Zel-kun’s Words

“She turned me into a newt!”
“A newt?”
“…….I got better.”

*ahem*

On Sunday, I unpacked my computer, and finally set up my study.  Its a nice little room in the back of the apartment with a nice large desk I got from work.  Its the first time I’ve had a nice desk, I’ve been using a folding table for many a year.  I spent many hours and much money perfecting my computer.  A new hard drive here, power supply there, et cetera.  So, it was no small annoyance that when I booted the machine up, it didn’t work.

Everything seemed fine, it turned on, it booted into Windows, and I was able to play my mp3’s.  So I turn the volume up and listen while I set to unpacking.  Then the music skips.

Sure, we’ve all heard music skip before, ON CD’S.  This is a digital file.  It happens a few times, then I decide to play a different mp3, thinking that maybe I had a bad sound file.  (friends send me gigabytes of the stuff, it happens sometimes in the transfer)  Of course, it repeats itself, the music is skipping.  To test out whether its just the sound or whether the computer itself is, for lack of a better word, ’skipping,’ I play a video file that has no sound.  Sure enough, it skips around like a scratched DVD.

The next three days are spent with me trying to pinpoint this problem.  I do system restores, I open the case and reseat every cable, I look online (at work, I STILL don’t have internet at home) for possible causes, which I find out can be everything from a bad power supply, motherboard, memory, hard drive, processor, or corrupt operating system.  Greeeeeeat.

I’m sitting there on Tuesday night, mumbling at my non-working computer, which has been consistently for three days now, about ready to give up, when Zai walks in.

“Still not working?”  She asks.

“Nope, and nothing I do has any effect.  This room has bad juju.”  I reply.

“Reeeaaaly?”  she muses, and walks away.

Now, juju, where do I begin?  Its a term used among my circle of gamer friends for as long as I can remember.  If something doesn’t go right, its bad juju.  And it was used in pretty much any situation:

Ex. 1

“Roll your dice to see if you avoid being critically hit.”
“I’ll roll the blue dice, the red dice are bad juju.”

Ex. 2

“Don’t just rip up your old character sheet, that’s bad juju.”

Ex. 3

“I know better than to drink and roleplay, bad juju.”

Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

And, to stray even FURTHER from the point of the story, I need to relay a key piece of information about my fiance:

She’s a Witch.

That’s right, a Wiccan.  Ironically enough, she is the FOURTH girl I’ve been close to to be a Wiccan.  I seem to attract them, I guess.  Not my cup of tea, but she believes in it, and I respect that.  She does things with herbs that truly shows her knowledge and dedication.  She has made teas that treat my insomnia, teas that have helped me when I was sore, and even a tea that cured my sore throat.  She also does things to bless things and dispel negative energy (or juju in my case), and has APPARENTLY done so in my study.  I’d say more, but I honestly don’t have a clue, she tends to keep to herself with that whole thing.

I go to my computer last night, and play a music file.  I haven’t done anything since Tuesday, but I figured I’d listen and then give the problem another go.  The file plays flawlessly.

I look at the screen, an eyebrow raised.  Maybe I just got lucky, or I didn’t actually hear it, being a techno song and everything.  So I give it the ultimate test: Freebird.

That’s right, nine minutes and ten seconds of unadulterated Skynard.

Flawlessly.  My computer is somehow cured.  It works as well as it ever did.  I look at Zai, “Did you do something to my computer?”

“I didn’t do anything to your computer.”

“Anything, move it, touch it… tap it, move the desk, anything?”

“I did not do anything… to your computer.”  She says, leaving the study.

“Did you make the juju go away?”

“Maaaaybe…”  I heard, and she would say nothing else.

Readers, I ask you, ehwa?

So I dunno, any speculation I could do wouldn’t do any good, and would just make me go insane.  Bottom line, I have a working computer again, so that’s good.

Zel-kun out.