laptop down

my laptop broke, which is why i have not been posting to my blog much lately, (or filling out my nfl pool picks or a number of other activities i often use my laptop for.)

i had just watched an interesting film by streaming it on netflix; the fall of fuijimori. when the movie ended, i clicked on the 'back to browsing,' button below the screen as the credits rolled and my computer seemed to hesitate. still, it went back to my previous netflix page then i clicked on the minimize button. the computer stalled, seemed to lock up a bit, then minimized but left the screen i had been looking at visible in a transparent state.

i knew something was wrong. i tried to maximize but now the computer was certainly not responding to anything. so, i hard-booted it down. upon restarting it, i got a hard disk read error message. i tried everything imagineable to troubleshoot the thing but all was for naught. i even disconnected the battery and took out the hard drive for a moment.

the computer is now with my brother who knows a guy... i am hopeful the charges will be minimal.

what really irks me about this though is that the computer is a mere two years old. shouldn't a laptop work for longer than two years without completely melting down? i mean, i guess my motherboard is fried or something similar to that and i cannot help but think about my days as a mac user. in fact, i have an old mac se up in my closet that i guess if i busted it out today it would jump up and run like it was 1990.

(i just imagined myself surfing around e-world, chatting with some strangers and perhaps playing a rouund or two of wheel of fortune. ahh, those were the days.)

fun aside, it certainly seems to me pc's are meant to have some associated after market costs. this is a bad thing. it seems to me poor and shoddy workmanship and design are encouraged in this model of having a product generate a certain amount of value after the initial sell, like our automobiles. i had a great car once, a honda civic del sol. a friend of mine who worked for honda told me they stopped mking them because they did not have enough problems after initial sell. wtf is that?!

i am lost without my computer. it along with my blogging had killed my reading recently and so i am back into some books but i miss the ability to put the computer in front of me along with the tv and make decision over time as to whether i would focus on something such as writing a piece for my blog, or relax into the mindless but restful state of watching the tube. such is modern life.