Tag Archives: fan

I love my computer

I love how my computer gets really hot. When I first open it up, it’s not hot at all. The brushed aluminum casing is maybe even a little cool to the touch. And I start typing and I’m thinking, man, if only this computer were really, really hot. Like, if there were only some way for the internal temperature of this machine to just shoot up, really fast, out of nowhere, man, I’d be so happy.

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And then, it’s crazy, but every single time, my prayers are answered. It’s like there’s a little mind-reading troll that lives amongst the circuits and processors, and he’s like, did somebody say hotter? Zap! He uses his magic powers to make it really, really, really hot. Like so hot that it’s almost too hot. Almost, obviously I’m still typing, so it’s not too hot. But just below too hot, like a nice really hot cup of tea, or a bowl of French onion soup that takes half an hour to eat because it’s so hot, or one of those days at the beach where it feels like you can’t step on the sand because your feet are burning, but you have to, and you do, and it’s fine.

It’s like resting my wrists on two of those hand warmers that you use when you go skiing in the winter. How do they get those things to work? Here are two not-warm-at-all fabric pouches, and as soon as you open them up and expose them to air, there it is, warmth. Maybe they have something in common, my laptop and those warmies. Because my computer is definitely warm. If only there were some way for me to type on this computer while I’m skiing. It seems like such an obvious solution.

I also love it how my computer’s fan starts going into overdrive anytime I do anything more than just opening a simple Word document and typing. It’s like, I’m typing right now, and it’s fine, there’s nothing else going on, and so all I have to do is sit back and enjoy the wrist-heat. But if I click over to my web browser? The fans start spinning, the computer is telling me, whoa, easy Rob, one thing at a time buddy. Or if I start watching a two-minute YouTube clip? I can just hear my computer asking me, Rob, can’t you just watch that video on your cell phone? Is anybody else getting really hot in here? And just when I think the fan won’t be able to spin any harder, it does, it’s making like a really uncomfortable wheezing sound, eventually so loud that I can’t hear the sound coming out of my tinny little speakers, and so yeah, I’ll just watch it on my cell phone, that’s not too big of a deal.

I love it how if I leave my laptop open, long enough for the screen to go black, it never turns back on again. I mean, the computer is on, it’s just that the screen is black and I can’t get it to wake up. And I know it’s on, I’ll hit the volume button and hear the little “bwop” sound, like everything’s working.

Now I know, it’s not a problem anymore, I just have to close my computer the second that I step away from it. But man, getting to that point, it was a lot of trial and error. I’d go to the bathroom for a second and come back to a blind laptop. I brought it to the computer store and they were like, sorry brah, that computer is too old, we’re not going anywhere near it. So I had to go on the Internet on my phone and learn about something called PRAM, and there was a lot of hard rebooting and cursing and holding down specific keys and … well, I got it working again. Everything was deleted, but so what? That’s what you have the cloud for. And I only had to do that master reboot like three or four times before I figured out just what was making it tick in the first place. I think. Please don’t turn off on me again, computer.

I love this computer. It’s a giant middle finger to the whole computer industry. Everything in modern technology is all about being new, getting a new device every year or so. Not me, I’ve had this same machine since 2006. Did I mention how warm my wrists are? And as long as this thing holds up, I’ll never buy anything else. Never. I hope that this computer lasts me the rest of my life. I hope that my descendants all use this computer, that it keeps working for hundreds of years to come, that in the future, it’ll develop a near mystical reputation, a sort of divine machine that refuses to obey the laws of simple mechanics. This computer is the best. If you ever came up to me and said, “Rob, I’ll trade you this brand new computer for your really old, hot, temperamental machine,” I’d say, “No deal.” Seriously. Try it. Make me that offer. I’ll say no.

Let’s go Mets

It’s the start of another baseball season. I call myself a Mets fan, and every year around this time I look in the mirror and I say something like, “Rob, this year you’re actually going to watch baseball, OK? You’re going to stay on top of when the Mets are playing, and how they’re doing. You’re going to learn the names of more players than just David Wright. OK, and when you put on that Mets t-shirt, the vintage looking blue piece with the intentionally faded logo, right, when you wear it and some of your friends start saying stuff like, ‘Cool shirt, did you see the game last night?’ you won’t have to lie, nodding along, just hoping they won’t call you out on specific highlights, or ask if you knew who the opposing team was. No, this year you’re going to be a real Mets fan.”

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I was almost a real Mets fan in 2007. Granted, at the time the Mets were doing awesome, and so it’s not that hard to get excited about a team that’s winning. Everyone thought they were headed to the playoffs that year. It was almost assured. They were so far ahead of every other team that they would have had to lose something like seven or eight games in a row to not qualify for the post-season. Which is what they did, of course. And they collapsed the year after that also.

But this year I wanted a fresh start, a chance to see the Mets through the season from the very start. I knew I was in for an uphill battle though when I saw a Mets game on the TV above the bar at work last week. “Shit,” I told one of the bartenders, “Did the season start already? When was opening day?” And it was like two days ago, I had somehow missed it completely. Is it really my fault? I don’t know. It’s just now starting to get nice out, so that first game must have been like a winter sport. And so can I really be blamed for not having had any spring weather to associate baseball with?

I went home and typed “Mets” into Google. They lost the first two games, and their closing pitcher messed up his arm or his elbow or something. So yeah, I guess I got a little deflated, like maybe I’m not going to get to be a huge Mets fan, not this year. And it sucked because I looked down, I was already wearing that Mets t-shirt that I was talking about earlier. Right when I got home from work that day, but before I checked out how they were doing online, I went hunting around my dresser drawers, I found it.

It’s a really cool shirt, it’s like, in addition to that distressed logo I was talking about, the one that was definitely intentionally silk-screened to make it look authentically vintage, there’s also a patch sewn onto the sleeve. I’m writing it out and it sounds super lame, but it’s a subtle touch, like maybe it’s a little over the top, but not too over the top.

But I can’t help feeling like a huge poser every time I put it on. It was the same feeling I got a few years before, I went to Modell’s and bought all of those “buy two get two” Mets tees, but they all stretched out around the neck, and honestly, I had no idea who any of the players were whose names I had printed across the backs of these really cheap pieces of cotton.

I get it though, it’s more than just dressing the part of a Mets fan. You have to also kind of pay attention to how they’re doing. If you’re not actually watching baseball games on TV, you should at least make sure you know when they’re playing, against who, maybe make an effort to understand the rules of the game, pitching order, American and National league, all of these keywords that I can rattle off without really knowing what I’m talking about.

Anyway, some good news, Ike Davis hit a grand slam last week. So that was pretty cool. I watched that clip on the Internet. But it was like three days after the fact, and when I went to talk about it to one of my friends at work, he was like, “Yeah that was a cool hit, although that was last week.” And then he walked away.

I tried watching some of the Cincinnati game on Sunday, but I couldn’t figure out what channel it was on, which is a really bad excuse, because I could have just looked it up on the Internet. Oh well. It’s still early. There’s still plenty of time to hop on the Mets bandwagon. Right?

Let’s go Mets.