Fatal Error ):

[aggienaut]

So last Friday my laptop, creatively named Sparky II, started giving me nothing other than the above screen. Note that it is displayed on an external screen because the original screen had long since ceased displaying on the lower third (which, when you account for all the taskbars that pile up above windows, left only a band of two inches or so of visible screen).

Fortunately my good friend Papa Smurf is an IT professional so I brought the comatose body of Sparky II over to the smurfcave. After working some magic, which I'm assuming involved arcane incantations, burning incense, and perhaps invocations of dark unholy spirits, he was able to exorcise its contents onto an external harddrive, much like the soul of Koschei the Deathless. However, all his smurfy magic was unable to bring the laptop back to life, and yesterday I returned home with the lifeless carcass of Sparky II in my arms.

Sparky II served me well for many years, and best of all, years of ruthlessly adblocking anything that even remotely annoyed me had reduced advertisements to an unpleasant myth. I didn't even get advertisements on pandora!



I had hoped to limp through February with Sparky, being as any computer i get now will be utterly obsolete by the time I return from Africa two years later but alas no luck.

Papa Smurf informs me however that this laptop, on sale on Friday morning for $189 is a really good deal and I should get it. I actually know very little about this computery stuff. I just want a computer I can play my circa 1998 games on (Civ III for the win!) and edit photos with a pirated version of paint shop pro on. ;) So computery people is the aforementioned computer worth showing up at Best Buy at 4:30 in the morning for?

I still think this "black friday" business is strange shenanigans. Why do they do it? If people start their shopping the day after turkeyday thats fine but why then slash your prices on that day ridiculous amounts in order to make the frenzy ridiculous and require people to come out at godforsaken hours?


Bonus: spot the Xylocopa californica (that had a fatal error itself) on the desk in the above above picture. And for +3 points, do you recall what X. californica is (I mentioned it a few entries ago)?

Comments

[wildcelticrose.livejournal.com]

#1 I think the chance of actually getting one even if you do show up is pretty slim (they only have so many designed to get people in the door and then sell them something else when they show up)

#2 The review on that site makes some good points.

So if you're not looking for a fast machine and consider the camping out a fun thing rather than a waste of time if you don't get one then you don't have much to lose.

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

Which review were you looking at?

Hmm despite the slim odds I'm going to go for it I think because I really want to have a laptop at hand but really don't want to spend much on it. I wouldn't say I'm excited about being up that early to wait in line but at the same time I'm not particularly averse to odd hours, heck I'm used to standing watch starting at 4am (:

[ashmedai.livejournal.com]

Eehhhyeah...that code can be translated to "death rattle" in normal English. Had that happen to me last year too, that's why I recognize it. RIP, Sparky!

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

):

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

Gah it won't let me link directly to the laptop for some reason. But its details are thus:

Toshiba - Satellite Laptop / AMD V-Series Processor / 15.6" Display / 3GB Memory / 320GB Hard Drive - Black

And it is product code 1401694 on bestbuy.com

[kightp.livejournal.com]

For what it's worth, Civ III plays quite nicely on my smokin' custom-built-by-boyfriend Win7 machine. It should pretty much play on anything you can buy right now.

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

O: SOMEONE ELSE STILL PLAYS CIV III???? :D

[kightp.livejournal.com]

Oh hells yes. (My sweetie even discovered that you can download it from Steam...though I still have my original CD). Technology conquest FTW!

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

I certainly hope to get it set up again once I get a new computer. When it crashed I was in the very middle of possibly THE turning point in a centuries long war with India! I had about ten units of Cavalry about to face about 20 units of elephants in Malaysia (playing on the real map). I think with proper cunning I could defeat their grand army and turn the tides! Oh the suspense!!