Okay, so there I was, sitting in my chair and wondering why the catcams froze up around 10:08 yesterday morning. Program just upped-and-died, as we say here in Texas.
Last time that happened, the program locked up because it couldn’t save to my D drive. Funny things, D drives. But not so funny when they have a spot of corruption so bad that they can’t read or write in a particular location.
Praise Moses for backups, I suppose.
This time, there’s no tell-tale grumbling or crunching sounds inside the case. So, it’s time to make the beast jump through a few hoops.
First, I run the usual scandisk and defrag. Then I do the hard drive diagnostics.
Everything’s fine, says the SMART thingy.
After that, I run the computer through the diagnostic tests over and over for half an hour.
It’s fine, peachy-keen and dandy.
Finally, I check for the usual round of upgrades and patches, but everything’s current.
So I wake up this morning, flip on the computer, and run it through its usual morning check of the headlines and such.
I listen to the case: “Buzz… buzz… buzz…”
What the? Hard drive failing? Controller out of whack?
I start up the diangostics again, but everything’s clear.
It’s when I realize that my cell phone is on top of the case and it’s buzzing for my 6:10 wakeup alarm that I decide it was all just an error in the nut between the chair and the keyboard.

Lair, i’m a Texan. the phrase is “just up-and-died”.
I’m also a Texan…and if you can understand what we’re saying, it wasn’t said right. Sounds like you ran into an ID10T error, happens to the best of us.
As we geeks say: PEBKAC!
(Problem Exists Between Keyboard And Chair)
Seriously though if it does it consistently might be worth taking it to a pro (I hear geeksquad are pretty good!)
I’m told that the phrase for this in military communications used to be “short between the headphones”.
No, I think my 23 years of experience living in the state of Texas says that Lair’s right on this one, Sarah.
“Honey? I spent all morning cleaning up the hard drive — scan, defrag, antivirus, the works — I’m sick of being the one who always has to do this. Do your part on the computer maintenance, okay?
I live in Oklahoma now; lived in Texas for six years. I think SarahK is right — up and died. Dead.
When you do PC repair, and the installation of XP SP2 crashes, you then know what hell looks like. 5 hours to get the computer running again.
We also say the thing is “tango uniform”*
* tits up
“Just Up and Died”
Up here in CowHampshire we say “It shit the bed”
Well, I hope you guys would come to some consensus because I just moved to Texas and I need to know what’s right so I don’t look stupider than I already do.
Somebody asked me something about an ice house. Closest thing I could figure it was some kind of meat packing plant. Turns out its a bar. Ice house == bar?
I got a lot to learn.
Is “fire house” the same as a grill?
No, Deon, it’s “upped and died’ cuz we’re talkin’ about past intensive. “Up and died” is present tense. Plus, let’s not forget you’re in Oklahoma, so like the hard drive, you’re corrupted (GO HORNS! YEEHAW!)