He died for our sims, and rose again to eternal life or until his processor blows up again
I’ve had a computer for less time than I’ve had a blog. Sounds odd. It isn’t. I don’t think…
Almost four years, I think, I’ve had him. Marvin. I bought him when I arrived in Glasgow, with the advice of the family I lived with, who had more idea of what speed he should be able to run, and memory he should have (a brain the size of a planet, apparently).
He arrived in bits, and, when assembled, I stared at him amazed. He was the most expensive thing I had ever owned, and I wasn’t sure whether I was allowed to touch him or not.
I generally have this feeling around new things. I think it’s a youngest child thing. I’m fine with second hand things, and hand-me-downs and junk shop booty, but hand me something brand new and I’ll stare at it a long while, sure that someone will shout at me if I break it. The other week I was bad, and bought a brand new camera - kind of by mistake, but we’ll let that go for now - when it arrived, I couldn’t use it first three days. I had to read through the instruction manual three times and sit staring at it for ages before I could let go of the feeling that someone was going to march in and announce that there had been a mistake, and it wasn’t mine after all.
Marvin got me a degree, I guess. And a new life, and all sorts of other things. I loved Marvin.
But, but, he did have the loudest god damned stomach-rumble in the world. Good morning, Marvin, you would say. Wooooo-OOOOOOOOO! OOOOOOO! OOOOOOOOOO!!!, Marvin would reply. In any other room-mate, I would have suggested dairy intolerance. Though if someone had been pouring milk in Marvin, I think we may have had deeper seated problems than the grumbling ‘Wooo’. Still, at the end of my degree, I packed Marvin up, in a box, like everything else, and trundled him down to the Post Office on the back of Hannah’s tricycle, dispatching him off to London in the arms of the Random Mail.
I’ve a vague feeling now that that’s a frowned-upon method of transporting computers. It certainly made the roar in his tummy louder. Still, we looked after him when he arrived, dumped on the doorstep by a pissed-off postman. He got a new face - a flat one at that. And a keyboard than didn’t go duggaduggadugga when you typed in your beloved’s sleep.
Then, due to the kindness of bloggers, he got a new go-faster thing as well. And a fan. And something else. Or something. Whatever, I just wasn’t sure how much of him was actually Marvin anymore. And yet he still had the name.
Anyway, long story short, or at least marginally shorter, my beloved blowed Marvin up the other week. Yup. Just like that. One minute he wasn’t unblowedup, the next minute, he was completely up-blowed. He was trying to fiddle with Marvins innards, and he didn’t like it. No not at all. He wanted to make him better. But he only succeeded in making him very very not. Very not indeed.
So Marvin sat in the spare room. All over the spare room. In every corner of the spare room, Marvin sat, looking all dejected, in pieces. For two long weeks, I had ownership of his laptop, and residence of his usual safe parish on the high ground.
Then the reinforcements arrived. A motherthing. A cardyreadything. A processicating-zjuzhy-crumpher for his inner wumphit. A fan.
So now Marvin’s rebuilt. Marvin’s rejuvinated. Marvin has risen from the dead.
But I’m kind of used to the laptop, now. And my logic is - surely he’s not Marvin anymore, is he? This is exactly why I don’t hold with naming inanimate objects - you get too attached, and you know what happens then? Well, I don’t know, I just want the laptop.
If all the parts that went into Marvin are no longer a part of Marvin, then Marvin only exists in the hearts and minds of those who have loved him, which is me, and if I carry the spirit of Marvin with me always, bestowing it upon other forms and electronic accessories that I love in the same way as I once loved Marvin, then surely this lovely little dinky Powerbook IS Marvin, and ergo that same computer that I bought four years ago and, most importantly, mine.
Right?
I’m sure I did something about this in philosophy. But of course we never actually came to any sort of conclusion. Maybe if you took a random old component and glued it to the back of the Powerbook, that would make it Marvin.
By a funny sort of coincidence, I also just posted about how much I love my laptop dy. Like, really actually love her. It’s not pretty.
Comment by ash — 5 March, 2006 11:45 pm
It reminds me of that bit when Thomas has to go to the works to be repaired and comes back and says to Percy, “They took so many of my old parts out and put new ones in, that I’m not sure if I’m really me, or another engine!”
Comment by Drew — 6 March, 2006 1:17 am
Laptop lassies have more fun. (!)
Comment by Sami — 6 March, 2006 7:13 am
Especially blonde ones, I’ve heard.
Comment by Sami — 6 March, 2006 7:16 am
MacMarvin is Marvins Scottish cousin
Comment by andre — 6 March, 2006 10:24 am
This concept of renewal & identity was also raised yesterday evening on TV: Midsomer Murders, of all programmes. One of the characters (Teddy) commented that the cells of the body are renewed in their entirety every seven years, so anything that “he” did more than seven years ago wasn’t actually done by “him”.
He didn’t manage to stop DCI Barnaby from revealing his secret daughter, though.
Comment by Hg — 6 March, 2006 11:39 am
A bit like Trigger’s broom in Only Fools.
Comment by US — 6 March, 2006 11:46 am
sort of, the RAM of God?
Comment by AndyB — 6 March, 2006 12:44 pm
PowerBooky Marvin is most definately yours. Laptopy Marvin must have his spirit. When Marvin went blownup, his spirit probably took over the PowerBooky.
My PowerBook is called Moof. My old computer was also called Moof. I transferred his spirit on a CD-RW.
Technology works like that.
Comment by fooyork — 6 March, 2006 1:08 pm
I understand, it’s like a shamrock - he’s three, but it’s one. There’s the father, Marvin; the son, laptop-son-of-Marvin; and the Marvin ghost, the spirit of marvin, the data that flows between them and holds them together.
