Rolex
PS: This was written a while back for the Tailored Technologies blog. I felt it needed to be shared here as well so to better understand it, imaging you are reading it like 8 months back.
I recently acquired a HP Pavilion g7 that came with Windows 8 pre-installed. As you can imagine, it was a great moment for me and I was happy to be one of the first Ugandans to work on a Windows 8 machine. During my normal operations, something happened and I encountered the blue screen.
Now, anyone who has used a Windows PC should have encountered the blue screen at least once. If you haven’t, count yourself lucky.For those who have, well just pray you never encounter the Windows 8 blue screen.
It comes out of nowhere, a mass of blue with a few words telling you how the shit just hit the fan (not in those exact words but you get my drift) and the words are proudly accompanied by a sad smiley. A freakin’ smiley!! Whose brilliant idea was this Bill Gates, who?? Point me in the right direction and I give that individual a good thrashing!!
Here is the thing, we love smileys but with this guy’s brilliance, they are going to turn into the new clowns. You know how most kids and adults dread clowns; well that is what is going to happen to smileys now! Before Windows 8, a blue screen was just that, a blue screen. Every time you saw that flash of blue with white random words telling you how screwed you are, you would just mutter to yourself and whoever was in the vicinity, ‘Oh no, not the blue screen.’ The correct course of action after this would be to stand up, head to the nearest wall and bang your head 5 times, see some stars and then look for a fix.
Now it has all changed people. It has all changed! Life as we know it will never be the same again! When you get the windows 8 blue screen, you will feel a tremor go through your body followed by a shudder at the sight of smiley staring miserably at you. Your brain will freeze and go into auto-depression mode.
Random suicidal thoughts will go through your head and you will start looking around the room for the easiest way to commit suicide. If you happen to work in workers house, God forbid, the lobby floor will draw you in and convince your currently delicate mind that it is a bunch of soft fluffy pillows you need to throw yourself at.
If you’re lucky and your brain convinces you that it’s not your time to die, the smiley will draw you back in and start sucking your soul out of your body into the computer screen. You will find yourself screaming, ‘Please, don’t take my soul, I have so much to live for, don’t take my soul please, I have a guaranteed chao tonight with the hot individual from over the weekend…PLLLEEEAAASEEE!!!!’ But no, the smiley is not interested in your potential chao. All it wants is your soul. Your thoughts will be filled with smileys of various sizes floating around your currently cooked brain, chanting random gibberish! For those who have watched Jumanji, that’s the kind of chant we are talking about here.
At about this time, the blue screen smiley will get tired of all the drama and completely zap your soul out of your body and into the computer screen. And behold a great transformation will have occurred. You will have physically aged to look like a 70 your old and will have the self-control of a 2 month old baby. But one thing will stand out the most. The miserable look on your face akin to the one of the miserable blue screen smiley! The realization will slowly creep into your non-existent brain; you have been zombified by the Blue Screen Smiley!! (Insert evil laugh from MJ’s thriller)
