Dartblog

Dear Dell Latitude D600 Notebook,

I don’t know quite how to do this, so I’m going to cull what I can from various episodes of ‘Friends’ and hope that you understand what I’m trying to say. Dell Notebook, we have to talk. You and I both know that this just isn’t working out. You’re a mess. You come home without having gone into hibernate during our commute—you’re 105 degrees. You’ve got flashing red lights and I have to bail you out each time. You know the routine, don’t you? Or don’t you remember these nights? Force a hardware shutdown, remove both batteries, crack open the window, and let the cool New Jersey air wash over you, abluting the pain and doing the job your dual fans just cannot do. What they were made to do.

We’ve had good times, I know. Remember yesterday? I realized that my 1.5 hour train ride was very boring and that internet access would sweeten it up. I had my el-cheapo Lucky Goldstar VX6100 telephone on Verizon’s digital CDMA network. You had a good-and-ready universal serial bus. I went out to the Verizon store and bought myself a $40.00 “data cable”, which is what they call it when they take a standard $0.01 USB connector and $0.02 length of cable and, at the other end, put on a differently shaped USB connector. All sarcastically, I explained to you that reversing the positions of pins 3 and 4 was an elaborate process requiring advanced machinery and entirely new production plants. Hence the totally-legitimate $40.00 price tag. Your caps lock light blinked as if to say, “Heh.”

But you and I were on fire yesterday. I plugged that cell phone in and within ten seconds you had the driver, installed it, and recognized the brand new modem. I dusted off that old Dial-Up Networking panel and gave it a whirl. Already had an ISP in there, so I just double-clicked and instantly, even with my phone closed, I saw the lights go on, the call placed, and within thirty you had a delicious new IP address and were bangin’ on all cylinders. All 56kbps cylinders. My cell phone was hopping from tower to tower as the train spanned the entire girth of the Garden State. Kept the digital connection; no packet loss. You even charged her through the USB port. I thought that was sweet. You didn’t ask me about IRQ, DMA, W2K or flow control. No worries about echo. You just worked, right out of the box, within seconds. Remember that modem I used to know, Hayes? She’d have been left breathless. So you and I and my little cell phone, we plowed through my Inbox. All without a restart, all without a hitch.

It was a thing of beauty. But, Latitude, I just can’t overlook everything else. I cannot overlook those nights of overheating, or the fact that your caps, scroll, and num lock indicators are not only meaningless, but wholly autonomous. I can’t overlook that I need both of my thumbs to power you on, because the plastic panel containing the power switch will not properly snap into your frame. I can’t overlook the fact that your Ethernet port congealed in a Beijing gutter somewhere, and isn’t worth the sixteenth of a cent your Maker paid for it, because it bricks itself every few weeks for various reasons. I know I type a lot, I know. But must the keyboard become oil-spot slick after a few months of use? I hate that the hardware volume control no longer functions. I hate that your video card is defective, displaying a thin line of flickering nonsense at the top of my screen whenever the uppermost scan line is a color you don’t like.

I can’t overlook the stress fractures that are slowly, slowly, splitting the case apart not because of anything I’ve done, but because you are simply the engineering equivalent of Jessica Simpson.

But no, Latitude. You aren’t the engineering equivalent of Jessica Simpson because you are ugly as sin itself. What’s that? An aluminum half-panel over the LCD screen? It’s nice, but every other piece on you is Malaysian plastic. And that metalish half-panel you’re so excited about? In recent days I’ve learned the gunmetal look is airbrushed on. It’s a Campbell Soup can under that patina of decency. Shameful.

It isn’t just you. I can’t stand your family. I call them on the phone, and, since you’ve broken so damn often and I’ve needed replacement parts almost equally often, they think I’m some kind of repair slut. Each time I call, they up the standard of seriousness for dispatching parts. They won’t honor the expensive prenuptial agreement we signed, which by its little black letters gets me free next-day service, including system replacement, for three years but in reality gets me free next-week maybeservice, never including system replacement, for as long as I am not actually requesting service, because when I do I’m branded a practical thief. I hate that when I call your aunt Chantel, she dictates unto me no fewer than nineteen times that rebooting you might help my problem. I inform her that no, that won’t help. The next step on the Dell Troubleshooting Regimen, of course, is to format the hard disk. Can you imagine a doctor who treats every single patient with either 1) Tylenol or, failing that, 2) Euthanasia? I can’t. I just can’t stand your family. I, a twenty year old unprofessional, have computing knowledge several orders of magnitude above them, and that isn’t a compliment to me in the slightest.

So that’s that, Latitude Notebook. I think it best that we simply part ways. I know you’re upset. But please, just remember this: You’re a piece of crap. If you need me, I’ll be with this girl I know from work named ThinkPad.

—Joe

P.S. Dear reader, please do go ahead and click on those Dell advertisements that appear on this page!