Saturday, May 07, 2005
Slow boxer
I have two desktop computers at home: the first is at least 6 or 7 years old and is a Pentium III 450 MHz, top of the line when it came out; the second which I got about 2 years ago is a Pentium 4 2.8 GHz, and is the workhorse computer when I am not on the laptop. The 450 is relegated to the rec room where I sometimes do my exercise or watch TV, but since the room doesn't have a phone jack, I wasn't able to use that PC for email or web surfing. That all changed last week when I got a cheap wireless USB adapter for it, so now it is connected to DSL just like everything else in the house. It's nice, I thought. I can work in the rec room that is sunny and bright, read blogs there, listen to music, even do my work since most of it is email and typing and 450 MHz is plenty fast enough.
That's the background. Here is the story. Bruce Springsteen just came out with his new CD, Devils and Dust. I am a fan of all things Springsteen, even his least good stuff, so I had to have it right away. During the first week, I was listening to it a lot, even during exercise using the PC to play it. There is a beautiful, somber song called The Hitter about a tired worn boxer who is coming home to his mother, and it begins like this:
Come to the door, Ma, and unlock the chain
I was just passin' through and got caught in the rain
There's nothin' I want, nothin' that you need say
Just let me lie down for a while and then I'll be on my way
The CD played fine on the main computer, but on the 450 MHz PC, the sound was shrill, trembling and choppy, like a tiny Yugo trying to go up an East Bay hill and getting passed by a cargo truck. And the song sounded like co-co-me-to-to-to-theee-do-oo-oor-Ma-aa-aa-an-and-u-uun-lo-lo-ck-kk-th-ee-e-cha-i-in-n. After a few minutes of listening to this disaster, I was laughing hard; I realized then that my old PC is really old, and the boxer is old and slow too. No wonder he's getting beat up. Hurry Ma, let him in.
- posted by Woofwoof @ 7:07 AM
