Oh s&@%!!

So, I’m plugging in my laptop this morning and to avoid pushing it on the floor when I put the power adapter into the back (something I have nearly done before), I put my hand on the top of the open screen. As I push the adapter in, there is this sickening little “crack” sound. You guessed it, my thumb applied just enough pressure to crack the center top of the 17″ LCD display panel.

So, my laptop screen now is nothing but a large white splotch except for about an inch or so on the left and maybe three inches on the right. In other words, I can’t see most folders or the meat of documents or web pages without moving them way to the right and resizing them to the point they are virtually useless. I can’t even get to the Log Off and Shut Down buttons on the Start Menu.

“Fortunately,” I can get a replacement screen from Dell for less than 20 percent of the cost of an equivalent replacement laptop and avoid the hassle of transferring all sorts of programs, data files and the like to a new one. Unfortunately, since this happened today, it will not ship until Monday and the normal delivery time frame will be interrupted by July 4. While I can use my desktop at home and hook up a monitor at work, it leaves me in the lurch for my forthcoming trip to ReaderCon.

Computers. Can’t live with ’em. Pisses you off when you break ’em.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe