But that didn't diminish my dismay when the PC I'd bought in 2002 finally staggered and died in my arms. No amount of tech support calls so I could talk to some guy sitting in India, reading me pre-packaged responses taken from a color-coded plastic binder could fix it.
By an AMAZING coincidence, right then I got a bonus check for DEMON KEEPER. Sometimes, the karma pays off. It wasn't that much, I had bills and, long/short, I couldn't dump the whole bonus on getting something whizz-bang awesome. Since I spent so much time at the office, all I really needed a home computer for was to write. I needed a typewriter, end of story.
So I went to Best Buy and scored the Gateway laptop I have now. It was on sale. It was cheap. It wasn't super-powerful but - again - I just needed a typewriter. Boom, bought it.
From 2006 to 2009, it gave me nary a peep of trouble. I had exactly two programs running on it... Final Draft (for scripts) and Word (for everything else).
On 10/15 2009, I worked my last day at the office. On 10/16 2009, I started my own business, Samurai MK. I now had to ask my laptop to do a bit more. Realize... not MUCH more. I'm not exactly rendering CGI over here. I'm talking email, Office... and little else. Basic, basic computer-type stuff.
At every opportunity the Gateway had the chance to step up to the modest challenges, it failed.
The first week of business, I was connecting to the internet via wireless. Suddenly, the laptop decided it didn't want to, anymore. So I called Warner cable, and wasted a day of productivity waiting for those guys to show up. They did, I got DSL installed. Back to work, right?
Hardee-har.
I couldn't install Office because, guess what? The disk reader didn't want to work. Okay... hunt around online, find the best-rated repair place in LA. Drive it over there... they don't work on Gateway. Okay, who does? THIS guy works on Gateway... fine, thanks. Drive over to the other guy's place. He checks it out, has to order a new part. Okay, I expected that, go for it. And while he's at it, throw in some extra memory so it doesn't take a hundred years to open an email. My laptop was suuuuuper slow.
But guess what, number two? It's Friday, which means we're going into the weekend, so it's gonna be an extra couple of days of fucking around, waiting for the Pony Express delivery rider to show up from China.
Meanwhile, the laptop eats a script I was literally within an hour of turning in. Luckily for me, Leonard was able to hunt it up. Whew.
Get the laptop back from the dude. It reads disks, it runs fast. AWESOME. Now I can - at last - get back to work without dealing with random bullshit...
Man plans, and God laughs, while computers sing a sad, sad song.
On Wednesday - THREE DAYS after getting it back the first time - the screen suddenly goes gray. What the fuck?! Nothing I do fixes it. Fuckity-fuck-fuck-fuckin'-
Call the dude back. Sure, bring it in... tomorrow.
I spend the rest of that night not getting work done. Next day, bring it in. You know you're in trouble when an experienced, well-reviewed repair guy looks at your laptop and says, "What the hell?" He'd never seen this before. He's gotta take it apart, figure it out.
Shit.
Swing over by John's, get some email written and read and some light work done, but a bunch of stuff is going only partially done, or not done at all, due to technical difficulties beyond my control.
The next day, I call the dude. The laptop is not done yet. I'm pacing. I call him back and let him know that I need this thing so I can get some work done. Monday isn't gonna work. He says... call me first thing tomorrow morning.
To his credit, HE calls ME. Nine am today. Saturday. I swing out, get the machine. He explains that the FUCKING SCREEN has failed. Do I have an external monitor to which I can hook it? Sure... one of the benefits of going through all of my shit and getting rid of stuff is the fact that I have an EXACT inventory of what I currently own (less and less, thank God). In the past, I would have hemmed and hawed and gone home, sweating and hoping that I had a monitor. In this case, I knew for an absolute fact that I had a monitor, because I'd spent half an hour dusting it off a couple of days ago. So... the answer was YES, I DO have a monitor.
Again to his credit: I asked him how much I owed him. He said nothing. It's not a total fix, but he got me back to work for free. As a start-up entrepreneur... that's music to my ears. Good karma all around.
Now my laptop works, and I have a screen by which I can work it. Only thing is, I have this full-sized monitor perched on top of the laptop, which obviates its use as a portable computing tool in the first place. Right now, it's basically just a weak tower.
I would like to congratulate Gateway for making and selling products which are, at least, consistent... consistently disappointing, at every single fucking turn.
Another long/short... this whole episode only drives me to succeed that much more. I'm burning with a desire not just to be rich, not just to have credits and gets books published and movies produced, but also to own a Mac rig that won't fuck with me so much that the work of starting a business and getting it off the ground has been exponentially harder because of something that SHOULD be making my life easier.
So let me wrap up this little bitch session and get back to work before my laptop dreams up a new way to fail...
The moral of story: don't buy Gateway.
* As an addendum, every cloud has a silver lining. Even though I can't lug my laptop to a hipster H'wood coffee shop and get work done, and the rig is a bit Frankenstein'd together... a separate monitor is a much easier format on which to read scripts. So there ya go...
No comments:
Post a Comment