This Contraption called the PC

You can't live with it. Yet you can't live without it.

Man or rather starting with Charles Babbage (Father of Computer) went on a rampage and came up with this invention called the computer.

Ever since its inception as a garbled, gigantic and awesome-looking crank of a machine crunching massive figures and calculations (then aptly named a supercomputer), it has shrunk in both size and look to become the desktop personal computer that it is today. It has even gone on to be reduced to a pocket personal computer in some instances.

Just in case any of you smart alecks want to know, it has also engendered a by-product: the pacemaker .

In fact the whole computer technology spun off space travel and military research, leading even to as far as medical applications and the Internet.

I remember my first purchase of an Apple Mac back in the mid 80s, a black and green screen, blinkering square cursors, antennaes sticking out of its monitor just like a regular TV set and manuals galore for memorising horrendous sequential key strokes to carry out commands.

It was literally a pain in the eyes to use one. Such disingenuity and unimaginativeness!

Before I could say "Stinking Stinkard", what do you know? Times have flown and we have all these graphical and user-friendly "click me" icons in several multi-tasking windows. It just went on and on till we have the almost surrealistic 3-D icons we have today replete with multi-media capabilities at the flip of a button.

But seriously admit this. This contraption we call a Personal Computer can be both a boon or a bane. Right? Right.

In twenty years I have had like only four computers. But my recent experience with my last computer left me totally devastated in spirit and kindred. I mean I always thought I had a long-standing relationship with this impersonal, cold and stiff box of a hunk?

I mean after all, I had many many relationships coming my way via this little telecommunicative tool, which reaches beyond the reaches of every nook and cranny of our island. That includes roaches and dung beetles that came right along with it.

3 Information Technology personnel and 14 home visits later, my computer is just barely lugging along. All in the space of half a year

The first attempted to continually repair my Pentium II but always to no avail. I have this really really sickening feeling that he was thinking that I was a cash-dispensing jackpot machine whom he could milk continually. So I told him on the last visit that the buck stops here, literally.

The second, some nuthead I suddenly decided to cull because of his incessant neonic blaring and advertising on the World Wide Web and because also of sudden work-related exigencies, was an obvious cheat the moment I set my eyes on his little dweeb of a prick in the pants.

First he overcharged me and then he gave me the lowest of lowest in configurational specifications , so much less that I had to call in my third Messiah (which by the way was the ultimate saviour of end, I hope - so far so good up till now - I think I should just keep me fingers crossed).

Not only that, that stink of a stinkard, tugged along a CPU without a power button and no front USB ports. And it was certainly a beaten-up one, some box fit for the junk or rags-and-bone man.

If you are wondering why I even let him in when I knew instinctively that something was wrong, well he dragged me up to this in the wee hours of the night under the cloak of dark, dreamy-dazed-still-sleeping state and blurred night vision.

In the end, this Information Technology Consultant who was supposed to be doing the thinking and providing me a Total Solution, made me pay more to totally overhaul my entire system - new wireless optical mouse, USB hub and something I have to seriously contemplate now - a new printer. All this just because of compatibility issues which he was supposed to know beforehand.

I really want to kill you and eat you up if ever I should see you on the streets! First to go will be your clothes and next you will be lying on the streets naked, maimed and mutilated, you fcukhead.

It was an ordeal all its own.

Brainless manufacturers actually have 50cm wired optical mouse. I think the Zulus of South Africa prolly have longer penal sheaths than this back in their villages.

It is not even enough to wind the mouse from the back to the front round the CPU or even from the front to the keyboard for that matter, especially since I think they assumed (have you ever noticed how presumptuous we all are - if a child fails an exam, he must be stupid, if it is a gall , she must also be a goody-two-shoes, so by logical supposition, if you cannot shit, you must have haemorrhoids! ) that the CPU is just gonna be right next to your keyboard.

And the same too with the USB hub (or at least the one I bought which for cartographical reasons I did) . And take note people. You think you have 2 + 4 extra ports right? Wrong. It is actually 5 ports after you take away one for plugging your USB hub.

All those bugs in the software and I had like so many prompts for a whole range of oddities which include asking "have you installed blah blah blah..." and so on.

And the wireless optical and thus sensored mouse had to be nautically near its sensored sensor component plugged into the USB port. It is like the pin-socket thingy or the ying-yang stuffy. Each had to be "fucked in"to each other. Excuse my coarseness here and my wicked wicked tongue! So if one was plugged behind, guess what anal intercourse is not allowed. It is the penal code thingy again, no pickwickian meant.

Aiyo and my CPU is so slow and my virtual memory is still not enough, everytime I multi task, a dialogue box prompts me for more space (it is like asking me for blowjobs which I can't refuse but what can I do if it is the penal cody thingy again? Suk your balls? Lick your ass? Or juz rim it? In case you are getting naughty ideas, these are purely allegorical... hee hee hee ) and at one time, my whole screen freezes and I cannot even open up my files or windows. And I am supposed to be on broadband and to be on the go-go-go. Not like start-stop-dead, then start-stop-dead again with the connection.

It has left me with a wicked legacy now. I can't print, I can't fax out but I can receive. People who deal with me must be thinking I am dealing them a cock-and-bull tall tale. This is like the ABO blood grouping exercise for transfusion. I am like the AB who can receive from that 100% but can only give out that 5%. So is it my fault people? I don't think so. Blame the hereditarians. They are the ones who deal you with the short end of the straw ok, not good old me!

So where do all these lead me to right now? As I said, it is just only plodding along and only just. I am really looking up to those guys around me who are bragging about their latest and fastest specifications zooming them off to space.

Just you wait. You will have your just deserts some day. When that day comes, I am just gonna stand back and laugh at you too when your old cranky computer starts to spit and founder. Ha ha ha!

PS: DUDE wherever you are, I wil be waiting for you, crowbar in hand and swiss knife on hand. Be sure you have a bullet proof vest not only on your body but everywhere else. Because I dont think you are going to look very nice riddled with pockmarks all over and lumps on your skull, even the phrenologist will whoop with great whoops of joy at their miraculous find!