A week most terrible

I have suffered terrible losses this week. The death of not one but two anthropomorphic friends has rocked my very core, and threatened my way of life.

The first, and arguably most important, is my laptop. Laptops are not only important to being a student - say writing columns and articles - but is in the center of what it means to be a geek.

Imagine, for instance, where humanity would be without the advent of lolcats, those funny pictures of felines that have been humorously captioned. Or, even worse, without online games.

Already, it has proven hard without saved bookmarks to go through my morning ritual, checking websites for news and new webcomics. It also didn't help that the first version of this column was sitting on the hard drive, waiting to be edited. Instead, it must be rewritten entirely.

Thankfully, losing that column has provided perspective, and its loss will not be mourned. The loss of all the other files I had not saved to my external hard drive, however, will.

But, I mentioned another friend I have lost. That friend is a store.

Imagine a young man in middle school, on vacation, walking in to a bookstore with a vague goal in mind. He wants a comic book, but nothing Captain America or Spider-Man. Nay, he wants a manga, or Japanese comic book. This kicks off a decade of collecting and reading Japanese comics.

From there, he continues to go to the branch of the bookstore near his home, spending countless hours perusing comics, both Japanese and American, while looking for the latest rule books for tabletop games such as Dungeons and Dragons.

That bookstore is the former giant Borders. This is the last week it is open, and has sales that are 80 to 90 percent off. Don't bother going to buy books, though, as there are more shelves for sale than books left. It leaves a giant hole in my heart.

Both of these can be replaced, but not without cost. The computer might be fixed, hopefully, but if not, it's a blank slate.

A new computer, with no files, nothing that I previously had, everything gone in the wind. Saved game files? Nope. Word documents? Negative. Funny pictures I had saved from the internet? As good as deleted.

Borders, meanwhile, can be replaced by the internet and a comic shop. The internet is a great place to buy manga, if you know what you want. Half the fun was browsing, though. A normal comic shop sells western comics, if you enjoy being harassed for not buying anything while browsing and trying to make a choice of what you want.

Or there is Barnes and Noble, the other giant bookstore, which is 40 minutes away from my house compared to the 10 of the old Borders.

All in all, it's been a rough few days. The loss of my computer this morning has hit hard, especially since it's as close as I have to a child as I have right now. With any luck, it'll magically turn back on like last week, but I'm not holding my breath. Nor am I holding out that a bookstore will replace Borders anytime soon.

So rest in peace, friends. You will be missed.