iTragedy

it was a sad weekend for the old, dear electronics in my life. Saturday morning i was wrenched from sleep at 7am by my iBook's swan song. it sounded like electronic gasps, each rising in pitch from the last. i knew the end was near. we only had a couple more hours together, and it was fading in and out, but i used our time the best i could. (read: the hard drive kept locking up and i spent two hours rebooting, copying as many files as i could, shutting it down, and repeating.)

r.i.p. 2003-2008 (that's, like, 75 or 80 in laptop years)

then there was the incident with my cell phone. i got my little Nokia 6610 around 2002 and it has put up admirably with my abuse, including my bar trick where i (1) get a little punchy, (2) throw it across the room, and then (3) reassemble it and make a phone call. i had a premonition that it will ultimately be lost to a toilet bowl (it has a bad habit of popping out of my jeans pocket at inopportune moments, but it's always missed), so when i couldn't find it anywhere Sunday night i still had faith we would be reunited. i stepped back through my day, and came up with the only place that it could be: the ball pit. Sam and i had swung by Google on Sunday so i could show him the playground where i work. on the tour, i jumped into the ball pit. i had the presence of mind to check for my car keys when i got out, but hadn't thought to take inventory before i jumped in. this morning when i got to work i borrowed a friend's cell phone, and headed for the ball pit. i heard its muffled chirping the first time i called. i stood thigh-deep in plastic balls, calling my cell phone over and over, digging furiously to uncover it. even with it ringing, lighting up, and vibrating, it still took me 15 minutes to recover it. i got to it just in the nick of time; it had one battery bar left when i pulled it from the pit, just before the walls of the ball-hole i'd dug caved in. it's home now, recovering from the ordeal (i.e., charging). it's a good thing, i don't think i could have handled losing both in one weekend.