Computer Nerds:

I wanted to put something clever after the colon, but I can't think of anything that fits with this story. Any suggestions?

So for those of you that don't know my new computer that I've been bragging about for the past month, decided to die on me. My brother, Jon, came out a couple of times to try to fix it, but it was a no go. His best estimates is that the MOBO or MAINBOARD (that's how computer nerds say it) or the grafix card took a dump. The damn thing is an $1800.00 paper-weight! I don't blame Jon (as of right now), but at first I was pissed, only because.......Why cant stuff work out for me? Oh well, shit happens and maybe I have bad karma right now, at least I'm taking solid shits for the first time in awhile! I'll just chalk it up too the universe balancing it self.

So with Jon out of ideas and my lack of access to a NASA scientist the next best thing is to take it too a computer repair shop. Jon suggested CompUSA, but they wanted a $100.00 just to look at it. So I called OPARC, I don't know what that stands for, but their the local computer shop around the corner. OPARC only wanted $50.00 to look it over, but Jon said they might not have the tools like CompUSA for diagnosing the problem. Well I took a risk and went with OPARC, I don't know if that was the right choice in retrospect.

First off, I think I should have, and would really have liked Jon to take my computer in, because he built the damn thing and he knows all the computer jargon.

Now to the story. As I entered the store I was immediately greeted by what I can only desrcibe as a Meatloaf (the singer) look-a-like, and a man so socially inept and nerdy that he is the spitting image of the computer nerd guy from War Games. You know the guy at the beginning of the movie who Mathew Brodricks character goes to to learn about how to hack into Joshua and the nerdy dude in the back starts shouting out information from the background, like "tell him about the backdoor." well it was just like that, too the T! Man, movie stereotypes never lie. The first thing the nerdy guy said, before I even opened my mouth was "that's one of Anthony's builds," that's when Meatloaf came over and said "let me take a look." The nerdy guy again said "I know that work, Anthony built it!" Meatloaf interrupted and said "I don't think so." I think its interesting in the computer world how a custom PC comes before the customer.
Meatloaf and the nerd from War Games talked back and forth wile peering into my PC for a couple of minutes, before actually asking me who built it. I said " my brother built it for me" Meatloaf replied " I told you it wasn't one of ours!" The nerd from War Games just ignored this and said some computer mumbo jumbo, and then Meatloaf asked me what the problem was? I told him "the damn thing wasn't booting, at all, not even a BIOS screen!" Meatloaf replied with an "uh." The nerd from war games started rambling off things to check from the background, I couldn't understand his computer ramblings. Meatloaf replied with "I don't think it's that." The nerd kept rambling things off, check this, check that, Meatloaf just ignored him, he was in computer fix it mode.

Meatloaf then began to take my PC over to a desk and and started removing the case cover all while talking to me. "wow" he said, "who built this for you (he must have bben to engrosed in my PC and ignored my earlyier answer)? It's nice!" He then started looking at all the parts inside. I couldn't help to notice his lip quivering while he was inspecting it. As he was looking it over and plugging stuff in, This black guy walked through the door, with a bag of computer parts. I cant remember his name so I'll just call him Nerdy Black Guy.

Nerdy Black Guy, what you looking at Meatloaf? Meatloaf replied I'm trying to figure out what's wrong with this. "Damn that's a nice machine" said the Nerdy Black Guy, "Did you build that?" I told him "no, my brother did." that peeked Meatloafs interest, "oh ya" he said, "what's your brother due for a living, who does he work for?" The Nerdy Black Guy was now inspecting the machine. I told Meatloaf " he's a janitor (that's how Jon likes me to describe his job title, as opposed to muchi McMucherson)" The Nerdy Black Guy said "a janitor built this?" Meatloaf then said with a smirk "well, its a really clean job inside!" The Nerdy Black Guy then started commenting on the lights and how cool it looked.

