Friday, 2 November 2007

Life in the old girl

It is one thing to have one's wife canter off overseas for a time ... but for a bloke to lose his computer too ...

Happily, it was not what could have been - but just a hard disc ending its useful life. Monday was a fun day with a great young IT techie, as we got to resurrect the trusty Evo machine. New hard disc- no problem. Set-up discs - yes, safely in an Aussie storage shed. Nothing that money cannot fix - off on a tiki-tour of Phnom Penh computer shops until they were sourced and loaded.

Computer shops here have a heap of bright young things working flat out. One place was mostly second-hand machines. A heap of machines came in while we were waiting - and all hard drives pulled from them in the first five minutes ...

... which reminds me of a true Patrick tale of life in Phnom Penh. His relatively new DVD player had kaputted. At the time he was about to return to Aussie, so he decides at the last minute to toss it in the bag and get it fixed in Perth. He takes it to a joint where the sign says '$55 up front - comes off the bill when fixed'. So Patrick hums and ha's and decides 'may as well'.

A couple of days later he gets a phone-call - 'mate, I have some bad news for you. It is not a Sony'. Patrick laughs - he suspected as much. 'What's more' the bloke says, 'it is not a DVD player either'.

'Is so' says Patrick. 'Is not' says the fix-it bloke. 'Well mate, I've watched a bunch of DVD's on it' responds Patrick. "No way' says the bloke. 'No way could this thing play a DVD. Wherever did you buy it?? 'Phnom Penh' says Patrick. Laughter at the other end. 'Look mate, come on in and get your $ back'. Patrick says no problem - he is happy to pay as the guy is doing his job. 'No, come on in and get your money. No way could I take money off you in good conscience for this.'

Back to the other girl in my life - Evo is almost back to where she was. Nearly all my stuff was backed up (thanks, Scotty!) and life continues!

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