This was a rough day for technology in the Smith Park household. These come around more often than in most families with whom I am acquainted. Computers die ignominious deaths at alarming frequency here. I'm almost afraid to describe how the Mr's laptop two iterations back died, but its retirement was expedited with fists and lots of swearing. It's only through sheer force of will and a lack of disposable income that we keep hanging on to cell phones past their expiry dates. Otherwise, I suspect they'd be hurled at the wall when they start crapping out like our computers, tablets, and laptops.
I knew one of these digital deaths was imminent. Mr S-P had been playing on a tablet we got on one of those terrible "buy a phone and get a tablet for a dollar" deals four years ago. It came with a contract for an additional line that the sales person at AT&T straight up lied about when we got it, so he was determined to use it until it fell apart. Mission accomplished. Since last summer, it overheated and shut off, and it had to be charged more than once a day. It froze and crashed often. It was so slow we needed to check and make sure it wasn't plugged into a phone line with a dial-up modem. At Christmas, I bought him a newer one, but stubborn man that he is, he kept going on the old one, seeing his plan to the end. Last week, it fell off his bedside table and hit something on the floor (one of the table legs, probably) and cracked the screen. This morning, the colors on the screen were faded. And at lunchtime, I looked over to see him holding it by the edges, twisting and wringing it in frustration. I said "you'll really kill it now," and he assured me that was the plan. With a casual flip, he tossed it onto the floor and gave it a look that said, "it knows what it did." So now he has switched to the new one. His games didn't transfer, as he doesn't like to log into them to preserve the illusion of privacy. I am hearing new noises, which is fine. That Toon Blast music was haunting my dreams. If I never hear it again, I just might recover.
He didn't play games all day. He has to prepare study questions and tests for the classes he is teaching that start up tomorrow. He settled at the dining room table with his laptop and books all around, writing his lecture notes. He had lit a candle on the table for ambiance. I was doing my own thing, when I heard him suddenly swear and start blowing. He had looked up to see the plastic of his computer on fire. He had adjusted the screen at one point, and gotten too close to the flame. This same laptop was on probation anyway. Sometime last year, something fell on it, and blacked out a bar across the screen. It had tried to regenerate, but still made for difficult work. There's a hole burned in the case now, and it was probably only three or four seconds from total system failure. We agreed that he could probably write off the purchase of a new one as a teaching expense, but I don't know when he will pull that trigger. If I catch him smashing the whole thing into the brick siding of the house, that would be a strong indicator that it's time. Not that I'm trying to give him suggestions on how to dispose of the current one, but nothing would surprise me at this point.
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