On talking to my computer

I recently had to replace the HD on my laptop. The original drive was old and I definitely got my money’s worth. Nothing important was lost in the crash since I follow the First Rule of Machines. “The only thing certain about any machine is that it will fail.” So, I had redundant back-ups of everything. It was a relatively minor surgery requiring only a local anesthetic (I had a beer) once I finally got the new drive.

I ordered the hard drive from the web site of some company in Chicago. Good price, but it took forever to get here. What good is the ability to instantly order merchandise on the Web, if it still takes a week to arrive? I could have driven to Chicago and been back in less than a day. Ah, well.

While tearing my computer apart, I realized that I still talk to my computers while I am working on them. I have done this since the early days when I actually had to assemble the damn things myself. I created some real monsters with over-clocked processors sporting a Medusa like tangle of alligator clip leads to various sister board add-ons. I found that if I talked to them while I worked on them, they just seemed to perform better when I was done. Supposedly talking works for houseplants, why not for computers?

When I was finally done buttoning things up again after the repair. I lay my hands on the keyboard, raise my eyes skywards, and intone loudly, “Heal this computer.”

It booted right up.