Step five: Use a typewriter

Step five: "Our ancestors survived for centuries without the need for a computer -- so can you."

Now it's getting serious. Without a computer, I'm forced to file my stories for the site using a typewriter, and an old Corona at that.

My colleagues weren't exactly over the moon about having to transcribe my typed paper notes into electronic form, but when you're on a detox, you can't compromise.

Initially, things went badly.

Where were the font and save options? Where was the delete key? And for the love of Word, where was the spell checker?

Plus it made such a racket that my boss made me sit in the cleaning cupboard.

After the anger and frustration of the first few weeks passed, however, my spelling dramatically improved and my typing became much more precise.

Or it could simply be that the smell of the cleaning fluids was making me feel more relaxed -- hey, it worked, who am I to complain?

The one final problem with losing my computer was the missing games.

I tried creating some rudimentary ASCII art, but it just wasn't the same as a ganking noobs with a twink on World of Warcraft. I was in need of some analogue entertainment.