Microsoft Exorcist

For a couple weeks now, I have been set free from the drudgery of having to use my old demon possessed computer. This is due to the fact that I bought a brand spanking new Dell computer that is 99% demon free (It's a well known fact that no computer can be 100% demon free...there's always some stealthy little demon that manages to sneak in during the assembly or something).

It's like the difference between day and night. When I was forced to use my old computer, I had to put up with such peculiarities as:

• Not loading completely when I turned it on, forcing me to restart, occasionally I had to restart several times before the computer actually loaded.
• Crashing and locking up when I did such backbrea...err...hard drivebreaking things as running a program, surfing the internet, touching any part of the computer, getting within 10 feet of the computer, or trying to feed it by spreading tuna on a CD and putting it in the CD drive.
• Doing almost any task extremely slow as if to indicate that the acronym of the company who built my computer, HP (Hewlett Packard), really stands for Handicapped Processor.
• Having my firewall disable my internet connection at random for no reason.
• Making Diablo 2 stop working properly. It even tried to eat my CD when I put it in the drive a couple times. I put it in, it started to whir, and all of a sudden, "THUNK...crunch crunch crunch...BURRRRRRPP!!"
• Being demon possessed. Maybe that's one of the long term symptoms of a computer which has had Diablo 2 played on it for too long...

But this new computer is great. It runs fast, it actually loads when it's supposed to, I don't lag while browsing the internet or playing D2, and it came with a firewall that actually works! Although I'm not convinced that a firewall is the best thing to have on a computer. Seems to me that a FIREwall would be mighty attractive for demons to come hang out in...maybe I should get a ExorcismWall or an IglooWall or something.

Like my dad suggested, it's reminiscent of when Strongbad got rid of his old Tandy 400 in favor of his current Compy 386, "A spectacle of graphics and sound". My old computer was like the Tandy 400, with the duct tape keeping it together, and the cracked screen, and the top-left hand corner that looked like someone took a bite out of it. Except my computer monitor had a Walmart Smiley Face sticker on it, a toy figure of Bender the Robot from the show Futurama who was constantly wielding a flimsy piece of rubber at me, and a sticker that said "The beatings will continue until morale improves". But my new computer is like Strongbad's Compy 386, basically because it's new and it works. It doesn't have any stickers on it yet, but it does have a Godzilla figure on the top that my dad put there to continue the legacy of Monitor-Guarding Action Figures, and I have a miniature rubber chicken that sits on my desk and sometimes, when he's ambitious, will stretch out on one of my speakers to get a better angle for his suntan from my desk lamp.

So I am very happy with my new computer, and I'm glad I no longer am forced to use my old one. Now I just have to think of a way to get rid of it. Hmm...does anyone want a new computer? I'm sure it won't be too much of a problem to send the demons a forwarding address.