Meatloaf asked me a few more questions about what I had been doing with my PC. He noticed the OC fan, and thought maybe I burned it out. I told him, I only use my PC for gaming, and that I had a weird experience during an extended play with Battlefield 1942, when the screen went all bright. Meatloaf then said "maybe you blew your grafix card?" he then began to unscrew it. Meatloaf yelled over to the Nerdy Black Guy "Hay, are those the grafix cards I asked you for?" "Ya" replied the Nerdy Balck Guy "why?" "because I'm going to swap this one out and see if one of those works." This would bring all the employees of the store over to gawk.

It was almost like Moses saying "behold The BFG Geforce 68000 GT OC!" The Nerdy Black Guy was in awe. He asked "can I hold that? I just want to see what it feels like!" Now, I don't know about you, but I don't see the big deal over a piece of hardware, but Im not some poor computer nerd. I thought he was joking, So I just kind of grinned, trying to be polite. Meatloaf then handed me my grafixs card, while the Nerdy Black Guy set another grafixs card on the edge of my case. Meatloaf responded " what are you doing? Watch it, you might scratch the case!" The Nerdy Black Guy came closer to me and said "come on man let me hold it!" "Ok" I replied. So I handed it over to him. He then said to me " hay man, how fast can you chase a black guy?" Not knowing how to respond to that, I once again politely grinned.

The presence of the BFG Geforce sparked the interest of an employee who was installing light bulbs. I'll call him Skinny Lightbulb Installer Guy (SLIG). He came over and was talking up a storm. "So you mainly play Games?" I responded with a "yes, I had my brother build this so I could play Doom 3." SLIG was quick to ask a barrage of questions. "How many Megahertz you got?" "what's your frame rate?" "What kind of processor you got?" "How much memory you got in that?" Whats that Geforce got in it?" "I'm running Doom 3 on this Bla Bla Bla...(insert tech talk) at about 50 fps what are you getting?" All I could respond with was "ah..... It works great with the settings maxed...?" It didn't mater because he was already looking in my PC like it was the Ark of the Covenant.

At this point Meatloaf was unhooking and rehooking things, checking the hard drive first and moving on to the memory. I might add his touch, didn't appear to be very gentle. He then unhooked my memory, and said " I'll try some I got" he then placed my Memory on the edge of my case and began to walk away when he quickly turned back and picked it back up and handed it to me. "you better hold on to these, I don't want someone walking off with it!" The nerdy Black guy seemed to think this comment was directed towards him and replied with a "what, Meatloaf you don't trust Me?" I couldn't help but think, you may be a Black Nerdy Guy, but your still black. Normally I wouldn't be predgidice, but after his previous comments, and walking in with a bag of grafix cards, I wasn't taking any chances. Meatloaf then reappeared from the back where I could hear the Nerd from War Games saying " Whats wrong with it, did you try this?" Meatloaf then plugged in the new memory and turned my PC on. It made this awful beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep. Meatloaf said "huh......It must not like that memory........I don't get it, its the same type as you had in their?" He then removed the memory and placed it back in a different order. Once again, he got the same awful Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep. Meatloaf then said " I think its safe to say its your Mother board, I can't think of anything else it could be." I told him that all the parts should still be under warranty. Meatloaf then replied with " you got a good system there, I don't know why you went cheap with the ABIT IC7-G....I mean with all the great stuff you got in there...It just seems kind of odd." He then went on to suggest a couple of different motherboards like a Pentium instead of an even exchange. He claimed, "you get a three year warranty if you put a Pentium Chip in A Pentium Board."

Meatloaf then handed me the screws to my case and said "you can probably put the cover back on better than I can." his last words to me were "don't worry about the fifty either, I'm not going to charge you since I couldn't fix it!" Well that was nice....I guess. Good thing he didn't charge me, because he didn't do anything Jon hadn't already done. This makes me think I should have taken the damn thing to CompUSA, but who knows, they wouldn't have had a problem charging me a hondo and doing the same crap Meatloaf and his band of socially inept misfits did. I also wouldn't have had this bizarre experience to write about . My CompUSA story would have gone like this: what's wrong with your PC? OK we'll check it out, we'll call you when we know whats wrong. Although its a bland story, I think It would have been less stressful on me, but then again, Jon never would have known about the admires of his work. huh, a janitor that builds Killer PC's on the side, go figure.