04/02/2004: "Information Technology"

Those who know me know that I am seriously dependant on my computer. With the exception of reading, basically any and all forms of recreation I have come from my computer. I don't watch television, only movies and fansubbed anime on my computer. I surf the web for hours. I play computer games. I primarily listen to music on my computer. If I'm in my apartment and I'm not in front of my monitor I'm either sleeping, reading, or we have company. So why is it that nearly every time I try to do a minor upgrade on my system it turns into some kind of horrible nightmare that knocks my system out for multiple days?

It's not as though I'm incompentant in the area of information technology. I've been working on systems since my 286 was a pretty slick machine. Hell, I can even remember doing repair work on my old Commodore64 when I was like, probably 6 or 7. Give me the all the parts and I can generally have the machine up and running in about half an hour. But nooo... heaven forbid that I try to install a new video card and 512mb ram chip. That should literally take 10 or less minutes. When I left my computer this morning it was doing the exact same thing it was doing last night... absolutely nothing. I've completely taken it apart and put it back together once already. And I'll be doing it again. This weekend was supposed to be filled with joy and happiness and KOTOR cranked to maximum detail (did I mention it's a really good video card?), but all I forsee is staring into the black void of my blank computer screen and seeing only despair, rendered beautifully with precise detail at maximum resolution. John Carmack, eat your heart out.