Gretchen, I'd like You To Meet Alfonso

Gretchen. Oh, Gretchen.

Gretchen and I have had some wonderful times over the years.

I don't know if my readers know this, but I have a terrible habit of naming things in my life. My vehicles have had terrible names (First there was The Wagon, then there was The Little Chevy, and now there is Da JEEP) but some of the other things in my life have had interesting names. (Like Big Al, my TV from university, Snuffalupagus, the houseplant my roommate had when I lived in the City, and of course, the thing that was stuck in the drain when I moved into my second apartment. It was the size of a small rodent and it had a very interesting name but it escapes me now.)

Gretchen is my laptop.

Gretchen succumbed to an illness the other day and it was a hideous ordeal that left me in tears and on the search for a new partner in blogging, essay writing, photo taking, and technological debauchery.

The story is so long and arduous that I can not begin to expand upon it now. I was told that my laptop would cost hundreds to fix and since a new laptop would be comparable in price, I decided to get a new one.

After eight hours and weeping quietly in front of two of about ten computer guys I dealt with, I went to Mal's house to chill while waiting for my laptop to be loaded up with software and set up.

Grand total, nine hundred and twenty seven dollars.

I had just sat down on the couch with a beer and a cigarette when my phone rang. It was my computer guy who had miraculously fixed Gretchen and returned her to her normal state of function for less than two hundred dollars.

I was stunned and just thanked him before texting Mal and saying -- and I must apologize to our more sensitive readers for relaying this message on a family-friendly website -- FUCK MY LIFE.

I immediately decided to return the laptop on a day when I would be more suited to going into a computer store. I didn't even take it out of the box once I got it.

I called the store today and it turns out that returning the laptop would get me back five hundred of the dollars (plus taxes!) back.

The rest of the money (Plus taxes!) would remain on my Visa because it was for software that had been opened and uploaded and could not be returned.

Again, excuse me for a minute, but I feel the need to scream FUCK MY LIFE really, really loudly right now.

I've decided to keep the new laptop because I can't fathom spending three hundred dollars on nothing when I'm going to need the new laptop a short time from now anyways. (Gretchen is going on six years old now and my computer guy tends to think she is on her way to the graveyard regardless.)

So now I guess I need to suck up the fact that I have paid for something that I didn't necessarily need to pay for at this point in time.

The task remains to get all the good stuff off Gretchen and into Alfonso. I need some tunes, some pictures, and all my school work moved over so that I have something to groove to and look at while I should be doing more productive things with my life.

I just have no idea how to do this. I was thinking of introducing them late at night, by candlelight in the kitchen. Perhaps I could just come back in the morning and the stuff would all be transferred? Could I plug them in to the same outlet and hope that via their power cords they would swap vitals? Could I find a device with which to plug one into the other and then hit the "Send info to Alfonso" button?

It escapes me.

Regardless, I have a new purchase that I'm sure I will be excited about once I accept the fact that I will be paying for this decision for a long, long time.

A Toy For Toonses....

I got a new toy today! I bought myself an RCA 1Gig MP3 player! And I love it! I haven't had portable music since I was fourteen or fifteen, and I guess you never really know what you have until it's gone because man, how much did I miss having music on me at all times?

The shopping experience was had with a dear friend from class who happens to be a Dane as well. We are a great bunch, us Danish Chicas.

We tried five stores before we found one that was A) Incredibly cheap and B) Looks sturdy enough for me to drop in the snow and then stomp on. Because we all know that is exactly what I'm going to d oto it.

The service at The Source by Circuit City was terrible. I was wandering around the store trying to find something I liked, and finally a Dude came over to me to ask what I wanted. I told him I wanted to look at MP3 players, and he directed me to a locked cabinet and walked away.

I was fairly taken aback because A) I'm incompetent in the way of all matters technological and B) I was wearing my very best push-up bra! I mean, come on. The ladies may not be that noticeable under fifteen layers of cloth meant to stave off the -40 degree weather, but they were there! What does it take for a pair of boobs to get some attention these days? Hell, I don't even want the boobs to get the attention. I was looking for the owner of the boobs to have a little help picking out a technological device that I haven't a clue as to how I should use it.

At any rate, my friend and I raced home after our shopping excursion and managed to put an entire playlist onto the player and I now have PORTABLE music. The thing is so tiny that it fits into all my pockets.

I suspect it will be lost in approximately seventeen days, but at least it will get me through the eight hour train ride to Mal's hometown this Friday.

Hurrah for new technology!

Toonses