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I'm not on about Steinbeck's title but Burns' original lines:
The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men
Gang aft a-gley.
For those ignorant of the Lallans language, translation
The best laid schemes of mice and men often go haywire.
Ok, the "men", in this case is me and the "mice" is a Microsoft optical wireless mouse that I've been using for a couple of years.
It stopped working for me this morning for no apparent reason. The sleekit beastie suddenly dropped dead, no movement or button response. Thinking of batteries, I looked underneath: LED's bright and red (they usually go dim and flicker at end-of battery life). No problem there. Notwithstanding, I swap the two cells around in case of a bad contact. No difference. OK, thinks I to myself, the bloody rodent has lost wireless contact. I press the little geegitches to re-establish communications. No difference. I unplug the USB and take out the batteries for a couple of minutes to reboot the mouse and its satellite. Plug it in again. No difference. Crawling under the bench with a torch, I swap USB ports and promptly hit my head as my ancient bones tried to extricate themselves. No difference. Beginning to look like the beastie has rendered its last gasp. Checked the drivers and reinstalled them. No difference. It just keeps glaring at me with a malevolent and bright red eye, mocking all my efforts. In desperation, I even shut down the computer, switch off the power to it, wait a minute, switch on the power and reboot. No difference. Oh, bollocks, I'll have to use a hated PS2 emergency mouse with a single bollock (I think the correct term is monorchidism!) and a cable to make sure it goes anywhere except where you want it! As the air begins to take on a shade ranging between RGB 0,255,255 and RGB 0,0,255, wifey comes in to find out what I was vociferating about, disturbing the neighbours 100 m down the road, followed by the dog, of course. I explain to her what has happened and everything I did to try and remedy the situation. She sweetly looks at my red, flushed, bloated, face (blood pressure surely hovering about 240/195!) and says I should calm down and why not try changing the batteries? I pointed out that they must be OK, as that malevolent red Cyclopean eye is still staring at me with unabated brilliance from the creature's arse. Nevertheless, to humour her, I change the batteries.
Yes! The bloody thing started to work! Quite apart from appearing like a twit, my blood pressure must have momentarily reached 300/250 as I realised I had wasted the best part of two hours making the unwarranted assumption that the batteries were OK when the LED shone like a beacon stretching out to sailors in distress.
Moral of the story: assume nothing when IT is concerned!
The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men
Gang aft a-gley.
For those ignorant of the Lallans language, translation
The best laid schemes of mice and men often go haywire.
Ok, the "men", in this case is me and the "mice" is a Microsoft optical wireless mouse that I've been using for a couple of years.
It stopped working for me this morning for no apparent reason. The sleekit beastie suddenly dropped dead, no movement or button response. Thinking of batteries, I looked underneath: LED's bright and red (they usually go dim and flicker at end-of battery life). No problem there. Notwithstanding, I swap the two cells around in case of a bad contact. No difference. OK, thinks I to myself, the bloody rodent has lost wireless contact. I press the little geegitches to re-establish communications. No difference. I unplug the USB and take out the batteries for a couple of minutes to reboot the mouse and its satellite. Plug it in again. No difference. Crawling under the bench with a torch, I swap USB ports and promptly hit my head as my ancient bones tried to extricate themselves. No difference. Beginning to look like the beastie has rendered its last gasp. Checked the drivers and reinstalled them. No difference. It just keeps glaring at me with a malevolent and bright red eye, mocking all my efforts. In desperation, I even shut down the computer, switch off the power to it, wait a minute, switch on the power and reboot. No difference. Oh, bollocks, I'll have to use a hated PS2 emergency mouse with a single bollock (I think the correct term is monorchidism!) and a cable to make sure it goes anywhere except where you want it! As the air begins to take on a shade ranging between RGB 0,255,255 and RGB 0,0,255, wifey comes in to find out what I was vociferating about, disturbing the neighbours 100 m down the road, followed by the dog, of course. I explain to her what has happened and everything I did to try and remedy the situation. She sweetly looks at my red, flushed, bloated, face (blood pressure surely hovering about 240/195!) and says I should calm down and why not try changing the batteries? I pointed out that they must be OK, as that malevolent red Cyclopean eye is still staring at me with unabated brilliance from the creature's arse. Nevertheless, to humour her, I change the batteries.
Yes! The bloody thing started to work! Quite apart from appearing like a twit, my blood pressure must have momentarily reached 300/250 as I realised I had wasted the best part of two hours making the unwarranted assumption that the batteries were OK when the LED shone like a beacon stretching out to sailors in distress.
Moral of the story: assume nothing when IT is concerned!