Vehemently Vitriolic

My trusty laptop. My old friend. We have parted ways. Though no nuptials were involved, I took a quiet vow until death-do-us-part, and I took it seriously. You were there for me those long 4-years (5 maybe? Good times pass so much quicker than bad) as I moved from Windows to Gentoo, and then to Ubuntu. You were my constant companion, always by my side, or on my lap, grinning back at me, your face allight making me think. In fact, it is these moments of you gently warming my crotch that I will miss most.

We had our rough spots, as such close partners do, like when I had to smuggle you in the back of the car in a grocery bag with scotch mints so my wife (your arch-nemesis) wouldn’t know you came along on numerous vacations, or that time we spent doing that chessboard algorithm and I raised my hand to you. It was in anger, you understand, at the bishop and his crazy moves. Not at you, but at positive and negative diagonal moves, but you forgave me and we moved on.

I knew you were in ill health. Your DC-jack had come loose, and the power had to be held in with various band-aids (sometimes literally, sometimes with hockey-tape). The trip to the doctor yielded a hefty bill I was unable to pay, but we both thought homepathic remedies might fix it. And for a while, though we grew distant as your battery slowly drained, it seemed perhaps a cut-rate surgeon and a new kidney from eBay for $7.99 including shipping might be enough to save you. I had to leave you alone, you understand, until the organs came in. Perhaps this was an oversight on my part, and I was not there to see you slip further into the void.

And so it was, that when I fired you up today to help my friend figure out her wireless networking problems, you had one final spark of life as I typed in iwconfig, and then went into the abyss of blackness in a puff of smoke. Blu-ish smoke. Your favorite colour. How ironic.

My Toshiba A30, I shall never forget you! Replace you with something with a screen that can be seen in even the slightest of direct sunlight, perhaps, but you will never be forgotten, mostly becuase of the memory upgrade that cost me nearly $100 becuase of your outdated RAM-type. Rest in peace, little A30.

The A30 leaves behind an ASUS P7A and a Nokia phone. Cash payments to the “Holy crap the EEE looks sweet” memorial fund are asked for in lieu of flowers.