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It's almost ominously quiet in my office right now. Normally there'd be the low, rattling hum of my PC filling the room, masking all the little creaks and burps that the hot water tank, which sits, fenced off in a cupboard in the corner of this fairly tiny work space, makes all through the day and night. Normally I don't notice it. Normally, I have my PC for company.

But tonight there's no PC. That's because when I came home I discovered to my consternation that the office was filled with a smell of burning PCB. The power supply on my PC was overheating, smelling noxious and, I suspect, wasn't too far away from going BANG in spectacular fashion.

So, no PC until at least Thursday, which is when our local PC hardware shop will re-open for business.

There was a time when this would be a major ballache, but not any more. I don't have to worry about accessing my email - it's on Gmail these days and the web interface does just fine for my needs most of the time. I don't have to worry about internet access - my router and the wifi access point are working fine and dandy. I don't have to worry about accessing my data, photos, music - they're all backed up to an external hard several times a day, and I can always just plug that into the laptop to get at what I need. I don't need to worry about work (okay, I'm on holiday, but bear with me) because DVCSes like Bazaar mean that I can work remotely, pushing and pulling branches from Launchpad as needed.

It's only just struck me how disconnected, technologically, my life has become. And I don't mean that in the sense of not having a connection (though it's nearly new year so I'm expecting BT to royally screw me over any time in the next week and a half). I mean that, despite how much I rely on technology to get my work done, to keep in touch with people, to manage my memories and all the reset, I don't need to be tied to my desk to do any of it. Right now, I'm working without cables (we'll gloss over the ones that connect the wifi AP to the router or the router to the phone line or...). I can put my photos online, on Flickr or Picasa or a jillion other photo-management apps. I can keep in touch with people without having to fart-arse around with desktop email clients and suchlike.

But tomorrow, I think, the laptop's going to stay off. Because it's Christmas (this is a clumsy segue, I know, but it's late and I'm bleeding tired) and I'm going to spend the day with Sarah, eating far too much, watching too much TV and probably drinking more than I really ought.

Happy Christmas, folks. Have a good one.