The infamous aura of burning surrounding Edinburgh resident Morgan Davie struck again on Friday. At approximately 4.45pm, Mr Davie’s work PC began to “sound like it was clicking its tongue”. Shortly after, the computer desktop stopped working.
Mr Davie was then shown the error-page known among computer experts as “the blue screen of death”.
Upon investigation, it transpired that Mr Davie’s hard drive had burned out. Scorch marks were visible on the hard drive unit. Crucially, all data stored on the hard drive was lost.
This is an unusual fault in year-old components from reputable manufacturer Dell Computers. However, Mr Davie believes the Dell components were not faulty. “I’ve got this aura of burning. Hard drives always burn out on me. They just do. It’s really annoying, actually.”
Mr Davie has had three hard drives burn out on him in the past, a rate of burnout that is “significantly above the average”.
A Dell Computers spokesman had this to say: “That guy’s just got a freaky aura of burning. What ya gonna do?”
– Reuters
4 thoughts on “Aura of Burning”
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Is it ever helpful? Like at barbecues or, um, Guy Fawkes?
It was real useful when I was Prom Queen and they dumped that pigs blood on me, actually.
Likewise when a shadowy government conspiracy that had experimented on my hippie student parents tried to take me into custody.
Apart from that, not so useful.
That was me. Just in case I got confused.
Dear Mr Reuters, I do believe I know Mr Davie’s pain.
My particular affliction is far cooler (heatwise) – what I dub my ‘unreasonable cloud of chaos’. It maligns computers in a far less satisfactory way, as at least with hard drive burn out you smell that odour’orrible and pretty much know that the hard drive is totally poked. Thus you waste no further time and energy except to consider resurrecting your computer with another one, sigh over the last data and curse your hot aura.
My affliction just makes the computer stop working. The acute symptoms, i.e. computer not working, can be caused from anything like, shorting peripheral cards, RAM issues and software malfunction to the way you hold your tongue when you try and turn the damn thing on. Not knowing what exactly is the cause is of itself the center of frustration. Hours will be spent, after diagnosing another ‘cloud of chaos’ event, removing and reinstalling peripheral cards, harddrives, CD-ROMs and software before resorting to the tried and true method of giving it a good thump and holding your tongue a strange way while turning it on.
I guess this is to be expected from a computer I paid no more than $150 for that has left over pieces from a computer purchased 9 years ago. Still I live for the day when my computer hard drive, or power supply for that matter, zap and emit odour’orrible. RIP!
One other peculiarity of the problem is I believe it to be infectious. One recent example came just last week when involved in the post production of a short film. Without touching the computer, a crucial piece of software went on the blink in a suspiciously cloud of chaos type of way. Invariably it created much stress and a missed deadline.
I’m now beginning to think that it also is capable of jumping ‘species’ and may be responsible for the distinctly intermittent reception my cellphone gets. Oh and that isn’t even mentioning the strange way that the 4 bars of battery power seem to disappear immediately on receiving or initiating the ONE call I studiously charged it for. Yet it will last for days on end on standby receiving all manner of inane calls when unneeded.
I wish to return to a simpler time, sans computer and sans cellphone. I wonder if the cloud of chaos works on butter churns…
Technophobically Yours,
Quincy.