Comment by Damian — 6 March, 2006 1:25 pm
My shisha’s like that, I’ve replaced all the different bits a few times each but it’s still the same pipe. It just gets taller or shorter and changes colour from time to time.
Comment by Oscar — 6 March, 2006 1:42 pm
“A processicating-zjuzhy-crumpher for his inner wumphit.”
Man, I gotta get me one of those.
Comment by Rob — 6 March, 2006 1:53 pm
If I were your laptop’s best friend I would be telling it to think very carefully before committing to you. From the laptop’s point of view, this is a bit like getting involved with a widower who won’t put his late wife’s photos away and insists on his new wife dressing like the old one and keeps “accidentally” calling her by the late wife’s name.
I’m sorry, Anna, but I don’t think you’re over Martin yet and the laptop deserves better.
Comment by Katy Newton — 6 March, 2006 2:05 pm
I mean Marvin. How insensitive of me.
Comment by Katy Newton — 6 March, 2006 2:06 pm
It gives me a headache just trying to think down to your level.
Comment by Gordon — 6 March, 2006 3:28 pm
Pardon me for breathing, which I never do anyway so I don’t know why I bother to say it, oh God I’m so depressed.
Comment by Gordon — 6 March, 2006 3:28 pm
Poor, Marvin! He has been through so much. He is definitely still the same, just had some “surgeries”
Comment by Scarlet — 6 March, 2006 3:52 pm
Hahahaha, anyone who doesn’t know the original work is going to think Gordon is such a mardy bastard…
But I forgot, there was a film, wasn’t there. And a bit of a general resurgence. And most people don’t walk around like me with their head in a cultural bubble. So it probably won’t happen. But it would be funny if it did…
Comment by Clare — 6 March, 2006 4:42 pm
I’m moved by Damian’s comment, it was poetry.
Comment by annie — 6 March, 2006 6:26 pm
Brain the size of a planet, and they ask me to take you to the bridge; call that job satisfaction, ‘coz I don’t.
I love my laptop very much, but it doesn’t have a name. I’m not sure I should name it. Surely it would be too painful to lose it if it was named? And now I’m feeling guilty for calling it ‘it’. Confused…
Comment by Anna F — 6 March, 2006 7:30 pm
Hehe this had me giggling, just the thing during an essay crisis!
Comment by Miranda — 6 March, 2006 8:15 pm
Today i’m not feeling particularly attached to my ‘puter. It keeps inadvertantly “forgetting” important things… such as USB drivers. I shouted at him today.
He makes me very angry. And don’t even get me started on his cousin once removed (via USB hub) - Epson (A3 printer).
All things technological are male. I needn’t have to explain why.
Comment by marycub — 6 March, 2006 8:16 pm
Seeing the first sentence of the first comment, I couldn’t help but be reminded of the exchange between Deep Thought and the philosophers’ union reps -
PUR “If you’re not very careful, you’ll have a national philosophers strike on your hands”
DT “Whom will that inconvenience?”
PS - Marvin still lives while the heart-disk still spins
Comment by phil — 6 March, 2006 10:50 pm
I meant first two sentences. And while I’m on the subject, do philosophers have an apostrophe when they’re striking? I am troubled by this question, as I’d hate to have to kill myself for misusing an apostrophe.
Comment by phil — 6 March, 2006 10:55 pm
Phil - sorry - you are the weake’st link, goodbye.
Comment by Rob — 6 March, 2006 11:36 pm
As a grammar freak can’t resist commenting on that, also as I love telling philosophers they’re right, being one myself.
yes, philosophers have an apostrophe, not cos they’re striking but because they have a union cos it’s a possessive. And after the s also right because they’re a plural and if it was before the s they would be one philosopher and his own union - which is an - bugger I can’t remember the word. Letting the side down as a Philosophy & English joint honours graduate. An… an oxymoron. Hah.
Comment by The B — 7 March, 2006 12:43 am
oh and I misread the comment, in many ways. Serve me right for commenting on blogs at quarter to one in the morning. They should also have an apostrophe when striking cos they possess the strike.
*Walks away in shame*
Comment by The B — 7 March, 2006 12:45 am
I woke up the other day in the spare room bed but with an arm slung over my husband-cuckolding laptop. He doesn’t mind my morning breath and pillow drool. I haven’t named him, although he’s definitely a him. I can tell by the way he won’t do the hoovering which he considers woman’s work. And he won’t help with the children. But I love him yet.
Before you do anything rash, think of the times you and Marvin have shared. The highs, the lows. Perhaps create a mental montage with a “Wind Beneath My Wings” soundtrack. The hard-drive is not always sweeter on the other side of the fence.
Comment by Sami — 7 March, 2006 5:45 am
Sami, you legend. I approve. *applauds*
I have reached the conclusion that my laptop is a gender-neutral inanimate object. Sigh. Trust me to get a dud…
Comment by Anna F — 7 March, 2006 1:14 pm
I’ll call Derek Acorah immediately and get that Marvin exhorcised!
Comment by TC — 7 March, 2006 2:46 pm
[...] Today, inspired by a little red boat - http://littleredboat.co.uk/?p=2282#comments - I decided to give my laptop a name. My laptop and I are very close and many mornings I wake up in the spare bedroom with my arm slung over my husband-cuckolding ‘puter. I gaze fondly into his unblinking screen and am sure he loves me back. He is definitely a male, by the way. I know this, by his inability to keep the kitchen tidy and unwillingness to ask for directions when we go out for Sunday drives and get lost. [...]
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