Kile would say that I’m “hard” on things.  I would say that he’s full of shit.  Furthermore, I would say that I just have bad luck when it comes to electronics.  Not horrifically bad luck.  I haven’t had a motherboard fry on me (yet), I haven’t lost years of cherished family photographs (yet) and I haven’t dropped any expensive equipment in the toilet or anything (yet).  However, whenever he has to use my laptop he looks at it and shakes his head.  And that’s if I’m lucky.  The other half of the time he mutters some expletive and some comment about how I’m “so hard on this laptop”.

Whatever.

I guess I can concede that I run my equipment hard.  I expect a lot from my phones, cameras and laptops.  They have to take a good daily beating, especially the laptop.  I haven’t been too impressed with my current laptop, a Dell Inspiron 630m.  It gets the job done, don’t get me wrong.  And with the number of times it has fallen off the lip of the bassinet and onto the floor, I would have expected something catastrophic to have happened by now.  No, what has gotten me are the relatively benign yet unexplainable things that have come up.  Like, last year, I lost my lefthand control key.  I have NO idea what caused it to fall off in the first place, where it went and why I was unable to replace it.  It’s just… gone.  So I’ve had to train myself to use the righthand control key.  Hey, at least there’s a backup, right?  (Did they plan that with me in mind?)

Most recently, the left click button on the touchpad has lost it’s “click”.  It’s permanently pushed down or some such.  Which doesn’t mean it doesn’t still work (for now at least).  But it just requires a fairly light touch to work.  Which means that if my finger is resting on it, we have ISSUES.

Also, the darned thing runs so HOT all the time.  I don’t have a proper laptop desk.  Currently, I can’t use the lap desk that I got for Christmas since it is a) covered with all sorts of crap and b) I almost always have a baby napping or nursing so I have a Boppy on my lap instead.  For times like right now when Evie is in her bouncer seat sawing some serious logs, I just turn the Boppy around and use it as a laptop desk.  Still, the laptop runs so HOT.  I couldn’t DREAM of putting it on my legs.  Even my wrists are hot from resting on the edge of it.  Sometimes, the keys and touchpad are almost too hot to touch.  The fan still works (so Kile tells me), so I have no idea why this is.

Something that has always annoyed me about this laptop is that little crumbs and dust and whatnot so easily get underneath the keys.  I’m constantly trying to clean it out.  Of course, I would probably have less of a problem with this if I didn’t eat while using the laptop so much.  But… it is what it is.  I just wish the laptop were easier to clean.

The thing, just about 18 months old now, looks beat to heck.  The silver paint is worn off on the left side where my wrist rests.  The silver paint is also worn off on the right click button on the touchpad (so you’d think that would be the one which would be all worn out and “no click” but NO, which is why it makes NO SENSE.).  There are speckles on the screen, smudges on the touchpad and the black paint on the bottom of the laptop is totally peeling off little by little.

Oh, I almost forgot: The card reader won’t read the Memory Stick Pro card from my camera anymore.  It USED to, but doesn’t anymore.  It will read other cards just fine, but just not Memory Stick Pro cards.  So I have to use the cable that came with the camera to download pictures which is sorta a pain in the butt.  WHY doesn’t it work?  I have NO idea.  But it’s been like that for at least 6 months now.

Funny… it doesn’t LOOK like a piece of crap!

I now see that Dell is trying to tempt me to let them back into my good graces by releasing some pretty awesome laptops.  (They even come in PINK, OMG.)  But I’m battle-shy.  Do I trust Dell again?  Does it even matter because no way do I have the funds to buy a new laptop right now?

Whatever.

This is my post and I can bitch and hypothesize and be lame all I want.  I don’t have to have a point, you know.  And don’t even get me started on the camera.  Or the phones.  GAH.