of mouse and mice

i have always been a stickler for good english and completely lousy when it comes to anything computer related.

y'day i had a bit of an epiphany. i realized that i couldn't do anything involving a routine. i manage to brush my teeth everyday, but that's only because my mouth stinks otherwise. but something like bathing, i generally have to push myself to do. eating, i often refuse to do for reasons such as being too lazy to walk to the kitchen. sleeping, i do but there again the boons outweigh the banes. i had a scooty for 7 years, and not once have i remembered to keep it in the garage despite my mom reminding me every single day. no- some habits simply don't stick. now that i have a new activa and my mom has threatened to take it away from me the day i forget to keep it in ( and i am certain that she will act on the threat), i have changed ways. the reason she never threatened to do any such thing with the scooty was that- hello! her honda was so much better. mom doesn't believe in sadomasochism.

so y'day i was sitting in front of the computer when i suddenly had this epiphany about how perhaps if i manage to make those small changes, they'll dynamically multiply and bring about super size changes. like the butterfly flapping its wings somewhere and there being a downpour elsewhere.

so i thought i'd clean my mouse.

and i cleaned it with electronic cleaning fluid. but for some strange reason the mouse didn't work. another bad habit of mine is just giving up. so i told myself sternly, that i wouldn't give up. i got a screw driver set and vowed to open the mouse up and fix it. i had no idea how i was going to do it. but mostly i figured that if i opened it up, i'd find little drops of condensate, which if i let dry, would leave the mouse beautifully working again. yeah- i opened it. there was no condensate. i lifted the chip. and then that parts started falling off. there was this spring metal thing that fell and an L shaped metal thing that fell, and the rolling wheel was attached to something, and i didn't know how i was supposed to fit it back in.

i felt very glad that i was in india where cobblers and key duplicators and mobile phone repair(ers) and dvd servicers were just a earshot away, generally found happily colluding with the vegetable vendor, the pharmacist and the "iyengar baker" (whose honey cake and bun with tea, i must say, is so much more tasty than the black forest pastry and terribly puffy puff at sweet chariot). anyway, i put the mouse and it's electronic intestines, and its metallic thingummies (which i hoped would be as vestigeal as an appendix) into a plastic cover and took it searching for a repair wallah. when i eventually found one, he took one look at it, said it had come part by part, why was i even bothering to fix it, a mouse cost only 200/250 bucks.

alright! i was shocked it only cost so much. sometimes i don't understand the logistics of economics. i saw SIVAJI for 200 bucks (not worth it). somehow that justified spending 250 on the mouse (just a lil perspective).

i found my regular computer applicance shop, which sits rather smugly next to a tailor and a stainless steel vessels vendor (as a kid, i used to enjoy looking at new plastic soap dish designs- still do, as a matter of fact). while walking into the store, i wondered what i was gonna ask.

do you sell optical mice ? no- that sounded ghastly. am sure he'd laugh at me for having such terrible pronunciation. the i(soft "r") ony!!!

do you sell optical mouses ? sounded more right, but somehow not quite there.

do you sell rats ? overdoing it there.

so then i figured, i might as well resort to a language that i wasn't squeamish being bad at.

i went up boldly and said "optical mouse(u) sell madtheeraa ???" which i suppose was better than "optical mouse(galu) sell madtheera???".

the shopkeeper didn't so much as bat an eyelid.

black or white ? he said.
silver, i said.
USB or PS/2 ?? he said
ah! i knew this one!
USB, i said.
six months warranty or 1 year warranty he asked ?
the cheapest, i said (i have to save up for the next rajni movie you see ? which i will watch without even bothering about tickets being inexplicably expensive. but good mouse(galu), had to be got for 250 bucks. 400 would be unjustified. )

so i got this silvery black/slim/ ENTER brand/ cheap optical mouse which i successfully connected to the comp without encountering any problem. i even figured that my old mouse was actually a USB one that was connected to a PS/2 port via an adaptor !!!

about the confusion about whether it's mouse or mice.
i am assured that its rats and mice and dormice and computer mouses.
why computer mouses ?

because in language, usage is king. what's acceptable is decided by the majority. not by a lexicographer in his ivory tower. but by talking using people. in this days of blogs and chat rooms and instant communication by laymen, if they decide its computer mouses, no one can stop them.

and if u think of it, computer mice sounds a tad too much overdone. it's like too much lipstick.

PS:
for future reference- the brand of the electronic fluid cleaner is called Endust. it works rather well. and it does say "do not spray on vented surface"

i will not even begin explaining where and all i sprayed the cursed fluid.

yours humbly and ignorantly,
me