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As I've stated previously, I'm a gamer. I like video games. Amazingly enough, video games also come on computers. Sorry, I should have told you to sit down before I brought you this shocking revelation. So, as one may guess, in order to play certain games one must own a working computer. And not just any computer, no...

You'd think that the concept that you can't put new shit in old shit would have sunk into the general populous by now, but you'd be wrong. No matter how much technology is force fed down people's throats by companies like Apple and Nintendo, people are still blissfully unaware of something called SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS. No, your 1990 Dell Dimension running Windows ME would not be a good candidate for Half-life 2. In fact, I still have gut feeling that these people think that computers come from a magical pocket dimension where gnomes control everything with the power of their mind and gracefully allow us access to their mystical technologies if we ask nicely enough. Because of this, people get the wrong idea if you say you know how a computer works.

I'm not a Linux geek. I'm not a network admin and I don't know the difference between PHP and PCP, other that one makes people go crazy with prolonged use and the other one is a drug sold on the street. The point is, when someone says, "Hey, do you know about computers?" your answer should always be no. Because if you say yes, even if it means you know how to use a mouse well enough to check your email without your braincells having a structural failure on par with the Hindenburg disaster, people will automatically assume you are a mystical practitioner of the lost and forbidden arts used to control the demons that work the mystical machines that make our lives so much easier. This is not the fucking case. I know how to put a computer together, but it's not that fucking hard. If you can play with Legos, you can put together a fucking computer. Especially in this day and age. The pieces are fucking COLOR CODED. You don't even have that advantage with Legos! Of course, that's just the basics. Which is what I know. The basics. Tab A goes in Slot B, you push the button, drop in a disk, wait for a few bars to load and that's it. That's the extent of my knowledge as far as computers go. Why? Because I use them to play games and write stupid shit on the internet when I'm bored. I don't need a Master's Degree in computer science for this, honestly. However, it never fails that someone inevitably asks me, "Hey, my computer is broken, can you take a look at it for me?" In an ideal world, I would look at it and go, "Yeah, it's broken. Sucks to be you." and be on my merry way, but apparently when someone asks me to look at their ancient piece of technology with more dust than the Smithsonian, I'm automatically supposed to know what's wrong with it, AND how to fix it, simply because I know the difference between a Hard Drive and RAM.

Needless to say, I'm a pansy and will drive myself crazy trying to figure out what the buttfuck is wrong with a machine I would rather throw out a window than look at. Now, if it's one thing I'm good at, it's pretending to know more about something than I actually do. But it's really not that hard. Like I said before, people are idiots and as long as you use a couple words with more than three syllables in them on a regular basis, people will automatically assume you have a college education, or are at least generally knowledgeable in whatever it is you're talking about. Sometimes this can bite you in the ass. Especially since people that know the hardcore computer stuff and write the programs people want to use are sadistic fucks that know you have no idea what it is you're trying to do and taunt you by making a program spew errors with descriptions that sound like they've been ripped directly from the Necronomicon. One shining example of this is when you get an error that reads something along the lines of, "General Protection Fault 000FxFFC24" or something. What the fuck exactly is that supposed to tell us other than, "Your computer is fucked and you're too dumb to know how, so we'll give you the answer in some technical riddle that would require a manual the size of an Xbox to decipher." I think some of these guys are really bitter about the whole 'user friendly' revolution. (Though I can't totally blame them for being irritated.)

It doesn't help matters when your even more incompetent friend who is relying on you to solve their problem for free so they won't have to fork out money for a real repair person is hounding you to fix their problem with the mystical powers given to you when you bought your first motherboard. Let me tell you right now that computers are a pain in the ass when they're not entertaining you. It's like a sadistic grandparent painting all the Easter eggs with jungle camo and hiding them in patches of elephant grass. For instance, one guy's computer I worked on, it was running slow and the mouse would cut out from time to time. Well, when a computer is lagging, the first thing that comes to mind is that there's too many background programs running, spyware, etc. So we fish through the thing looking for the culprit and come up empty. We can't figure it out. After two days of going crazy trying to figure this out, we find out it might be a problem with the power supply. Turns out it was. Now, logically.... how would you come to the conclusion that the power supply of all things would generate computer lag? I mean if you go the round about way and see it from the final perspective, it sort of makes sense, sure. But it makes sense in the same way the end of the Sherlock Holmes movie made sense after they told you all the secrets you didn't see. How the fuck was I supposed to figure that out on my own, honestly? That's like the last thing you'd think of. Or maybe I'm just stupid. The point is, working on computers sucks and I'm getting ready to buy this shirt and wear it every day under my normal clothes so on the off chance someone asks me to look at their computer I can rip off my other clothes in Clark Kent fashion and proudly display that no, I will NOT fix their fucking computer.