I got a new hard drive on Monday. I was all excited about it: it’s virtually silent compared to my old 20GB drive, and it’s eight times bigger.

So last night, after I had gotten all my old data off my old hard drive, I disconnected it. I started up my computer again, and nothing. No boot screen, just a a screaming beep from the system speaker.

What the fuck?! There was absolutely no reason why the damn thing shouldn’t work. None. After screwing around for a while, I tried changing everything back to the way it was.

Fine, whatever. It’s not what I wanted, but this should work. Right?

I fumbled around on the back of my PC trying to find the power switch. I couldn’t find it, so I leaned over to look. I flipped the switch…

…and a shower of sparks exploded inside my power supply–with my face directly in front of it. I jumped back, swearing at the top of lungs. I guess I’m lucky I didn’t get a powerful shock. (You know, again.)

After the plume of smoke cleared, I unplugged my PC and went to sleep angry, and concerned that every component in my computer had been reduced to useless silicon goo.

This morning, I woke up, and took a shower to get the stink of burned electrical components off of me. I tore out the old PS, and went out and bought a new one. It was only after I’d spent forty non-refundable dollars that I remembered: my crispy-fried PS isn’t that old. I’ll bet it’s still under warranty.

And indeed it was! I sent it in today (for another thirteen dollars–grrr), and Antec is going to ship me a new one in… God knows how long. So I guess the (boring) story has a moderately happy ending.

I don’t really mind that I spent the money for a new power supply when I didn’t really need it. Going without the Internet for a few weeks would be bad. But without a PC entirely, I’d go into withdrawal. When the new one arrives, I’ll just use it to build a PC out of the spare parts I have lying around. Maybe I’ll give it to my grandparents. I guess they were thinking about getting on the Internet.