i shall name it lazarus the second

i ordered a laptop a very short while ago. the decision was one born of a desire for greater mobility in my writing, the cheapness found after some nice offers, the knowledge of an extended home trip, and some other things. the laptop was due to arrive in late-late april. like the 30th. knowing what shipping stuff is actually like, however, i anticipated a mid-may delivery.

it came today.

i am happy about this, don't get me wrong. just a bit shocked, really. it wasn't even 10 days. so much for 2-4 weeks, yes? now, let me preface what i'm about to say with this: downgrading vista is possible.

this little laptop runs vista, you see. i've hated vista from the moment i met it.

+ do you want to do this? YES. are you sure? YES. vista needs your permission to begin doing this. YES, YOU HAVE MY PERMISSION. should we begin? YES, ALREADY! DO IT! [sounds of hair being pulled out by the roots]

+ little things are renamed for no logical reason. they are hidden where they shouldn't be. some of this is understandable. i'm cool with it. but why rename "add/remove programs" of all things? it made sense before. now you have to guess that it's in a programs thing and then go into that to see whether they'll LET you delete stuff. stuff that you should be allowed to delete, like a powerpoint viewer. not a powerpoint program. a viewer. something that lets you look at stuff. you can't delete it. it sucks up nearly 90 megs and you can't delete it. can't repair it, either.

+ the shut down button? doesn't actually shut anything down. etc.

so anyway, i've had my problems with vista. but in order to downgrade vista in this case, it seems i'll have to do some fiddling in the BIOS, create some imaging cds, install all the drivers fresh, install the xp, and hope to high heaven i don't have hardware failure, because d*ll would never support a system after this kind of reworking.

i paid for a 3 yr warranty on this laptop against flaky hardware. just in case, because you never know whether your computer is part of a bad batch. i'm not too keen on the idea that i'll have to reformat my system every time i need to call d*ll for service (so i can demonstrate that i'm running vista), and then put it all back together again.

so i've decided to heave a deep sigh and run the vista. until i come back in the fall. i'll bring all my software etc. with me when i go home, and i'll have everything necessary should something flake out. but i'll be doing the vista thing. [are you sure? yes, i'm sure.]

by fall i'll either loathe vista with a newfound passion or i'll have come to terms with what i logically know to be a functional enough--if highly irritating--operating system. because you know what? i'm using this laptop for writing. i'll be using the office software, the darkroom software, the spider solitaire, and perhaps some internet researching stuff. it's not like i'll watch videos, game extensively, or do any high-powered whatnot with it. if it's slow when doing these things, i won't know.

if it types, it'll do. yes? and yeah, if i eat my words come fall, we'll all have a belly laugh.

love and peace.

PS: vista is pretty. i'll give it that. gave it that from the beginning. shiny. bubbular. all smooth and shit around the edges. f-ed up in the brain, but pretty.