sayonara, kumiko. salut, jacques!
that tagline sounds much more buoyant than it should. i had to buy a new computer over the weekend--not exactly a pleasant task in the midst of finals. but i had no choice: my much-loved laptop collapsed a half hour before my first exam, and i wasn't about to risk the cramping of another handwritten exam. but the rush of the purchase--based on about 2 hours of internet research and much time making friends with amy at compusa--has lead me to the following low-tech ruminations:
1. it's the intangibles, stupid. i was very excited that my new machine, due to a sales glitch, would have a whopping 768 Megs of RAM. as someone who barely knows what a "meg of RAM" is, this unduly impressed me. surely, i thought, this much RAM would set the room on fire. the sound and graphics would change my life, and the 60 Gig hardrive could warehouse thousands of pics of l.i.t. doggie. however: i don't like the action on this new keyboard. it's so sticky, my fingers feel like a bird in an oil spill. and the keyboard is set too far back into the machine, meaning i have to use *real effort* to hold my arms up high enough to reach essential keys like [shift][F8]. the delete key is no longer down in its friendly place next to the control and arrow keys, and the board tinkles like an old chandelier whenever i type with my left hand. sure, i have a built-in wireless system and the battery lasts forever, but i'm not comfortable here.
for some reason i completely neglected the *important* stuff when buying this computer. i was thinking in terms of acronyms and numbers, not shoulder cramps and muscle memories. retraining my pinkie to find the delete key all the way in newfoundland was one of the hidden costs of the purchase. would i have given toshiba my richly undeserved money just to stick with their computer layout? um, probably. seeing as i spend more time with my computer than with my dog, best friend and boyfriend combined, i want something that makes me feel good. even if it is money pissed away on a bad product.
2. the anthropomorphic machine. because i do spend so much time on the laptop, i want to make friends. that means giving the computer a name. the old gal was kumiko, the toshiba. now i have jacques the compaq. but the baptism itself augured something bad. i once had a good friend named kumiko and generally like well-built japanese stuff. i have a love-hate relationship with all things french. (flaubert, gauguin, clare denis, chicken a la king...) perhaps predictably, jacques and i are not growing on each other. perhaps i thought a french name would appeal to the vintage side of my personality, the part that's more buffalo exchange than banana republic. but old kumiko, besotted as she was, wore like an old sweatshirt: her "P" key wiggled like a loose tooth and her feeble memory was filled with more shortcut keys than an old word perfect program. (i even had a shortcut key for "unconscionability," which came in handy during contracts). maybe i need to spill wine on jacques or something to break him in, but that's not really an option anymore. besides, there's also the problem of the sticky keys...
3. why warranty? jacques was a steal at about 1G with his enlarged memory and rabbit-quick processor. he also gets a $100 padded coach to ward against all the abuse kumiko suffered in my old backpack. but what really pushed the price into the realm of outrageous was the $319 warranty. why? because kumiko died just days after her second birthday, and every computer guru i talked to said no brand save the mac is expected to last longer. this seems amazing to me: i can spend thousands of additional dollars on features i'll never use, but it's impossible to buy durability and reliability, the things i most seek. hence, i've no other option but the warranty, which is filled with enough potentially unconscionable clauses to make me long for my old shortcut keys.
so i realized that, in paying for the warranty, i wasn't so much covering my tail on future computer repairs as paying protection money to the computer mafia. by dropping one week's salary on a warranty, i'm depriving the yakuza of another $1500 purchase in a mere 2 years. surely they'll probably get me for more blood money the day after jacques turns 3.
that'll be just enough time for me to get so attached to jacques, he'll need a send-off as treacle and contrived as this. mon dieu!
1. it's the intangibles, stupid. i was very excited that my new machine, due to a sales glitch, would have a whopping 768 Megs of RAM. as someone who barely knows what a "meg of RAM" is, this unduly impressed me. surely, i thought, this much RAM would set the room on fire. the sound and graphics would change my life, and the 60 Gig hardrive could warehouse thousands of pics of l.i.t. doggie. however: i don't like the action on this new keyboard. it's so sticky, my fingers feel like a bird in an oil spill. and the keyboard is set too far back into the machine, meaning i have to use *real effort* to hold my arms up high enough to reach essential keys like [shift][F8]. the delete key is no longer down in its friendly place next to the control and arrow keys, and the board tinkles like an old chandelier whenever i type with my left hand. sure, i have a built-in wireless system and the battery lasts forever, but i'm not comfortable here.
for some reason i completely neglected the *important* stuff when buying this computer. i was thinking in terms of acronyms and numbers, not shoulder cramps and muscle memories. retraining my pinkie to find the delete key all the way in newfoundland was one of the hidden costs of the purchase. would i have given toshiba my richly undeserved money just to stick with their computer layout? um, probably. seeing as i spend more time with my computer than with my dog, best friend and boyfriend combined, i want something that makes me feel good. even if it is money pissed away on a bad product.
2. the anthropomorphic machine. because i do spend so much time on the laptop, i want to make friends. that means giving the computer a name. the old gal was kumiko, the toshiba. now i have jacques the compaq. but the baptism itself augured something bad. i once had a good friend named kumiko and generally like well-built japanese stuff. i have a love-hate relationship with all things french. (flaubert, gauguin, clare denis, chicken a la king...) perhaps predictably, jacques and i are not growing on each other. perhaps i thought a french name would appeal to the vintage side of my personality, the part that's more buffalo exchange than banana republic. but old kumiko, besotted as she was, wore like an old sweatshirt: her "P" key wiggled like a loose tooth and her feeble memory was filled with more shortcut keys than an old word perfect program. (i even had a shortcut key for "unconscionability," which came in handy during contracts). maybe i need to spill wine on jacques or something to break him in, but that's not really an option anymore. besides, there's also the problem of the sticky keys...
3. why warranty? jacques was a steal at about 1G with his enlarged memory and rabbit-quick processor. he also gets a $100 padded coach to ward against all the abuse kumiko suffered in my old backpack. but what really pushed the price into the realm of outrageous was the $319 warranty. why? because kumiko died just days after her second birthday, and every computer guru i talked to said no brand save the mac is expected to last longer. this seems amazing to me: i can spend thousands of additional dollars on features i'll never use, but it's impossible to buy durability and reliability, the things i most seek. hence, i've no other option but the warranty, which is filled with enough potentially unconscionable clauses to make me long for my old shortcut keys.
so i realized that, in paying for the warranty, i wasn't so much covering my tail on future computer repairs as paying protection money to the computer mafia. by dropping one week's salary on a warranty, i'm depriving the yakuza of another $1500 purchase in a mere 2 years. surely they'll probably get me for more blood money the day after jacques turns 3.
that'll be just enough time for me to get so attached to jacques, he'll need a send-off as treacle and contrived as this. mon dieu!
posted by legally intoxicated at
1:20 AM
1 Comments:
my last laptop died as i was finishing my thesis and working on my historical society presentation last spring. i spilled diet coke with lemon on the keyboard, so it was totally my fault. i just barely survived all the upheaval. but it did force me to get the better warranty, just in case my coffee gets too cozy with the keyboard again.
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carrie, at 8:43 AM
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