Boredworkers.com

We’ve heard that phrase often enough. When something ‘bad’ happens, more often than not, more ‘bad’ things are to follow. Like it or not, I find that this observation is more often than not true. Maybe its just psychological. Maybe when something particularly unfortunate does happen, the human brain automatically sets itself to take note of other things of equal or greater magnitude on the scale of misfortunes.

My brain has now gone into overdrive. A week ago, my PC suffered from the dreaded Blue Screen of Death. That very night, since we were rushing final preparations for my sister’s wedding, I forgot to unplug the telephone line from my ADSL modem. It rained very heavily (ironically) through the evening. When I got home at 5 am the next day (after wrapping things up at my sister’s wedding dinner), the first thing I noticed was the phone line still plugged in. Fortunately, the ‘DSL‘ light for the modem was still shining brightly. That meant that the modem was alright (Phew! 5 modems have already died on me in my 2 years of using TMNET Streamyx. If you’re looking to signup, let me know and I’ll be your referer :D). Just in case, I switched on the computer to see that everything was in working condition…

And that’s when I discovered that my modem might have died after all. It was either that or the network interface card (NIC, also known as LAN card, or ethernet card) was fried since the ‘Ethernet‘ light stayed dark. Panic kicked in since I’m on a rather tight budget for the coming months.

The first thing I did the next day was to unplug the modem and go over to WL’s place to see if it was still functioning. The lights go blink blink blink for a bit and then remain a bright yellow indicating the status was good. A few clicks later and I was connected to the internet via my modem. YAY! That means that the NIC was indeed broken. A replacement card cost me RM23 at Low Yatt Plaza. That wasn’t too bad compared to a modem which would cost me at least RM125 (a colleague of mine bought one on Monday as well).

But now, I’m afraid of more bad things to come. Aside from the phrase “When it rains, it pours“, there is a second phrase that I find is usually true as well, “Bad things come in threes“. I dread to think what else the week has in store for me…