I guess the warning signs were there – boot ups were taking forever, simple tasks caused long intermittent freezes, and the blu-ray drive had a snotty temperament of its own and played only the discs it fancied. The final nail in the digital coffin came when my internet connection stubbornly refused uploads of any kind, ( downloads were perfectly fine ) meaning I couldn’t access any page that required me to enter information in a field, so no wordpress ( and hence updates to the blog ) hotmail, online banking, amazon; even syncing on itunes caused a catastrophic crash to my iphone and wiped all my data. ( thank goodness for its auto backup feature ). After about a month of frustrating hair pulling trying to troubleshoot the network issue the computer finally sputtered to a halt and blacked out.

I remember buying the parts and fixing up this computer five years old when I was still in living in Tokyo, running around the electronic stores in Akihabara looking for the best deals. There’s always the thrill and satisfaction of building your own computer, hearing the beep and seeing the boot up sequence start on the monitor as you press the power button for the first time, but these days I hardly have the time and energy. ( It took the hardware store in Sim Lim just about 30 minutes to build my new system from the parts I choose. )

I’m still getting used to Windows 7’s interface after working with XP for so long but I’m looking forward to some regular posting again.