19 March 2003 00:17
i got to thinking today, about how this school has changed me. see, i was contentedly humming a tuneless tune to myself while busily fixing my cpu cooling fan with my handy dandy multi-tool. four years ago i would have been hard pressed to tell you what on earth a cpu fan was, much less do anything about it sounding gritty. but nooo, now my computer is sitting in my room, running without the case covered, or even a monitor plugged in (yeah, i am fully capable of booting my computer, getting past a bootup password, boot option screen, and network login w/o a monitor. i could even start most of my programs from outlook to aim, though i'd be hard pressed to discover whether i had any mail without plugging at least my speakers in). it's sitting there with the cpu fan propped against one of the hard drives, me knowing full well that it'll be fine and dandy, despite the fact that i have the chip double-clocked. (i'm in the computer labs, incase you're having trouble with the time line here). what i'm getting at is that i remember the first time i cleaned a mouse. this must have been when i was about 13 or so, i had the beginnings of geekdom in me even then.. when i was bored i'd browse through the manuals for the software and such. anywayze, i came across a very interesting troubleshooting section on "what if my mouse does not roll smoothly." this being ancient history, instead of recommending scrapping of the mouse in favor of an optical one, the thing gave a procedure for cleanning the rollers. i remember i first got my mom's permission to follow through with the procedure (this must have been in the really early days of my computer endeavors). then i shut the computer off before scraping the buildup off the rollers. the very idea that a decade in the future (don't say that man, it makes me feel old), the very idea that 10 years in the future i'd be unplugging things inside my computer with it humming merrily along would have been very foriegn to me. then i was under the impression that the only way you could open your computer was while hanging onto several feet of wire wrapped around the nearest copper water pipe, holding your breath the entire time so's not to spread dust. (tell that one to the guy who took his computer out in the hallway last year, disassembled it to small pieces, and spent five minutes blowing dust out of it. i did try to avoid spitting on it, but you know :) ).00:17 email me permalink / commentary (0)
