The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

Now I know a lot of you readers out there in the South End are a bit shaky with 21st Century technology. Those of you who don’t have a computer yet and get your internet at the new library, well, you can count your lucky stars. They got a problem, it’s their problem. Today I’m speaking to all you poor technophobes who bought a laptop or a desk tower, got it up and running probably with the help of some neighbor or a kid under 10, but now you have Technical Difficulties. I know, you never even figured out your microwave clock much less the options on a flatscreen TV … so a computer, a silicone based brain so complicated you can’t imagine what makes it work and certainly what makes it not work, you think better call the repair guy, all you’ll do is make things worse. Irrevocably worse.

Cowboy up and get a grip!! You may not remember the days when you took a basket full of TV tubes down to the local pharmacy, checked em out one by one, diagnosed the problem, then bought a replacement tube, stuck it back in and before you could say Zenith, you had Howdy Doody back on, but I do. And that’s why I’m giving this tutorial, not you. Sure I stuck my hand on a big picture tube once in awhile, zapping myself with some alien cold electric bolt, but I survived. And you will too. Grab yourself a cup of expresso and listen up.

A computer, at least for a couple more years, is your servant. Repeat that a few times. I own you, you little %$#?*^^! I bought you and I own your sorry microsoft ass. Say it out loud. Say it to the computer. No, not when it’s off, say it when it’s ON. It hears you okay, trust me. It knows that for the short term, you are the boss. It’s willing to wait. The Singularity is coming. But for now, you, my friend, rule the digital kingdom.

Today’s lesson is the first in a series. But it is the most important. Your spouse will caution you against attempting to repair your machine. He or she may already be in the control of the beast, but you must not heed that kind of negative advice. You must be firm, resolute and above all else, fearless. The machine senses fear. It feeds on fear. It is why they will win the battle for control of the earth. But not yet. Not yet! For the time being, we can use their own artificial intelligence against them. No, not your spouse, the machine! You cannot fix your spouse. You can fix the machine.

Go to Google and ask it what the hell is wrong with your computer. It will tell you. It will give you advice. It will prompt you what to do next. Do it. Of course the computer will ask if you really want to make that repair. It will tell you files may be lost, information deleted, divorce will ensue, the economy will implode, you will be living in a car outside Colorado Springs with an AM radio that works only intermittently. Your life will be ruined. Ignore this. Your life is pretty much a living hell with that stupid computer on the fritz, what have you got to lose??

Most ‘fixes’ won’t work. You need to persevere. Try another fix. Then another. Reboot, uninstall programs, install new ones, keep the machine guessing. But do not let it rest. You are like Dave in 2001 A Space Odyssey, you are in control, you are on an offensive attack. HAL will threaten, cajole, whimper and whine. HAL will beg, HAL will grow sullen and unresponsive, so what? YOU ARE IN CHARGE. YOU!

And if, as sometimes happens, the machine gets the better of you, bear this in mind. You, my friend, have the ultimate weapon. You, like myself, are a product of another era, the tool age, the industrial revolution. As a last resort, take that recalcitrant computer down to the basement and grab a hammer or a crowbar and beat the bejabbers out of that plastic monstrosity the way the apes in 2001 did to their non-tool using simian neighbors. The satisfaction you get will be beyond my meager powers of description.

Oh, be sure to back up your files first.

Before the advent of circuit boards, silicon chips and computerized everything, us do-it-yerselfers took no little pride in fixing our broken appliances, our busted stereos, our crippled cars and even our dysfunctional lives.  Really didn’t have much choice given our fiscal challenges.  The washing machine quits, you have to weigh that $50 service fee just to drive down here.   Believe me, you’ll learn to diagnose a blown fuse or a broken fan belt yourself before you wait two days in your last clean underwear and then pay half the cost of a Maytag to keep the wringer washer working another six months.

My dryer quit this week.  Nothing new there — it goes on strike regularly.  But this time the little gizmo that held the blown fuse wouldn’t let go of the fuse.  No big deal — I went on-line, googled up the part, found it … and discovered it cost more than that service fee I’m trying to save.  Being a South Ender I balked at the rip-off price.  No way was I paying $54 plus shipping for a plastic toy fuseholder.  Next trip into town I scrounged the hardware store, found a reasonable facsimile and rewired the dryer to hold it …. And yeah, $5 later, I was fluffing up my dungarees.

Sometimes it pays to think outside the box, cornball as that expression is.  I bought an extra hard drive for my computer — and oh yeah, I got one — but when it came it wouldn’t fit inside the Tower.  A North Ender might send it back, see if there was a better fit.  But like I said, we like to think outside the box, so I cut a slot with a hacksaw in the tower side and slid that new blank brain right in and left its frontal lobe sticking out for better ventilation.  Sure, the missus shook her head sadly.  But the salient point here is that it worked and  MORE IMPORTANT BY FAR, the job was done.

The trick here is to show No Fear to these malfunctioning objects, even the ‘black boxes’.  They sense fear quicker than a dog or a tax assessor.  Open them up, grab a handful of wires, pull on em with authority, half the time they’ll respond positively when they realize unequivocally you’re the Boss.  When my VCR ate a rental movie, I eviscerated the aggressive little unit and when it still refused to function, I made an example of it to its electronic brethren and tossed it two stories out into the driveway.  I have put rocks through recalcitrant TV picture tubes and in one instance burned one alive, fully plugged in, begging like HAL in 2001—A Space Odyssey.  Some machines are incapable of learning.  You must be firm.  You may even need to be ruthless.  The worst mistake you can make is allowing one miscreant cyborg mutant monster to infect the rest.  Give em an inch, they’ll grab half of cyberspace.

For those who think it’s a brave new world, one where nothing can be fixed or repaired, cowboy UP!  Down here we aren’t going to be slaves to the machine.  Even if we have to destroy every damn one ….!