The Good Die Young

Oh Landis, we hardly knew ye...

Behold this picture.



This picture represents the greatest tragedy to befall me in recent times. What you see is not merely a box. It is a cardboard coffin. Inside lies the carcass of my month-old laptop.

While our time was short, I'm able to look back and think of the good times; the way everything loaded faster, the lickity-quick video-editing, the shiny graphics in whatever I was doing... During the last week that Landis struggled through his all too brief-existence, things weren't quite as rosy, and despite repeated successful resuscitations, he passed peacefully last night, blue-screening his last.

As I placed him into his final resting place, I couldn't help but think of Dylan Thomas' most famous poem.

DO NOT GO GENTLE INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father computer, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

But not to worry, friends, belief in reincarnation consoles me through these dark days. The mysterious powers at Dell will ensure Landis and I will be together again.