INQ wins Build Your Own PC contest

THE CHEERLEADER down the long hall of plants didn't think I would win the 10th annual Tiger Direct Build Your Own PC Race. When in doubt, never trust a first impression from a cheerleader, nice though they may be, I did win.

First of all, let me thank Tiger Direct, AMD, Acer, Systemax and all the other sponsors for putting on a great event.

Charlie is the darling boy in the middle
We haven't a clue who the others are, OK?

In addition to the money that my charity, Wingspan Life Resources received, 30 others also got hardware, software and systems. Throw in a good time for all and you can't really ask for more.

Getting back to the story, the contest is simple, line up a group of 30 journalists and other miscreants like me, and get them to build a PC. The person who successfully boots into windows first and hooks up to the wireless router wins.

If you miss any screws, don't tighten them enough, and have things disconnected or misaligned, you get penalized time. The judges are good at building PCs and go over things with a mid-toothed comb when you are done.

The build itself is not a total installation, the mobo, CPU and heatsink are all in place. You simply need to install three drives, connect the power and then the data cables, put in RAM, and a few cards. Plug in keyboard, mouse and video, and you are done.

There were two people per table, 15 occupied tables in all. Mine was shared with Carey Holzman from the Craig Crossman Computer Show, and he was good. Let me say that when you think you are doing well, and you look over and see the person next to you far far ahead, well, it just sucks.

I don't know how I did it, but I went from behind to leading, connected it all up, and hit power. I was just putting my hand over the PSU vent to see if it was on when I heard a victory cry from Carey. Fsck. Filesystem Check, Filesystem Check, Filesystem Check, I mean it. All the cameras were on him, and I realized he had just won. My heart sank, I was probably fourth or fifth.

Looking up onto the monitor, I saw no names and big flashing "Winner: XYZ" like it does when someone wins. My BIOS was only half way through the start up screen, I was toast, he was going to take it. I moved to an angle where I could see his screen and lo and behold, his BIOS was a little behind mine in the boot sequence. Could it be?

Now is the time in your life when you learn to appreciate the goodness that is quality control, were the good folk at Tiger Direct/Systemax serious when they said all machines were tested to boot at the same speed?

Yes they were quite serious, my name came up first with a time of 6:47. Breathe, slowly, repeatedly. Then restart heart, the defibrillator is in the corner should that not work. How close was it? Carey came in at 6:52, a difference of a mere five seconds. Al Hernandez of Fox News was third with a time of 7:18. Good job and congratulations to all of them, a mere 31 seconds separated first from third, not enough time to realize you can relax.

In any case, it was by far the closest finish at one of these races yet. Carey and I were both at the same table, both within seconds of each other, and both working for good causes. You could not have asked for more of a photo finish.

As I said, the cheerleader was wrong, I did win. The only remaining problem is how to fit the check in one of those envelopes from an ATM machine.µ