I'm just stupid...
I always seem to remember these things too late...

Being a bloke, and in a serious relationship, I have very little time to entertain my manly activities, basically sitting in my filth and fiddling about with computers (and there's more, but others on here are all too ready to mention them, so I don't need to)

On one occasion, my better half was off visiting her family for two weeks. SWEET! thinks I! I'll miss her, I'll get fat and be hungover for two weeks, but it means I can upgrade my cruddy old computer!

I could've just bought a new box for less than I ended up spending, but I wanted to get my hands dirty.

So onto a popular online computer stuff site I go, and order the works, about 450 quid spent all up. New PSU, new motherboard and processor, more memory and graphics card (see? I should've just bought a new box, but as I wanted this purchase to be kind of under the radar with the missus, I felt it would be better to not have to explain what was obviously a new computer...)

So my lovely lady leaves, and I break out the tools (out of the gutter please, children).

Two days spent carefully pulling things apart and putting new things in, all interspersed with watching all the geeky TV shows I normally can't find time for, oh, and going to work.

The job complete I plug the beast in and try to fire it up. It all sounds like its working, but it doesn't boot up. Wash, repeat. Same result. And, I have no excuse for this, other than I am stupid, I was hungover and drunk, it was late and I couldn't understand why my new pooter wasn't working.... I switched the current switch on the back of the PSU and rebooted.

It certainly made a pretty picture! Nice flash, smoke, buzzing. But not 450 quids worth.

So after some head banging and crying, I formulated a plan...

I complained to the eTailer that the PSU had arrived with the switch in the wrong position, and it had fried not only all the stuff I bought, but my old memory, hard drive and other cards and stuff as well.

They got me to send everything back so they could check. Which I did, fearing I had been rumbled...

Ten days later the full 450 squids appeared back in my account, along with the postage fees refunded!

Now, I could've banged on about the existing equipment that 'their mistake' had damaged, but I didn't want to press my luck.

So I accepted what they refunded and just bought a new box and dealt with the consternation of my better half. Like I should've done all along.

But hey! I got to ruin some technology for free, lose my fingernails inside a computer, burn myself, eat crap, watch a lot of TV, cry, bang my head, and bring myself back from what would've been a month or two of financial ruin... Sweet, blokiness. I love it.
(lessmiserable, Thu 25 Oct 2007, 1:31, Reply)