Better, stronger, faster.

Gentlemen, we can rebuild him. We have the technology ... Better than he was before. Better, stronger, faster.

Couple weeks back, tragedy struck. My custom-built desktop computer, closest thing to a pride and joy next to these knuckleheads, stopped working. No warning, no slow breakdown, nothing like that. It was working when I went to sleep and dead when I woke up (reason #67 to never sleep again?)

After a few days of messing around with it myself, I took it to a professional. It was very hard leaving my baby behind. But if it was hard on me, it was near torture to my kids--I think Samwise was about to lose all will to live, he probably would've if he didn't have several Tamagotchis depending on him.

Turns out the motherboard fried--right under the CPU socket. Ouch. Ouch. Anyway, got it back last week, and finally got the chance to fire it up this weekend. Wow. What a difference a new motherboard/CPU can make! Same memory (need to get more), new main hard drive (need to finish transferring my data, installing programs...note to self: go get Acrobat), but it's on the way back--and definately better than ever! I didn't think my old system was slow in any way, shape or form. But MAN! I was wrong...this thing smokes!

Best of all, I'm back in the good graces of my kids. This morning Arnold walks up to me looking very excited, "You Computer Fix?" "Yeah, buddy, it's fixed." He gives me the hugest smile and wraps my legs in a bone-breaking bear hug. And he doesn't even get to use the thing! :)