Did You Hear That?

TelltaleGamesTelltaleGames Former Telltale Staff
It was that sound they always use in cartoons when a character gets struck by lightning, the one that makes your skeleton show through your skin as your body spells out secret messages in semaphore. Everybody in the office heard it. I think everybody in TOWN may have heard it.




The sound came from within my computer.



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Yes, yes, I know. Those of you who've been following these blogs will recall that it's only been a couple of months since my computer last caught fire, but somehow the Fickle Winds of Spectacular Power Supply Demise had chosen me once again, despite the fact that it was supposed to be Graham McDermott's turn.




A few moments passed, during which I came to the realization that I had not, in fact, been horribly electrocuted, and then I moved on to the real question at hand:
What the heck is going on here?
I want to explain that, while my job is complicated and difficult, my COMPUTER'S job is relatively easy. Computationally intensive things are done by other people's computers. They render models with zillions of polygons. They compile huge quantities of code. Mine never has to do any of that. When it exploded this last time, it was running a word processor, which is the computing equivalent of relaxing on a couch eating bonbons while somebody fans you with a palm frond.




Perhaps these failures are brought on by lack of exercise?




Or is it me? Am I riding the clutch? Should I be changing the oil more frequently? Does this thing require a special diet?




My wife and I go up to see my mother-in-law every now and then to help out with things around the house, and one of my frequent tasks is to tinker with her aging computer so that it will do her bidding. She knows that I am a computing professional. She does not know that I am He Who Brings Cataclysmic Death to Silicon.




But then, her computer hasn't burst into flames lately, nor have any of the ones at my own house. Whatever it is that's going on must also have something to do with this office. I've formulated a few more theories:

  1. Static electricity is building up on my frequent shuffling trips to the table where the Vietnamese durian-flavored candy is. It discharges itself through my keyboard and causes these coronary seizures. I should stop eating that stuff anyway.
  2. Standing resonant waves are emanating from the nearby hypnotherapist's office and concentrating on the exact spot on the floor where my computer lives. I could test this by moving it to the other side of the desk -- if it doesn't explode, I'll know standing resonant waves were the culprit.
  3. Graham McD is sabotaging my equipment in an effort to divert the whims of fate away from himself. He was slated to be next, after all.
  4. Graham A is sabotaging my equipment so that I'll write more blogs about burning computers, thus saving him work by allowing him to reuse old illustrations.
  5. Heather's trying to bump me off so she can do the blog every week. It's only by sheer dumb luck that I have managed to avoid electrocution.
  6. Ghosts. Gregfrank claims the office is haunted by mischievous shades of former tenants. Of course, I never listened to Gregfrank before, why start now?
Just theories, mind you. The jury is out, pending further investigation. In the meantime, I'm nailing dead power supplies to the wall. The hearts of my kills, keening this silent warning:
Keep your computer away from Dave.

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