The following is a heartbreaking tale worthy of a considerable amount of media attention. It is a story that will polarize the nation and pit families against political forces. Just kidding, it's actually the

emotional tale of me and my technological life-mate, Harry, which happens to be my HP ze5000 series laptop. It's actually a story that you shouldn't give a rat's ass about, but since I have an outlet in which to tell it, I'm going to make you care about it.

Harry and I have been acquainted for just over two years. I fell in love with him at Best Buy when I found out he was the only notebook that could give me both a floppy disk drive and an internal wireless. We had problems from the beginning, but here's the latest news: Harry has two busted fans.

According to the supreme high geeks who helped me out with this, I gather that the fans in a laptop are like the heart: they circulate air through the system so it doesn't overheat and completely fry the hard-drive. As you all know, without a hard-drive, a computer isn't really a computer. It's just a hollowed shell of a computer, and it doesn't have a chance of ever working like a regular computer. It's dead.

The first tech I talked to said Harry could survive, albeit with a lower quality of operations, if I bought a prosthetic fan called a "chill pad." The next one told me getting a chill pad would be like putting a band-aid on a gaping flesh would. Thus, the "life support" the first tech suggested would keep my computer alive, but its quality of operations would be compromised. My only other option was and expensive fan-replacement operation costing $235.00 plus the cost of shipping. At this point I started wondering if it was really worth it. I mean, seriously, when the major equipment starts to go, it's time to throw in the towel. It can't even perform basic computer functions like burning a cd.

But there's hope for this little guy. The problem, although expensive, is fixable. Unlike some things that are broken, Harry's going to get better. So why did I waste my valuable space and your valuable time writing about this situation when the obvious answer is staring me and you in the face? The computer is fixable, so I should fix it. Bottom line: It's really nobody's business but mine. Despite other important issues, like the death of the Pope, a recent school shooting, and the fact that there were no WMDs, I'm writing about my personal struggle. I'm taking my cues from television news.

This viewpoint appeared in The Marquette Tribune on April 7 2005.