So, I decided to give the ol’ PC one last look before heading off to bed. I had noticed earlier that the screen seemed to have a faint glow, so with all of the lights out, I watched it intently, saying the obligatory 3 Hail Marys to St. Jude that I say whenever my computers have oddly and seemingly irrevocably broken.

The screen did, in fact, glow. I hit “Enter” and it went black. Then it glowed agin - but ever so faintly. I hit “Enter” again. Black.

Then, suddenly, I heard the Windows sound. Not having heard this the last few times I had tried booting up, I was encouraged. I peered at the screen in the darkness, and lo! I saw the ever-so-faint outline of the password box.

I suddenly began laughing. I clicked the wheel on my monitor and found the contrast control. I began to spin it. The screen faded into view. I laughed harder, still spinning the wheel. In seconds, the screen, which had had the contrast turned all the way down (by Ivan, no doubt, who loves to play on the computer - pushing buttons and spinning knobs - so long as no one is watching him) had faded back to its normal luster.

Nothing was broken at all. The symptoms, such as they were, made sense. No doubt as several of us tried today with no avail to boot the computer, we all shut it down without running the shutdown command. This meant that in addition to my boot selection screen (I have a dual OS boot selector for Vista and XP) which pauses 30 seconds unless you select an OS by hitting - you guessed it - “Enter”, there was probably a warning screen saying that the computer hadn’t shut down correctly, with another timer. Not wanting to damage the computer if there was something wrong, I hadn’t left it powered up long enough to get through both screens and hear the bootup sounds, leading me to believe something was fried.

Apparently, my deductive capabilities were the only thing fried, which is why I am going to go to bed right now. It’s been a very long week already, and it’s starting to show.

St. Jude - Ora Pro Nobis! (And thanks!)

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