HENDEL WITH CARE

I sit down to write after the initial commotion is over..

Yesterday was a long day.. it all started out when i got a call from Jake telling me that he is leaving for Puducherry (formerly Pondicherry) and he wants me to drop him off at the bus stand.. i agree and went back to sleep only to be woken up by a lot of noise all over the place.. some work going on.. im less bothered and i try to sleep again..

After a rushed breakfast i pick up Jake and waited with him at the bus stand till he left.. came back only to go back to the gym.. being as lazy as I am and being a Saturday i had to fight with myself till i reached there.. the workout was the only other positive thing to happen yesterday apart from dropping of Jake..

Its almost Six o'clock plus when i get home.. around seven, i get a call from the courier company that my parcel has arrived.. HALLELUJAH!!

Let me give u small rundown on this so called parcel.. the parcel constituted my dear computer and sexy monitor.. It was taken from my brothers home by the courier company called AFL - Putting it all together.. you will see the irony in the catch line of the company only later.. so hang with me.. ok.. so they took it off my sweet brothers hands on Monday, packed my lovely themselves.. and apparently send it by air to Kerala on Tuesday.. now, normally for a person to fly down to Trivandrum, it takes around four to five hours from Delhi.. so I expected it to reach me on Tuesday itself.. Here I am complaining how slow everything at home is, and i find that it has not arrived even by nightfall.. I said, lets give it one more day, it cant take more time than that.. and so i wait.. and i wait.. and Wednesday happens; yes.. no parcel!! i send my brother little irritating smss just to show my displeasure in the whole situation.. and i get similar ones back as well.. and this goes on and on.. and then he asks me to wait!! why? because the parcel has arrived in Kerala.. and get this!! we are all misinformed that it has arrived in Trivandrum.. I breath a deep sigh of relief that it has finally reached.. only to wait till seven to find out that it is in limbo.. no one knows what has happend and of course by this time, there is nothing left to do but wait till Thursday.. and one more sleepless night later, Thursday arrives.. You always thought that you could be never too late.. right? wrong? I finally found out on Thursday that people can be so irresponsibly late, so late, that it has gone beyond all points of ok of being late.. to my awe! the parcel still remains to budge from its limbo status and fail to appear on Thursday.. by this point I have given up hope on seeing her ever again.. My brother calls me up and tells me that Friday is the last date given by the courier company for late arrivals.. and i will definitely get it on Friday, since its the last legal day to be late.. yeah right.. and Friday comes and goes; and before long I wonder if they meant that I will get it after or on the last legal day to be late? It was so weird that I gave up thinking..

After long verbal abuse, a news that my computer has arrived reaches my ear.. that too when I am on my way to pick my friend on Saturday.. WTF?! ( thats What The FUCK; for you other lot who doesnt know ) It has arrived? didnt it already arrive like four days ago?? what gives? and the second news was even more wonderful; that it has left for home for delivery, from the airport.. me and my friend curse the courier companies and talk about the state of the country and general gaming :P heheh.. of course we had to do something..

Finally before he left, knowing that my computer hasn't reached home even then, asked me why it was taking so much time.. and we joked that they are taking a detour through Calicut and Cochin and back to TVM and to my home..

No.. no sign of delivery truck even when I reached home!! and it was almost three and it has supposedly left from the airport at 11!! Pissed of and tired i get hold of the local leg of the courier company to see what is going on.. the local leg is handled by none other than DHL.. so with faith reinstated in the almighty courier company I talk to them, only to realize that the joke was on us; it indeed was on its way from the airport, only it was from Cochin!! *faint*

Before I fainted I heard him tell me to come collect the parcel at 7 plus tonight from the office!! more WTF!! now I have to collect!?!? after all this?! I have to collect?! F@#Xing B@#AS#@

After my tiring workout, I slowly waited for the seconds to go by and for it to become the zeroth hour!! and finally I get a call telling me that it has arrived!! w00000000t!! fucking finally!!

