I took a day of leave today to help loving wife do some early Christmas shopping, but specifically to take an old desktop computer to Best Buy so they could see why it wouldn't work.
You see, about eight months ago it started shutting down and then booting back up randomly, and as time went by the intervals between these burps became shorter and shorter until one day it just shut down and never woke up again.
Now, before you point out the obvious, I did every virus scan known to man or woman and never found one bug. I also did any number of other diagnostic checks, including finding and removing all sorts of spy and adware. Nothing helped though, and I ultimately placed it aside and bought a new computer . . . the very one I am using now.
At this point I should mention that loving wife was very aware that I was not upset about the demise of the old computer and my not so hidden glee at the prospect of purchasing a REAL gaming computer. But that is getting off the subject.
Anyway, I kept promising my son that I would get it checked out JUST in case it could be repaired and then it could go in his room. And well, eight months later I finally got around to actually doing what I promised.
And the result? The thing is dead. And not "mostly" dead like in The Princess Bride, either. I mean totally and irrevocably dead! All that was left was for me to "go through his clothes and look for loose change."
So Best Buy offered to have a funeral for it, which saved me the trouble of trying to take it to some dump that would accept it and that is the end of that.
Unfortunately, I have still another monitor and keyboard and other junk to add to the big pile of computer parts I already have in the attic.
Oh yeah, and we purchased our first ever fake Christmas tree. We have always purchased real trees (Usually from the Boy Scouts - but they don't sell them here anymore.), and every year we swear we will never do it again because of the cost and the pain of setting it up. Our first fight of the Christmas season is the infamous "tree" fight, but that is getting off the subject once again.
Today, though, we stumbled over a fake one at Target that was both pretty and affordable so we bought it.
Now, if only we can fool the kids into thinking it is real . . .
