11-12-2002

Behold the wonders of Modern Technology! Tremble in Fear before the Awesome Powers of Science! Fall to your knees and grovel before your superiors!

Yes, I mean that you should grovel before ME, Terry Heggy, Master of All Things Technological.

Look! Over there on the wall…see those certificates? The ones that say Certified Expert Microsoft Office User Specialist (MOUS)? Yeah, it’s true…I have passed Rigorous Tests to prove that I know whole big hairy bunches of stuff about how to use a computer.

Ah, but therein lies a tale. A couple of weekends ago, I decided to upgrade my computer’s operating system. Yeah, I know, you’ve heard this story before. It was boring the first time, and it was boring the last time. OK, fine. But stick with me, here, cuz this tale is not just an ordinary story of a failed software installation and the frenzy of imaginative cursing that accompanies it. This story has sordid intrigue, corruption, romance, full frontal nudity and alien abductions. And it’s all 100% true.

My story begins innocently enough. I loaded my 12-year-old son into the car and boogied down to the local Best Buy to pick up a copy of Microsoft Windows XP Professional®. Turning the boy loose to go over to the Nintendo display and occupy himself with Super Mario Sunshine®, I browse the software boxes until I found the object of my quest. Pretty blue box. Colorful logo. Must be damned good software, I thought.

Two hours later, I made it to the checkout stand. (Well, gee, I couldn’t interrupt the boy in the middle of his Nintendo game, could I? It’s a game about cleaning up pollution, after all. What kind of a father would tell his son to leave the world in a toxic-waste-filled mess just so he can get home a few minutes earlier?)

No, I don’t want to buy a Best Buy gift card. Yes, I understand that they make great stocking stuffers. No, I don’t need a membership to Netflix…I already got one, you see? Yes, I would like the 400 feet of cash register tape that I’ll need for the 87 rebate forms I’ll have to send in to 17 different entities in order to actually realize the advertised price…and yes, I will sign my name in your little credit card signature scanner box, though it seems a little weird to write with a pen that has no ballpoint and no ink. Sigh. How many years until these stores are using retina scanners?

I’ll do the rebate forms later. Not enough hours to spare today. Let’s install the software.

First step, maim yourself horribly trying to get the plastic off the cardboard box. You can’t tear the plastic, regardless of your personal level of Manly Brute Strength. And trying to use an X-Acto® knife only succeeds in ruining the knife. Scissors pilfered from a company I used to work for are quickly reduced to so much scrap metal.

Better get Ginsu®.

Using a wickedly serrated knife that is GUARANTEED to be able to topple the Eiffel Tower®, circumcise the Sphinx®, cut right through the chest cavity of the Tin Woodsman® (and still be able to neatly slice between individual tomato molecules), I was able to open a big enough rent in the plastic to get my hand in, grip the box, and…

BLEED ALL OVER THE FLOOR as my hand gets caught on the edge of the slit plastic and is instantly severed from my arm. (OK, I exaggerate. I didn’t actually lose any limbs in the process of opening the box. But there was blood. Plenty of blood. Buckets and buckets of blood. Bwaah haa haa ha!)

Four Scooby-Doo® Band Aids® later, I was again ready to proceed with my project.

As a MOUS, I actually do read the installation directions before I begin. Radical concept, I know, but I enjoy trying to figure out if the instructions were actually written by an American, or if they were originated on some remote Pacific Island and then translated by a machine somewhere on its way to the States. “You are thank for buy software box. Please to copy illegal for punishment of many type. Electronic device explodement if indecent exposure for typical voltage. Many happy years of use in fine product.”

The instructions for XP® were well written and quite clear. Basically it said: stick the CD in the drive and follow the on-screen instructions. In about a half an hour, I should be able to eXPerience™ all the wonders that years of effort by hordes of pencil-necked geeks had been able to stuff into this fine product.

The first 15 minutes went swimmingly, lulling me into a false sense of security. Files copying. Promotional blurbs flashing on the screen telling me how much I’m going to enjoy this dazzling operating system. Little blue progress bars…progressing.

I don’t remember the exact words in the final message box, but they went something like this. “Terry, my good man…everything is groovy and the installation is going as smooth as Village Inn French Silk Pie®. We’ll be done in just a sec…but first there’s a simple reboot to accomplish. You don’t have to do anything; just sit there and watch the fun on the screen, OK? Here we go…”

Those were the last intelligible words my computer had for me, may it rest in peace. The system appeared to be rebooting, but then suddenly I saw the dreaded Blue Screen of Death (BSOD). Amid lines and lines of hexadecimal gobbledygook, there appeared a message that said something like, “Fatal boot error. Check memory parity and BIOS shadowing and try again.”

Hey, a MOUS knows how to do that. So I did it. Reboot. Same BSOD. Try to boot from the XP® CD and run the install again. Same BSOD. Try lighting incense and praying to every known deity on all seven continents and several isolated island cultures.

Same BSOD.

Trust me, cursing didn’t help either…and not because I didn’t give it the old college try. I though perhaps that pummeling the system repeatedly with a 15-pound sledgehammer might help, but, wouldn’t you know it – I didn’t have one. Bummer.

I took a deep breath and called Microsoft Tech Support. After spending enough time on hold to make sure all the phone company stockholders would be able to buy Spiderman® DVDs for Christmas, my call was finally answered. Nice guy, very helpful. The first thing he said after I described the problem was, “Oh my God! You weren’t running a virus checker when you started the installation, were you? Oh my God!”

Uh…yes?

“Good Lord, you can’t do that! Holy Cow, if you were running a virus checker, you are screw-diddly-ooed, Buddy. You might as well take that hard drive out of the box and use it as a paperweight, cuz you’ll never, ever get that sucker to boot again. Oh my God!”

Uh…question? I don’t mean to be combative, but the instructions clearly indicated that Step 1 was to put the CD in and run the installation. Is it possible that Step 1 should’ve been “Disable any virus checking software.”?

Oh, absolutely. Gotta disable the antivirus.

Then why THE BLOODY HELL didn’t the instructions tell me to do that!?!?

More cursing followed, then some sobbing. Then more cursing. Uh, I really think at this point I can spare you the rest of the story. But needless to say, my unflagging support of Bill Gates and his Washington State minions has begun to, uh… flag.

The good news is that all it took to fix the system was a mere hard drive replacement, a completely clean installation (without that nasty virus software), and about 14 hours of continuous consumption of potent adult beverages. During one particularly frustrating hour, I’ll confess that I did indeed shed all my clothes and run around screaming “Enrico Pallazo Saved the Queen!” (See, I told you this story would feature nudity. I lied about the alien abductions, though. Sorry.)

Is there a point to this? No, not really. Everyone has software problems at some point in their miserable worthless lives. Most people accept these problems as part of the price we pay for the technology that grants us access to an unlimited supply of websites devoted to Jennifer Anniston and/or Brad Pitt. But for me, I’m afraid the price is higher. You see, I can no longer sleep well – every night I have this horrible dream of a dripping severed hand dragging a partially opened software box across the room, climbing up the wall and then bleeding all over my precious MOUS certificates.

The horror. The horror.

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