Full moon

Oh holy crap.

I went into work today and discovered that the processor in my computer was running just a little warmer than it should. A co-worker suggested I replace the fan and heat-sink and since he had the parts handy, I took him up on the offer.

The first processor fan took a while to install correctly. The fan was bigger than the one I removed so everything had a slightly tighter squeeze to it. Unfortunately, thu fan was also a lot slower and actually cooled the processor less than the previous fan. After trying various configurations and finding them all unacceptable, I switched to a larger, variable speed fan and heat-sink combo. This monster was even bigger than the last one and required me to not only modify the thumb-tab on the heat-sink so that it would actually stay latched on to the processor socket but also required me to remove the power supply in my mid-tower case just to finish the install. The whole process was enormously frustrating. Fortunately, my computer is running again (while using the second fan, my computer would turn itself off shortly after power up) and cooler than ever. I'm not saying it was the best 3 hours I've spent, considering the job should have taken me about 15 minutes or so, but at least it is done.

Writing up this little tale doesn't really capture the essence of the experience. It seemed that at every turn, something else stood in my way to completing this task. Every time I tried something different, the problem was either the same or worse. It seemed that the hardware was conspiring against me or that Someone was testing my patience. Well, I half passed. I didn't break anything but I certainly cursed a blue-streak five times over.

I read an acquaintance's blog on my lunch break and noted that she, too, was having a rather bad time of it today. The "coincidence" made me wonder what was going on. Then, on the way home, I noted the full moon rising over the smog and wondered if that could be playing havoc with things. It has oft been noted that both people and animals act oddly during the full moon (or in my case, more oddly). So, was it simply me being less patient with things or were the things acting oddly, too?

It's really a rather interesting thought: What if every THING had awareness to some degree? What if your toaster decided that you weren't cleaning it enough and decided to burn your toast one morning and then give you soggy bread the next? What if your hair brush hid itself or your stereo would play nothing but polkas? What if your car would only make left turns during rush-hour or your computer had this nasty habit of popping up porn just as the boss walked in? What if your vacuum cleaner insisted on chewing on its own cord or the air conditioning unit blew 150 degree air until the repair person arrived at which point it immediately switched and blew air cold enough to freeze flame? Well, I think some of this was covered in The Brave Little Toaster (not the porn part) but the rest is briefly interesting, at least to me. Personally, I think it has a lot more to do with the attitude that one has at the moment. For example, the above tale of my heat-sink woes continued to get worse and worse up until the point where I realized what was going on and laughed at the ludicrousness of the situation. At that point, several more irritating things did occur, but I laughed at them instead of letting myself get angrier. It was absolutely stupid the number of times I tried to put on that last heat-sink and then had to remove it, wipe up the heat-sink goo, re-apply the heat-sink goo and start again but after about the third or fourth snort of laughter, everything started going right again. The processor fan and heat-sink finally slid into place with a satisfying click, the power supply squeezed back into the right spot and the computer booted and returned to the land of the living. If I could have acquired that attitude an hour earlier, I might have saved myself an hour of dicking around, but then again, maybe not. *shrug* In either case, hopefully tomorrow will be better for everyone concerned. :-)