... it deepens like a coastal shelf

It shames me, as the writer of a pseudo-cyberpunk blog, that I bought my computer five years ago and haven't upgraded it physically since. It suits my purpose, though. Although I'm a video gamer, it's been more of a pursuit than a study recently, and there really aren't any new games that I desperately want to play that my computer can't handle--at least, none that aren't also available for my Playstation 3, which cranks out amazing graphics onto my brand-new 40" LCD widescreen HD television, rather than the piddly 17" Dell monitor that my computer is attached to. That was a long sentence saying, "My computer sucks, but my PS3 doesn't." But my computer is fine for what I use it for, and I don't play enough modern video games to warrant buying a new one.

That being said, I can't help but being rather disturbed by my computer's gradual descent into decrepitude. When I first got it, it started up, from power-on to finished loading all the system tray crap, in less than forty seconds (because I timed it). Today, I didn't have the heart to measure it, but I turned it on and ate breakfast, and it was still loading when I got back. It used to be doing the 100 meter in under twelve seconds: nothing astonishing, but respectable. Now, it moves like an old person getting up to take a crap in the middle of the night. If I wanted to wax poetical, I'd say it has qualities akin to something primordial, even pre-Cambrian, just dragging its lumpy, slimy bulk out of some quagmire the world forgot, rearing its misshapen head, and deciding maybe it's best not to come out onto dry land after all.

I can think of three possible reasons for this gradual descent into senility: the build-up of dust, the accrual of pointless applications and bad registry entries, and the slow grinding away of all the moving parts of any machine into fine powder. I feel like I'm watching a loved one slowly slip away to a wasting disease: it still greets me with a smile and tries to play those games we used to love for me, but every day I see it grow a little slower, and the old games come a little harder.

I actually got a bit misty-eyed writing that. I love you, too, computer. I love you, too.