This week hasn't been especially good for me, but I'm somewhat amused at the fortuitous timing of last night's storm. The power got knocked out briefly last night, and when I came home I found my computer shut down with a note from my roommate:

"Your computer was making beeping noises so I turned it off."

Sure enough, it's making an awful siren noise on boot, the kind of sound I associate (after years in the IT industry) with sheer terror, expensive purchasing orders, and CPUs melting in some kind of perverse recreation of a Salvador Dali painting. The whole thing is rather suprising, considering the surge protector and decent power supply. I'm running it down to the SCIC as soon as I can get a cart, but I don't really know what broke, or where I can get replacement parts from in time. Did I mention this is the start of finals week? >_<

As a result of all this, I'm going to be off of IM networks and checking my mail infrequently at best, until I can get my computer fixed.