Monday, December 14, 2009

SPEAKING of Demian...

For quite a long time (nearing about a year, now), the sound card on my computer has been fonky. Technical term, that. I read up the Nerd Forums that a google search of “dell laptop broken sound card” got me – turns out that it’s a relatively common problem when the external speakers go fonky, having to do with something about putting headphones in the jack and springs becoming too loose and blah blah blah.

I read it as: “You won’t be able to use external speakers until you man up and buy a new laptop because you’ve already tried to deal with Dell customer service and it is testamount to immediate entry to the seventh circle of hell (where they spit fireballs on you and everything).” Or maybe the sixth. I can’t remember. I think maybe the sixth is when you’ve committed suicide and have your treebranch limbs torn off by Harpies, but then again I think Dante was so high when he wrote l’Inferno that if he were alive today he wouldn’t be able to tell us clearly what each circle denoted.

In short, patience is a virtue. I had figured out that if I put a heavy, preferably musty-smelling book on top of the headphones, and the headphones were only partially in the jack, I could jigger the sound into coming out of the front speakers. Hurrah! I have, thus, lived in relative happiness for the past eight, nine, ten months.

But now I am perturbed. Today I jostled the computer and the headphones came out of the jack completely. And the Killers kept singing joyfully: Forget about what I said/The lights are gone and the party’s over/Forget about what I said/Forget about what I said

They were singing! On my external speakers!

This was not my initial reaction. My initial reaction was to throw my hands up into the air so I wouldn’t brush a single atom of the computer’s existence, and stare at it in equal measures of disbelief and distrust.

We shall see how long this new arrangement holds. I doubt it will survive the ‘tro ride over to the café for Interwebs.

BUT. I am now scared. This seems like one of the seals has broken. The apocalypse is nigh. (Read as: Death of this computer.) I’m knocking frantically on wood but it’s the polyfiber carbonate that is my work-food-stuff table. I don’t know how long that’ll last.
Forget about what I saidddddddddddddd
Note to self: buy a thousand more CDs from the 18 ruble CD person at the ‘tro so for to back up every file in existence.

2 comments:

Kara Dugas said...

magic happened with my speakers too!! for about a month i couldn't even turn them on because it was straight static, and then one day the same thing happened! my headphones fell out of the jack and it has been fine ever since!

i don't get it.

Andrew said...

bizarre. but your comp is still alive and kicking? The apocalypse is not nigh?

Well actually - I was just walking downtown to get to this cafe, and I looked up, and I saw a star shining in the east beyond me far. Through downtown-Moscow-lights.

That's a pretty bright star, yo.

We'll see if it keeps growing brighter until the 25th, and then we'll know if we have to keep an eye out for scary hellhounds and snaggle-tooth wench-nannies.