It's dead, Jim

I type this eulogy now in the backroom of a convenience store that offers relatively cheap internet. Sometime between St. Paul, Minnesota, and Vancouver, British Columbia, my laptop, a Toshiba Satellite, finally gave out. After having survived the death of its rechargeable battery early in 2003, the loss of the "1" key in 2004 due to water damage, random failures of a wonky cooling fan starting this year, and increasing effects of hardware obsolescence that gradual Windows XP bloat was inflicting upon it, it was looking like it might still have a few months left in it... until the power supply adapter connection started to give out last month depending upon which way the connecting wire was twisted. It spent its last days with the wire wrapped around the screen, in a vain attempt to keep it affixed in a functioning position. While this offered some hope, I knew that the then-upcoming trip to Vancouver would put that precariously-held stop-gap solution to the test, and when I folded it down in Tyler's house monday morning, it was with an eerie feeling that it would be the last time I'd see it working properly. Sure enough, attempts to revive it onboard the Amtrak Empire Builder were unsuccessful, and with each failed contortion of that wire, I knew then that it was time to either take it in to get it properly repaired, thereby irresponsibly running up costs that I could not afford given the prices of new technology, or to have it put down permanently.

Death is a funny thing. It reminds you of your own mortality first, and then get introspective about what it is you'll have done when your own time has come. Sad to say that at this point in time, I don't know that I've given the world as much as that machine gave to me. Oh, the ability to instantly pour my thoughts out in endless flows of intellectual enemata, the pleasure in geeking myself with Linux dual-booting and video game programming, the bridged connections between myself and other magicians over the internet, the joys of catching up on the entertainment I missed via Hulu, the hours upon hours upon hours of free porn...

Twas a good machine that served me well. It was the testing unit for a number of website prototypes, the parchment for one finished and one unfinished novel (not to mention seemingly endless reams of ESL educational material), the orchestra for a dozen or so pieces of alleged music, the machine I used to finish the first draft of the Erland Elephant, the tool that I developed sleightly.com on, and of course, the primary conduit between my soul and Ye Olde Magick Blogge in front of you. For the past 6+ years, whenever I had odd thoughts that were worth recording, or the more frequent bloody-useless thoughts that are just as well lost to time, it was there to receive them, and it never judged. Only now does my cold-heartedness reveal itself in that I never gave it a name.

Machine, you will be missed. Know that whatever computer follows you, it will never have that special place in my heart that you have now.

2002-2008. RIP