuff on it?"
"What?"
"Important stuff. Does she have important stuff on her computer?"
"Well, mostly college stuff, papers. That's all I ever see her using it for."
"Mmm."

We returned to the house. I had thought up something along the lines of using a boot disk. I took out my laptop and went on Microsoft's website to download the software necessary in order to burn a boot CD. As I burned the disk, I noticed a sound coming from my CD drive. It sounded not quite like the usual calm whirring of a CD writer but more like a harsher, grinding noise. Not a good sign. I immediately aborted the process, not caring for a worthless blank CD. No good, the software closed but the grinding noise continued. Panicking, I unplugged the laptop, but of course, it had a battery. Throwing all caution to the wind, I manually ripped out my battery and shut the whole thing down. The grinding stopped. Tony looked at me, rather emotionlessly and said:

"Dude, you just fuck up your computer?"
I replied after catching my breath, my heartbeat returning to normal.
"Nono, it's fine now."
"Uh naw man, there's smoke coming out of it."

I whipped my head towards the dead computer. Indeed, the man was right. Whisps of smoke were leaking out of the CD drive. I did my best to force the thing open. After ten minutes of sticking in pins and screwdrivers, the thing opened to reveal a melted CD and some serious phyiscal damage. I threw away the CD, cursing its creator.

"Fuck, that thing looks sort of cool," said Tony. He went and digged the melted shard of polycarbonate plastic, which had assumed the shape of an old-fashioned sour-dough donut. Like a warped oatmeal and walnut cookie with a hole in the middle. The thing still shined.

I gave my laptop a few more minutes before replacing my battery and starting it. A message came up.

"Invalid system disk."

TO BE CONTINUED.