h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

A couple of days ago I turned on my computer (well, not my computer as such, but the household computer), and it froze up before the memory test. I calmly pressed the reset button, and the screen cleared, but nothing happened. I turned off the computer and waited for a few minutes, then turned it back on. It froze up again.

I didn't panic. I still had my health. I still had my Coke. I still had my towel. I could still survive. I opened the computer and made sure everything was plugged in correctly. It was. So I rang my friend, a computer technician. He suggested disconnecting everything except the video card, and try turning it on from there. I did so. It didn't work. Then he suggested removing a block of RAM (16 megs worth). I did so. When I turned the computer on, it did a series of beeps that sounded suspiciously like a morse-code B (-...). Eventually I gave up and tried to get Dad to buy a new computer.

Dad got some advice from a guy at work. All I had to do was change the position of a jumper-connector-thingee, and this would reset the CMOS. This was easier said than done. A pox on the person who invented those stupid ribbon-cords! After an amazing display of my incredible dexterity, the CMOS was reset. It worked! The computer clock thought it was the first of January, 1996, and it thought I had no hard drives, but this was easily fixed.

During my day without a computer, I read all 400 pages of "Adrian Mole: The Cappuccino Years" by Sue Townsend, and the first 10 pages of "Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors" by Carl Sagan (it's an incredibly hard book to read). Now the computer is fully functional (except the CD-ROM drive, for some reason). My plans for world domination are still intact on my hard disk.

The moral of this story? Don't forget your towel. My towel didn't actually help me at all during this ordeal, but that's my problem, not yours.