This author is currently on hiatus for the ignoble cause of mugging. The public is advised to remain calm, as this routine protocol has been shown to have no effect on one's violent tendencies in 96% of cases.
| Wednesday, December 06, 2006 |
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[This post was originally typed out at yet another computer in Ang Mo Kio library, but somehow the system konked out at exactly 15 minutes into the post, leaving me with no draft, no publishing and not even a Ctrl-A + Ctrl-C. Sadly, working on a $1 budget at the library doesn't give much, and i didn't have enough money (or patience) left in my account to resume typing there, so here i am working on this in the comfort of home on my father's laptop, at 1:30 in the wee morning while everyone's asleep. And he doesn't even have Firefox. What a pity.] Rather than bringing my computer over to Sim Lim Square, which i rather hoped he would do when he got back in Singapore, my father chose the more expensive, albeit more convenient route by asking a repairman to come over to my home to try to diagnose and solve the problem that's been bugging my computer. Name's Mr Ong, and he's quite a friendly guy (Are Ongs nice people?), chatting with us animately while working on the computer. Miraculously, when he fired up the CPU, the pixels on the monitor flickered back into life, if not just for a while: it hanged again during disk checking, at 60%. And when he tried to start it up again, the monitor reverted to "No Signal". At least that means that my graphic card is likely to be still functioning. But in the worst case scenario, if its the motherboard that's down, it will cost my dad $300 to fix it. But my father still had to pay $30 for Mr Ong to come down. As Jay says, repairmen tend to inflate the price of parts and petrol a tad too much. The computer probably could be serviced at Sim Lim Square for free. But it's my father's money, and if he's willing to pay for the price of convenience, i should tell myself to stop obsessing over it. Eventually, Mr Ong decided that he was unable to diagnose or fix the problem right there and then, so he had to bring the computer back to his workplace, where hopefully it would be up and running by tomorrow. At least im guaranteed to be able to enjoy SCO again sooner or later, but most probably the latter. And Jay: i love you! (figuratively speaking.) Luckily you repartitioned my hard drive whenyou came around previously, so if Mr Ong does reformat the computer (as i think he will), the data will be safe in the E: drive, and only the C: drive will be wiped clean. But that does mean that ill lose all my programs, and im going to have to reinstall everything (including SCO.) But at least all my screenshots and videos are more or less safe, if that's any consolation. Oh, and i realised that my tagboard's down in my absence, and it "will be back as soon as new sserver resources are available." That's what you get for "Free". At this rate, im going to be the one breaking down at the end! |
'Twas teh winnar at 1:23 am.
