Computer, the continued story.

Man came home yesterday with a grin on his face. "How's the new card doing? Is it awesome?"

I sort of stared at the computer screen for a moment, wondering what it would look like if the new card were in and working. "Mm, it didn't work."

He took only a moment to realize that I had put the old card back in, and then set to with asking what things I tried in order to get it to work. And now I'm really glad I did all that troubleshooting garbage. When he said "did you try..." I was able to say "yes!"

He was so focused on the computer all night last night that he didn't even eat dinner with us longer than 3 minutes. Which is saying something for a one handed man eating bbq chicken. He tried to talk to me about it throughout the evening, but I was preoccupied with less technical things, such as cooking, getting the kids ready for bed, and preparing my home for a free carpet cleaning. Besides that, I honestly don't know enough about computers to really be helpful. His questions and statements were not the teaching sort, they were the focused, competent sort that quickly flew between hardware, software, and maybe even silverware or wererabbit for all I kept up with him. I'm not sure if he wanted me to help or if he was simply trying to include me in a process he enjoys.

He seemed so preoccupied though, that after a while I came up with a great idea.

"Honey, why don't you try adjusting the tacheon radiofrequency for endothermic propulsion? That might help the phasonic wavebrights malappease the monochipistic hampsters that are messing with the system."

"Yeah," he said. "That might work."

Then he looked up at me and grinned, and we nerdily shared a snorty laugh.

I'm so white and nerdy. Bwahahaha-snort-hahaha. Ahem.

So, the end result was that about 30 mins after I went to bed last night, he said that he tampered with it so much both physically and with internal settings of some sort that the motherboard finally waved a white flag and gave up the ghost.

Now, I know what some of you are thinking: now we know! He did do it on purpose! He asked if we might spring for a new motherboard/processor, because that's all it would need to be a perfectly good computer. I pondered that. After 7+ years, I know him well enough to see when disappointment is real, and he was genuinely upset that this purchase didn't behave very well.

I know what others of you are thinking: if that computer is fried, how are you posting this? We're working with his laptop for now. Imagine my chagrin, to have to watch The Office and The Daily Show on this little thing with the laptop sized speakers. -sigh- Poor me.

(that was sarcastic, btw)

We've been burning the candles we got yesterday and Pebbles is so fascinated by these things. She knows that fire is dangerous and hurts, so every time I pick up the little candle tin she gets anxious and yells "watch it, finger! [which actually sounds like "finker"] Fire's hot and hurts fingers!" So I decided to mess with her and run my finger through the flame. She squeaked. "Issa hurt? Hurt finger? Don't hurt, finger!" Then she blew it out, made a really awesome "ack! uh-oh" face, then said "can I have some more fire?"

I think we have a little pyro in the making. She's right next to me, laughing about some hair she accidentally singed and now she wants me to give her some paper.