Upgrading My RAM Makes Me Feel Like A Big Man
I wasn’t pleased with the way Legacy was running so after performing some system maintenance and tweaking things a bit I decided it was time for an upgrade. RAM is my favorite thing to upgrade, was probably the first hardware upgrade I ever performed I think. But if you know what you’re doing it’s the most stress-free upgrade you can get.
Generally you just pop it in and close up shop. The machine does the rest. Nothing to install or configure, either it works or it doesn’t and even that’s pretty idiot-proof.
My machine only had 512 MB of RAM to begin with and even as I was buying it last spring I was wondering how long before I’d need to get more. So with help from crucial.com to determine what I have and what I can handle I set out to buy me some RAM.
Vista claims to need 1 GB minimum anyways, so it’s an investment I told myself.
Cutting to the chase I figured out what I wanted and headed to my city’s answer to the soup Nazi: Atic. There’s always a line, you better know exactly what you want with at least 3 backups because if you’re a blubbering idiot who doesn’t know exactly what you want and need when you’re at the front of the line you’ll be sent to the back to think about what you’ve done.
I don’t mind it at all. If you have to know a thing or two about computers to get the lowest price in the city, well, that’s social justice in action.
But the weirdest thing happened. There was no line and the guy behind the counter was…well…nice! I didn’t know what to make of it. It was probably a trap so I figured I’d be the one to set it off, make it happen on my own terms.
“What can I get you?” he asked.
Confused by the pleasantry I responded from my confusion “uh, 1 gig of RAM pleasem, 184 pin”
“DDR” he said back to me. This was more like it! He was correcting me, this felt better already. “What brand?” he asked. This was it, I forgot to say the brand, I’d wasted his time. Banned for life, here it comes. But I looked up and he was smiling.
“Uh, Kingston please” I said hesitantly “but it doesn’t really matter..” I added trying to hedge my bets.
“Sure thing” said the happy clerk, “it really is the best value” and went into the back.
“What the hell’s going on here?” I asked my girlfriend.
“What?” she said.
“He’s being nice!” I said, clutching her arm, “something’s not right here”. Fearing ninjas would jump out at any moment to steal my soul I decided I had had enough, I was going to spring this trap whether the evil minions, who had clearly gotten more devious of late, wanted it or not.
When the clerk returned I laid myself out for the slaughter “Yea, I need to upgrade from the 512 MB of RAM I have now to play the new Star Trek game”.
Alright punk, let’s do this thing. Inferior specs AND a Star Trek game causing my amateurish purchase? I couldn’t have been asking for it more if I came in asking for tech support on a previous purchase. Or tried to pay with a credit card, they hate that.
Strike me down. Go ahead. Insult me. Have a laugh at my expense, just get it over with!
I mean, up till now my best theory on their low prices was that they fed on the tears of the stupid.
And rightly so.
“Yea, that’s usually the reason” he said agreeably.
What the hell was this? Service?! I gave the kind of bait even average people would normally take. I couldn’t fathom it.
Suspecting sabotage I went straight home and installed the RAM. It works fine, even resulted in a substantial improvement in Legacy. All very strange. I eventually warmed to the idea that maybe I hadn’t been sold substandard equipment or a well-disguised time bomb. Maybe he was just a nice guy working at Atic, nothing preventing that from being possible. Other than the laws of nature I mean.
Knowing that I had a faster machine to return home to I headed off to work emboldened. Work was a breeze. Was it a nicer crowd? The fact we won?
Or was something missing, like my fear of being punched in the face for no reason?
Why would that be?
Because upgrading my RAM made me feel like a big man.
And that’s The Wørd.
