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On the night of Black Friday I opened my package (for those of you not keeping up with the story so far, I just replaced my old laptop with a new laptop on last black Friday (Nov 23, 2007)) only to discover that things were amiss. Upon removing the laptop from its styrofoam bondage gear and when opening it up for the first time I discovered a very odd looking defect upon the computer screen.I originally thought it was dirt and I tried to remove it with some approved cleaning agent.
It was all to no avail. It stood there mocking me, appearing to grow darker as I eyeballed it for size. It was as long as my hand and if I didn’t know any better it felt as if it was a personal attack by god itself against yours truly.
Previous obituary aside, let’s be honest here I loved Agatha dearly, I literally had no choice. Money was tight and it was either lump it all together with no computer usage whatsoever… or make Agatha work until a change could be made. Mama always said it was good for a boy to know how to make lemonade and I did just that.Yet here I finally received my new computer… brand new mind you, not some one else’s old junk they could no longer make work, but brand spanking new. Here it was, soiled before I even got my grubby little hands on it. I did what any new computer owner would do and headed back to the store where I purchased it from. I explained to the customer service people that there seemed to be a defect in the computer and had them take a look at it. While I waited they did the impossible. Where I had failed in cleaning the screen, they did just that. I left feeling foolish. Don’t get me wrong they were kind about it all, but it didn’t help matters when my girlfriend asked me what was the matter with the new computer system and I had to tell her it was just dirt after all.
I went home and waited until the next day to set up my new computer.
After all it was just a dirt smudge, it was late and I needed sleep if I was going to do all of my data transfers the next day as well. Everything was in great working order the next day; after all the software was reinstalled Bruno Jr was born. Bruno Jr skipped and glided in ways that Agatha could only have dreamed of. A sad pang hit me as I realized there would come a day when I would have to bury Bruno Jr as well. I didn’t pay it another thought as I started going through the phases of downloading manuscripts and clips from my online storage site. When all was said and done I was ready to get working on my new laptop with a 256MB video card and 2 Gigs of ram. I open up my preinstalled copy of Word 2007, only to discover it’s not the full version as promised but a 25 use trial version.
“Well this is going to be fun,” I muttered under my breath and proceeded to figure out a way to get the copy of word I was going to need.
The girlfriend and I have an understanding about money. We discuss everything before we buy things, especially expensive things such as cars, computers, homes, professional software, etc. I explained to her that I was going to need another copy of word for the computer, as I already knew she explained that it wouldn’t be in our budget until after Christmas.I decided to try and keep a word doc page open at all times in hopes of fooling the system into believing it was still on the originating document. It seemed to work in the interim but I knew it couldn’t last forever.
Then just 7 days later it happened. I opened up the laptop and instead of waking from its sleep it winked at me. Blue screen of death and then reboot that lasted about 12 minutes. When the system came back on, things were much slower than they had been before.I couldn’t help but notice that in the area of the computer screen that was originally marred seemed to have slightly lighter color than the rest of the computer screen. On day 8 my favorites programs began crashing and the system couldn’t make up its mind if it wanted to get updates for items or if it wanted to go to sleep. The computer became stuck in a loop… and the spot on my laptop returned. It was dark and festering now. It kind of reminded me of a barnacle. As I looked upon it, it pulsed at me. Winking at me with its filth. I gathered it up and rushed back to the store from whence it came expecting to have to battle with them over the exchange for a new computer. I recognized the smudge before… it was the infamous Black Spot of pirate lore, and what worse pirate is there than your average American Retail Customer Service associate? When dealing with pirates the best advice I can give you is to be calm. I approached the scurvy dog (actually she was rather pleasant) calmly and explained the situation to her. She lifted her eye patch to get a better look at the computer (actually she didn’t have an eye patch, but for the sake of drama let’s just pretend she did) and said… “I’m sorry Sir, go ahead and head back to our computer department and pick out a new system”I went back and determined I still wanted the same computer and low and behold the computer I had purchased barely 9 days ago was now on sale for $100.00 less than what I paid for it. When I asked the store about it, they credited my account the extra amount. As soon as I heard that my eyes caught the display that wasn’t 4 ft from where I stood. Microsoft Office Word on sale for $99.00.In the end I still have the same computer I purchased before, and I have Word 2007 just as I needed.
Sometimes Miracles are disguised as inconveniences.
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Posted by Djgheist on 2007-12-02 17:54:10 | Rating: | Views: 127
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I'm glad everything worked out for you in the end! I only wish the ongoing saga I'm having with a certain mobile phone would end in similar and happy circumstances. haha.
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Posted by kaos264
on 2007-12-02 19:37:50
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