The Damned, Smash It Up

Ok, not really. A few days ago I reported on my Blue Screen of Death adventure. Well, I have my laptop back now, as of this morning. Apparently the system board had gone bad, though I have not been able to get more detailed information than that. So I have a brand-spanking new system board & accompanying MAC address now. In a way, I was hoping that it would be a hard drive problem so it would have to get smashed up with a hammer. I was planning to ask if I could do the honors, actually. I figure that would be very cathartic.

In a former life, when I used to work for software companies, I worked with a guy who used to be a programmer for a bank. He said that the office he used to work in shared the building with the group that designed ATMs. One of the functions of that group was to stress-test ATMs, so they allowed anyone in the office to come in & attempt to break into the ATM. So basically you could go down to the basement & take a ball peen hammer to a model ATM if you’d had a bad say. Like I said, very cathartic.

But no such luck. Well, it’s better this way really; I wasn’t relishing the idea of reinstalling all my applications. I’m scheduled to get a new laptop next year (we’re on a 3-year cycle), so I’ll have to do that then anyway, & reinstalling everything twice in one year would be a major drag.