13 Jan 2006 ... New Computer

Yay! Welcoming my new computer, Tiny, to my family. Tiny was born yesterday, 12 January 2006 at 5:15pm.

He is a 1.1gigHz Intell, 256megs RAM, 40gig harddrive with XP pre-installed, and a glorious DVD, CD rewritable ROM. He is more than I was hoping for, and my wonderful, wonderful Lover paid the adoption fee.

The Story of Tiny

Once upon a time, some random guy buys a pretty black Dell computer. Maybe he plays with the computer a little bit, but probably does not appreciate the poor little thing. One day the computer crashes. The random guy deletes the harddrive and takes it to a computer repair shop.

At the shop, the operating system is re-installed and a bad memory chip is removed. The shop owner tries to tell random guy his computer is fixed, but random guy can't be found. The shop owner phones random guy's work, a used car lot, but they are not allowed to give out random guy's new address. "Oh well," says the computer shop owner. Random guy never comes in to pick up his computer.

The black Dell sits on the top shelf of the work room for over a year. And then, in comes Cheri and her Significant Other. "We are looking for a computer," says SO. The shop owner asks questions: "Used?" Cheri says: "Yes, the cheapest thing you've got!" Shop owner: "Price range? $100? $500?" Cheri says Yes to 100, No to 500.

The shop owner leads the lovely couple to the 100$ computers. Cheri likes the big case on one of the cheap computers, but they are all under 450megHz, which is too slow. Cheri was hoping for a minimum of 600mgHz. The shop owner leads Cheri and SO to the computers that are the next step up... Cheri barely glaces at them, ho hum.

Next, the shop owner takes them to the workroom. He's got this and that, some 200mgHz in horizontal cases, how quaint just like Temperamental! Cheri was heading back to look at the second step computers, when shop owner stops them, "I do have this one," pointing at the black Dell on the top shelf.

Cheri is not even vaguely interested. Those corporate, cookie-cutter computers are evil incarnate. Once you buy them, you are stuck with them as they are, they are impossible to upgrade.

But Significant Other was standing in front of Cheri, and he was attracted to the black case. The shop owner doesn't even know how fast the processor is, but the price is $130 to pay for random guys repairs. Shop owner takes the black Dell down from the shelf. "It's tiny," Cheri says with dismay to SO. Shop owner plugs the computer in.

The shop owner goes to deal with other customers and Cheri has a look at the hardware. It's a 1.1gig which is brilliant for the price. There is no room inside the case for another harddrive, which is a problem. The operating system, win XP, is installed, which may be a problem. Cheri checks out the CDROM, and finds out it's a DVDrom and a CD rewritable. And that was the deciding factor.

Cheri tells SO, "I want this computer." SO arranges it. At the counter, shop owner explains about the random guy and the bad memory and the operating system will die in a couple months if you don't pay for it. okay.

The black computer is so tiny Cheri can carry it out to the van without difficulty. "Is that what you are going to name it?" asks SO, "Tiny?" Cheri says: "I think so, unless it gives me trouble when I plug it in."

Cheri decided not to delete the operating system. She plugged everything into the new little computer and started, slowly but surely, installing software. Hardly any trouble at all. And so, the tiny black Dell is now Tiny.

The End. And yet, a beautiful beginning. :)