A couple of weeks ago,my Google Chromebook began acting weird.
It was a Saturday evening and I had just ordered dinner for pick up from McAllister's Deli. Andrea and I really like their club sandwich which we get even though we're not a member of the club.
And for more about that line, check out this classic bit from Mitch Hedberg.
Besides making great club sandwiches, McAllister's as a pretty damn fine ice tea too.
So I put in the order, picked up the food and came back home to the Fortress of Ineptitude to eat.
As is my habit, I flipped open my laptop to have something to read at dinner.
You might think this would annoy my wife Andrea but she's a person who when she eats is focused on eating. Do not try to engage her in conversation.
Anyway, this was when I discovered my Google Chromebook was acting weird.
By acting weird, I mean it was doing shit without me. It was opening up multiple screens of whatever I was trying to look at and wouldn't let me do anything within any of those screens.
My heart sank. My Google Chromebook had been zapped by malware.
I've seen this phenomenon before. When a virus gets past security, the computer will start opening screens at random over multiple times.
And I figured the Trojan horse this damn virus slipped in on was my signing up for McAllister's Deli.
Unable to resolve this on my own...
(I'll pause here to give you a chance to cope with the shocking surprise that I was unable to resolve this on my own.)
Unable to resolve this on my own, I took my laptop into a local computer store called Imtrex. They've done computer work for me in the past and have done right by me.
I spoke with a guy named Victor who was very friendly but did give me some grief for the layer of grunge on my laptop keyboard. But he was more than happy to help with my malware problem.
He also observed, "Hey this is a Chromebook!"
Uh oh! He's going to tell me something like "Chromebooks are crap!" and "Chromebooks can't be fixed!" or some shit like that.
No, he says "Chromebooks don't get Malware!"
So what's with all the multiple screens opening up and I'm not able to do shit on my laptop?
Victor said to boot her up and let's take a look.
And we did.
And it didn't. That is, it's didn't do any of those things that were happening at home.
Victor did some kind of re-set or something that would hopefully resolve whatever the problem was that wasn't happening now.
I got back home to the Fortress, opened up the laptop and once more it was opening up multiple screens and not letting me do shit.
I returned to Imtrex and spoke with Dylan who Victor said was younger than him and knew more about Chromebooks.
We opened up the Chromebook and once more it persisted in behaving itself perfectly normally.
Despite being young and knowing more about Chromebooks, Dylan was perplexed as to what pray tell was occurring since it was consistently not occurring whenever I showed this computer to anyone.
What I had here was the god damn Michigan J. Frog of Chromebooks!
Dylan said they could check the laptop but they didn't want to take my money for a problem that wasn't happening.
I didn't want to give them my money for a problem that wasn't happening.
Despondent of a solution, I eventually returned home to the Fortress of Ineptitude and tried my laptop one more time.
Where it worked perfectly.
In fact, I'm writing this blog post on the Chromebook now.
OK, I'm glad things are working fine now but damn, what the hell happened?
What went wrong?
What went right?
I have no idea.
But I think it's because computers are not science but some form of arcane magic.
And I am so glad my suffering amuses you.
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Blog bidness:
Doctor Who Is NEW!: The Legend of the Sea Devils will post on Wednesday, April 20th.
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