November 2006 saw the much-awaited release of the Playstation 3, Sony’s
next-gen system that boasted a brand new 8-cell processor and all these specs
that I as a computer person should really know by heart. Not too long after launch,
I’m sure, a particular PS3 was born. It was clothed in whatever plastic
wrapping and boxed and shipped to… Shit, was it Best Buy? Target? Some store in
Minnesota, and soon would come home with me.
For 6 years, despite harsh environments full of dust, dog hair, and smoke, and throughout hundreds or thousands of hours of use, she worked beautifully and diligently. She put up with shitty blu-ray movies like Spider-Man 3 (which she ashamedly came packaged with like your friend who arrived to go cruising with his newly-acquired driver’s license, only to have been told by his mom that he had to take his 13 year old brother with him) to Indiana Jones 4 ($100 for whoever can tell me why I thought I must own that trash at all, let alone in hi-def blu-ray…). She put up with hundreds of hours of Netflix streaming as I watched Doctor Who or Freaks and Geeks or Arrested Development (OHMYGODSOEXCITEFORTHENEWSERIES!!!!!!). She also was finally invited to the neighbor’s house party when I set up PS3 Media Server on my PC so she could browse and stream any video file I had on my other media device.
If she could talk, I’m sure she’d have a helluva lot to say about my choice of video games. Primarily, she’d probably express the kind of gratitude a guy gets from his girl through the cloud of a particularly-excellent post-coital cigarette, all because I installed and played through the pinnacle of Metal Gear Solid games on her. She’d probably nag at me for not cleaning her out and blowing off the dust from her fans, then she’d bring up long-forgotten grievances from their shallow graves, like how after the first Black Ops game, I felt the need to buy and play Black Ops 2… or Modern Warfare 3. She’d probably tell me she’s happy with where she lives now, as that tiny house in International Falls was just as bad as that tiny apartment across town. But she’d probably miss playing with all my friends when she was the only PS3 in the house and there’d always be multiple folks passing her controller back and forth.
All of my friends play PS3. A few play X-Box 360, yes, but that’s in addition to Playstation. So out of all my immediate friends with PS3s, for mine to have lasted the longest is a proud accomplishment. Others have had to replace their original systems, some of them getting the new slim model that lacks the sexy shiny curves of my old “fat” model system. But mine kept on, giving me no troubles… until this fateful Sunday.
I woke up in the late morning, having enjoyed my chance to sleep in, and I went to the bathroom for that majestic first morning piss. As I lay back down under my covers, I grabbed the controller from my nightstand and pressed the central PS button. I was greeted with the familiar power-on beep, but something soon was wrong. I immediately heard three short beeps, and saw nothing but a blank TV screen. I shot out of bed, seeing a blinking red light on my console. Quickly I performed triage: I held my finger on the capacitive power button to force it off, no response; I reached in the back and clicked the power switch off, then on, and pressed the power button again: beep… beepbeepbeep. Quickly I grabbed my phone and searched the net to decipher this message. The prognosis was not good. My poor girl had a bad power supply unit. Her PSU cancer was terminal.
Panicked, I did the computer tech equivalent of CPR: I quickly unscrewed her cover and slid it off like an EMT might rip off a victim’s torn and bloodied shirt. I grabbed the vacuum hose and sucked away dust and debris, much like a first responder would hastily rub the paddles of a defibrillator together in preparation of the heart-resetting shock. I removed each individual component: the hard drive disk, the blu-ray drive, the PSU, the wifi card. I cleaned and wiped as much as I could, and put it back together. I plugged in the power cable and the HDMI cable, held my breath, closed my eyes, and flipped the switch.
Nothing. Not even a three beep death rattles. Flatline. I hung my head in defeat.
For 6 years, despite harsh environments full of dust, dog hair, and smoke, and throughout hundreds or thousands of hours of use, she worked beautifully and diligently. She put up with shitty blu-ray movies like Spider-Man 3 (which she ashamedly came packaged with like your friend who arrived to go cruising with his newly-acquired driver’s license, only to have been told by his mom that he had to take his 13 year old brother with him) to Indiana Jones 4 ($100 for whoever can tell me why I thought I must own that trash at all, let alone in hi-def blu-ray…). She put up with hundreds of hours of Netflix streaming as I watched Doctor Who or Freaks and Geeks or Arrested Development (OHMYGODSOEXCITEFORTHENEWSERIES!!!!!!). She also was finally invited to the neighbor’s house party when I set up PS3 Media Server on my PC so she could browse and stream any video file I had on my other media device.
If she could talk, I’m sure she’d have a helluva lot to say about my choice of video games. Primarily, she’d probably express the kind of gratitude a guy gets from his girl through the cloud of a particularly-excellent post-coital cigarette, all because I installed and played through the pinnacle of Metal Gear Solid games on her. She’d probably nag at me for not cleaning her out and blowing off the dust from her fans, then she’d bring up long-forgotten grievances from their shallow graves, like how after the first Black Ops game, I felt the need to buy and play Black Ops 2… or Modern Warfare 3. She’d probably tell me she’s happy with where she lives now, as that tiny house in International Falls was just as bad as that tiny apartment across town. But she’d probably miss playing with all my friends when she was the only PS3 in the house and there’d always be multiple folks passing her controller back and forth.
All of my friends play PS3. A few play X-Box 360, yes, but that’s in addition to Playstation. So out of all my immediate friends with PS3s, for mine to have lasted the longest is a proud accomplishment. Others have had to replace their original systems, some of them getting the new slim model that lacks the sexy shiny curves of my old “fat” model system. But mine kept on, giving me no troubles… until this fateful Sunday.
I woke up in the late morning, having enjoyed my chance to sleep in, and I went to the bathroom for that majestic first morning piss. As I lay back down under my covers, I grabbed the controller from my nightstand and pressed the central PS button. I was greeted with the familiar power-on beep, but something soon was wrong. I immediately heard three short beeps, and saw nothing but a blank TV screen. I shot out of bed, seeing a blinking red light on my console. Quickly I performed triage: I held my finger on the capacitive power button to force it off, no response; I reached in the back and clicked the power switch off, then on, and pressed the power button again: beep… beepbeepbeep. Quickly I grabbed my phone and searched the net to decipher this message. The prognosis was not good. My poor girl had a bad power supply unit. Her PSU cancer was terminal.
Panicked, I did the computer tech equivalent of CPR: I quickly unscrewed her cover and slid it off like an EMT might rip off a victim’s torn and bloodied shirt. I grabbed the vacuum hose and sucked away dust and debris, much like a first responder would hastily rub the paddles of a defibrillator together in preparation of the heart-resetting shock. I removed each individual component: the hard drive disk, the blu-ray drive, the PSU, the wifi card. I cleaned and wiped as much as I could, and put it back together. I plugged in the power cable and the HDMI cable, held my breath, closed my eyes, and flipped the switch.
Nothing. Not even a three beep death rattles. Flatline. I hung my head in defeat.
Time of death: 11:22 AM Sunday, April 14, 2013. Six years
old.
RIP
RIP
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