I Love You, But I Hate You Too

Me and that thing called Technology. It's been a roller-coaster, love-hate affair.

One minute, I declare to the whole wide world it's the best thing that's ever happened to me. The next, I'm cussing and swearing it to death.

My cell-phone, in particular, had been a long-standing heartache. Until the day I got the new toy. And then, the heartache set in when I somehow lost the stylus. Ah, hate. And then, someone I bumped into gave me a brand new one. L-o-v-e.

I've been using my P-Book without a battery pack for the past two weeks - hate. I am waiting for a brand-new one, which is pretty timely since my original battery had been running flat-out within an hour but the waiting kinda sucks 'cos I still have about another two more weeks to go. Ok, a teeny bit of love there.

My iPod, barely a year old, just decided to stop working and hang on me one fine day. Which caused me major duress, since fixing an MP3 player is like the least favored priority in my life now. Quite some hate. The Apple folks were sweet enough to declare it a 'hard-disk failure' and replace me with a brand-new one - free-of-charge - within the next few days. Oh, trust me, there was a lot of love.

Just about three days ago, I was struck with the latest blow. A major one. I lost some sleep to nightmares for two nights.

My P-Book creaked and clicked, and just died on me. And I was no tech-paramedic. The once-sweet-turned-sour Applets took one look, and dropped the bomb: I think your hard-disk is going to crash very soon, you'd better do some back-up on your files before you decide if you want to send it in for diagnosis.

And how long will it take for diagnosis and repair? (Read: And how long am I going to live without a computer?!)

Oh, at least five working days, ma'am.

Hate. HATE. H-A-T-E.

Sometimes, you just don't realize how much you need someone - until you've lost him, or her.

The same goes for a computer. Or at least, mine, I think. I call it my 'livelihood', my life-line, now.

I fell into a daze the same night, and for pretty much the whole of the next day. Until I made a painful decision. That is, to make a lone trip to Sim Lim and get me my own external hard-disk drive. Back-up, and then repair. Fuck it.

I had to ask questions like a real techo-idiot. Because I am. And no one at Sim Lim seems to tolerate one, not especially a female one.

Why must I buy the hard-disk and the casing separately? Why is the casing so expensive?! What's the difference between the big-big and the small-small one? Got any difference between brands? Got warranty? What if my back-up disk fails? How do I set it up? How? How? HOW?

But I suppose the seemingly daunting trip didn't turn out as hellish. I think I must've walked into the right store. Either that, or I must've employed the right tactic.

When you're an idiot, don't act like one, not especially a female one. Just flash a wide-toothed grin and play the damsel-in-distress. Well, I was really in distress, anyway.

Then, just go all out and boost the ego of the salesman (yes, please choose a man if you don't desire rolling eyes from bitchy female sales assistants). You will only make him feel like he knows everything (about computer hardware, anyway), much more than you do. Like he's the hero who puts you out of misery in your life - albeit just for that few short moments.

In reality, after the role-playing was done, I felt more like I was some auntie being conned by some supermarket mushroom-frying salesman at the frozen foods department. I didn't need a freakin' 160-giga disk, but I bought one anyway. Simply because of some quick 'rational' calculation in the head: a 160-giga disk for 165 bucks, which makes it 1-giga for 1 buck. Why the hell not?!

And of course, I was sweet-talked to (read: 'conned'). Need you ask?

The damsel insisted - politely - that the hero assembled and formatted the disk on her behalf. Upon some further cajoling, the hero offered some little troubleshooting of the computer, and then some valiant advice: I don't think there's anything wrong with your hard-disk because if it was dying, it would've just died on you. Period. I think it could just be an overheating problem. If I were you, I wouldn't repair anything till something happens - since you have back-up now. Just get some fans too.

Oh.

Anyhow, back-up is always good. I didn't spend 165 bucks on nothing. I think I just saved myself hundreds more.

Love.

Or at least till the hero proves me wrong. Terribly wrong.

Paws crossed...