Laptop Defects

My last two laptops - really good brands, high end - have both failed for the same reason my son’s just failed. The little connector piece in the back where the power cord plus in gets loose from the inside connection  to the motherboard. Once the motherboard loses connection, the laptop is basically toast. You cannot reconnect the motherboard and you can’t solder it back together. This is obviously a design flaw inherent to may different types and brands of laptops.

If someone wants to start up a class action suit against the laptop manufacturers for this defect, I’m on board. I’m about sick of spending about $3,000 every year on a new laptop because one little connector piece breaks. Just once I would like to feel that my investment in a laptop will last for 3 years. Mine haven’t even reached one third of their tax depreciation value before they have to be thrown out.

Sugar and spice

Hasving spent the day with my sister and her kids, I knew that I could be the most help to my sister while she dealt with the funeral home and all the calls from family and friends if I took her daughters out for lunch and got them out of the house for a bit. Even though it was a very sad day for everyone, we managed to enjoy the time together. I took them to a Ruby Tuesday to eat, and we sat in a booth, in the back by the restrooms, and sat around for a couple hours just talking.

I decided that some of the things I could to do to help my sister get through this would be very practical and I wanted to take care of a lot of details that she might not have the time or energy to deal with. I took the girls shopping after lunch to get new dresses and shoes for the funeral home stuff, and I went ahead and bought a couple other more fun outfits for them so they would have something nice and feel a little special.

Last night I even asked the youngest niece what she wanted to do about Halloween. I wasn’t even sure that kids who are 12 and 13 years old even do anything about Halloween, but she assured me that yes she still like to party on Halloween and she takes some of the younger kids in the neighborhood trick or treating, so she wants to dress up this year again.

We got onto the internet at her house and found great Halloween costume stores web sites. There was one site that had a while section of costumes just for teens, which was great. We not only liked the costumes but we knew they would come in the right sizes for teens. My niece sat at the computer with me and looked through the Teen Halloween Costumes with me. She picked out this great costume, one of the officially licensed “Pirates of the Carribean” costumes, so I went ahead and ordered it for her:

Channel Surfing

Can’t sleep. The past couple of days have been really hard on everyone in the family. I got back to the hotel tonight around 10:00, took a shower and just fell across the bed with the TV’s remote. Watched as much of the local channel news and reruns of sci-fi that I could stand and then I started flipping through the other cable channels. The hotel doesn’t have all that many channels, but there must be something on TV at 2:00 am besides infomercials with Susan Lucci’s skin care and the next great kitchen gadget.

As I was sufing the channels I came across a headshot of someone that I recognized immediately - Steve Cropper. Now I have been a big fan of Steve Cropper for many many years and I was intrigued - what is this show about? Turns out I struck gold and had come upon a special documentary show about Staxx records in Memphis back in the 1960’s. It had info on Booker T and the MGs, Otis Redding, Isaac Hayes, Sam & Dave, and all the greats of the Memphis sound, narrated by Samuel Jackson.

Great show - what a lucky break that I found it this morning.

Last Minute Savings

Yesterday started off like a normal Sunday, woke up and made coffee, walked the dogs, turned on the computer to check emails. That’s when everything went downhill really fast. I had an email from my sister that her husband had died the previous night, they had tried to call but my cell phone went right to voicemail, so they resorted to email to get the word to me.

Of course, I dropped everything and made arrangements to go to Maryland to be with the family. Thankfully, I was able to find some coupons online to take care a lot of the details for this unexpected trip and I saved some money. First of all I wanted to arrange for flowers and the coupon site had a link to Proflowers, so that helped right at the start. All I had to do was select the sympathy arrangement and place my order, then enter ProFlowers promotion code coupons from the coupon site to get the bargain rate.

The coupons site also has bargain rates for hotels, like Ramada Inn and Holiday Inn.I probably would have stayed at the Holiday Inn, but this way I got a $50 gas card in addition to the best room rate because I made the effort to check the coupons available before making my reservations.

Since I have to fly to Baltimore and the family is already occupied with funeral things, I decided to rent my own car instead of asking someone to pick me up at the airport. I found a discount coupon for Dollar Car Rental and saved an extra 15% off the weekly rate.

It saved me a lot of time by not having to check a variety of other sites. I just go to one place with the confidence that I am getting the best deals. And I can find a better use for all the money I saved by helping my family in this important time of need.

End of the Year Games

Thinking ahead to Christmas and electronics, I think I need to take a survey between family members and see what kind of game console and game systems they have or want. Christmas is the best time to get new games and nowadays you have to make sure you get a game for the right system. There are some exciting new games coming out at the end of the year - just in time for Christmas!

An article in the New York Times had a sneak preview of some of the games expected to be the greatest hits:

• Fallout 3 to be released in October (for PC, Microsoft’s Xbox 360 and Sony’s PlayStation 3)
• Gears of War 2 and Resistance 2 to be released in November (for Microsoft’s Xbox 360 and Sony’s PlayStation 3)
• Guitar Hero World Tour to be released in October
• Rock Band 2 to be released in September for 360 and later for PS and Wii
• Left 4 Dead to be released in November
• LittleBigPlanet to be released in October
• Spore for PC and Mac now on sale