I drive out in all my joy and with all the speed my buggy can muster; also after a dozen of bad drivers who has no idea why there is a dim option on their headlights; and a bit more time wasted at bad parking, later finally im greeted by fatso of DHL, fatso humbly says that they have been waiting for me before they closed shop.. and his minions stood by bowing there heads in reverence not saying anything and not even daring to look up.. i sign a paper on a clipboard with a pen that fatso gave me.. and said something about something which really wasn't clear, because I was thrilled that I was finally getting my box back!! Two odly shaped dull brown cardboard boxes labeled "HENDLE WITH CARE" was shown to me.. before giving me anytime to examine them, two of the goons quickly took it and helped me get it inside the car.. Thankfully at the same time, a police jeep was cruising nearby slowly rolled near my illegally parked chariot.. and i had to move fast!! what the heck, i got what i came for.. so i stepped on it and hurried back home..

On my way, I had this idea of catching up with an old friend of mine, mJ0vy and i was pretty sure that he would be around too.. So we hung out talked about a lotta things and generally happy things; since he got paid and a batch he was teaching Linux to just wrote the their RHCP exams and was out off his hands and also since I got my box back..

general happiness ki jai

It was almost ten when I went home from his palce.. with some old game cds and copies of Ubuntu Linux - http://www.ubuntu.com/ :) Free software ki jai :) heheh.. no really :)

So I get home and start ripping it open when my mom tells me that it would be much easier to setup, if i take to my room.. so I take it both all the way to my room and start opening it.. I slowly and carefully open the tapes and to my surprise i see no thermocol!! only some more cardboard pieces and some squishy stuff and then my monitor..

The only thing that i said before I took it out of the box.. half jokingly was, "Its broken" then as I was taking it out.. it was, "oh shit, its broken" and then.. "aah fuck its broken" and finally it was out of the box.. broken and beyond repair..




i could hear my dads voice raising and falling, my mom sitting on my bed with a sad face, i could here shouts about the courier company.. the packaging.. my brother.. I slowly let out a sigh and move to the next oddly shaped box hoping to find that in a better stage.. no such luck.. as soon as I open it, I know its totally fucked.. as I saw the sides were crushed in from both sides.. as if someone jumped on it.. and there were huge dents on the back frame and in the front.. the front panel completely caved in.. my HDD and the floppy drive were hanging lose in a cage.. the motherboard was housed in an angle as that side had been bent.. the heat sink on my processor was shaky.. and all the holes in the back looked crushed.. first assessment : totally gone..




I slowly moved on and unplugged my monitor ( my other computer ) and hooked everything up to this ramshackle mess to see if there was any life left in it.. powerd it up.. clicked inside a broken power switch.. it slowly hummed to life.. the fans started.. but no POST beeps.. no nothing.. no life on my monitor as well.. something was wrong..





no point cursing and shouting.. only thing left to do was to catch up on my sleep.. my computer was finally here.. *sigh*

Bro tells me that it is insured, so to speak.. and well.. I have to click pictures and give an estimate of the damages and repair cost.. jeez.. repair cost.. dude.. its done.. the damage is done.. how much repair do you think is gonna make it work as it did before.. and what guaranty does anyone have for its proper working now!! repair a monitor?! Jebus save me!!




So today I call in the tech dude Anand.. he comes over and totally sheds a genuine tear for my state.. yes we all love computers.. and then he just breaks it down and checked what has survived.. I genuinely found it hard to believe that my motherboard is in one peice.. even when the pin underneath my heatsink got broken.. but we will really know if it is still alive tomorrow.. after more checks..

So here I am going through the mess of jumbled wires and what not.. i come across this nice power cable.. its short and was supposedly connected to my motherboard and here I am curiously looking at the other end only to find out something stuck inside of it!! to my horror i see that its part of my HDD!! time stopped!! all my work!! reads!! backups!! movies!! songs!! freaking porn collection!! aargh!!




The tech dude wakes me up from my trance by telling me that the monitor might be repairable.. it will still look as if a truck hit it, but there is a chance for it to work.. i throw him a piece of the picture tube that i found in the packaging.. and out goes his dream of repairing my dead monitor, flying like its soul from his gaping mouth..




And so.. I went on to take pictures of everything, including serial numbers and all that jazz and well.. because of more unfortunate incidents.. i dont have them yet.. I went on to mJ0vy's place again to borrow his bro's cam :P so that i can take some snaps and show you guys the damage, but that baby needs its juice as well.. so impatient as I am, I cant wait to post it.. hope I can send all the pics to my bro before 9 in the morning tomorrow..

*sigh* *super sigh* *even more sigh*

life goes on as unusual (T_T)