What a day!

A devastating piece of news (well, atleast for me!). My dearly beloved PC has become my dearly departed PC. A battery of tests were conducted, the symptoms were analysed, the diagnosis was done and the results have arrived. It doesn't look good. Who am I kidding! The results look horrendous. The SMPS has been tested and found to be in good health. Also the processor and HDD have passed muster (Thank God for small favours). So by the process of elimination the culprit looks to be a faulty motherboard (I hate those Intel guys).

If I had my warranty card I might be able to alleviate the throbbing pain I feel in my heart(aaargh!). But God knows where that piece of paper is right now. When I had my PC assembled about 2 years back I didn't bother to stash the warranty card in a safe place. When someone buys you a gadget you've been wanting real bad, the last thing on your mind is the safekeeping of the warranty card. I mean, who cares about that measly piece of paper at a time when your eyes are lit up like stars and your heart is singing happy tunes.

But then fate decides to play cruel jokes which you don't find the least bit funny. Like yesterday; Whenever I go out I always take my umbrella with me, a habit that has been drilled into me by my mum. Now despite having a common first 3 letters Chennai is not Cherrapunji, but nevertheless the umbrella always accompanied me every single day I went out. The only thing I have to show for this habit is a sore right shoulder that had to carry the extra weight of the umbrella in my bag. So deciding to give my poor old shoulder a rest for one day, I went to college, minus the umbrella.

And what do you know! The skies open up catching me in a sordid downpour which the met department claims is the heaviest spell of rain in a single day for over a year! Murphy's law they call it(another guy I hate). Ofcourse the met department is very good at dealing with rainfall after it has occurred. Their predictions on rainfall are worse than Mandira Bedi's predictions on the Indian team's fortunes. Speaking of the met department I am reminded of a joke:-

It was autumn, and the Red Indians on the remote reservation asked their new Chief if the winter was going to be cold or mild. Since he was a Red Indian Chief in a modern society, he had never been taught the old secrets, and when he looked at the sky, he couldn't tell what the weather was going to be. Nevertheless, to be on the safe side, he replied to his tribe that the winter was indeed going to be cold and that the members of the village should collect wood to be prepared.

But also being a practical leader, after several days he got an idea. He went to the phone booth, called the Met Department and asked "Is the coming winter going to be cold?" "It looks like this winter is going tobe quite cold indeed," the meteorologist responded.

So the Chief went back to his people and told them to collect even more wood in order to be prepared. A week later, he called the Met office again. "Is it going to be a very cold winter?" "Yes," the meteorologist again replied, "It's definitely going to be a very cold winter." The Chief again went back to his people and ordered them to collect every scrap of wood they could find.

Two weeks later, he called the Met department again. "Are you absolutely sure that the winter is going to be very cold?" "Absolutely," the man replied. "It's going to be one of the coldest winters ever."

“How can you be so sure?" the Chief asked.

The weatherman replied, "The Red Indians are collecting wood like crazy."

So to sum it up, yesterday was one of those days where it seemed that everyone and everything was out to get me. If I was the least bit paranoid I'd say that it was a screwy conspiracy by foreign elements to rob my peace. But then I am not CPI(M). So I have to deal with the situation without losing my sanity. This again reminds me of a piece of dialogue between Martin Crane and his son Frasier Crane in my favourite teleseries 'Frasier':

Martin Crane: "The system ain't perfect. So you can either let it eat a hole in your stomach, or you can just file it away under the heading, 'Sometimes Life Sucks.'"

Frasier Crane: "Yeah well, Dad, that file's getting pretty thick!"

So here's to hoping that the next dawn hails a brighter day!