My Computer Sucks.
This entry is going to quickly develop into a rant, but you should read it anyway. And I’m even more angry because Microsoft deactivated my Hotmail account. It isn’t my primary e-mail address anymore, but I’m pretty sure there was some important stuff saved on there that got deleted. Hopefully it won’t end up being too important.
Anyone who has been reading my blog for any amount of time has probably realized by now that I am cursed with a computer that is, in my opinion, worthless. According to Hewlett-Packard, I’m almost correct: according to their PC trade-in site, it’s worth exactly $39. I somehow find it hard to believe that it was ever worth $1200 to begin with. Perhaps my parents were exaggerating, and it’s actually just a cheap, $500 almost-Celeron “starter PC”. Which I guess is like a starter home, except they sell starter PCs to anyone who is computer illiterate, hoping to make another $1000 off of them in two years when their hardware is already obsolete.
I suppose I should start with the specifications:
Processor - Intel Pentium III 533 Mhz 256K Cache
Memory - 384 MB PC-133 SDRAM (Upgraded for $50 from 128 MB)
Video Card - NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 256MB PCI (Upgrade from on-board video for $120)
Hard Drive - Seagate Quantum Fireball 20 GB ATA-100
Optical Drive 1 - HP CD-Writer Plus 8000 Series (CD-RW, 32×4x8)
Optical Drive 2 - Generic 16x DVD-ROM Drive (w/ CD playback)
Floppy Drive - Generic
Sound Card - Unknown, some kind of cheap sound card/modem combo made by a company that went bankrupt. (Rockwell Riptide Sound/Conexant Modem)
Cable Modem - Motorola SURFboard SB-400
Speakers - Gateway2000 Dolby-Surround 2.1
Peripherals - Standard Keyboard; Wireless Optical Mouse; HP DeskJet 612C Series Printer; HP ScanJet 3500C Series Scanner
Case - Generic frilly plastic thing, impossible to open (takes at least two people)
Monitor - HP M70 17″ Monitor
Operating System - Windows XP (Upgraded from Windows 98SE for $100)
Now you know my pain. I just realized that all of my sad HP products end in ‘C’ (Pavilion 8660C computer, DeskJet 612C printer, ScanJet 3500C scanner). Now I wonder what the C means, and I begin to think that it could mean one of the following: crappy, cheap, corduroy, Canada, carp, Carly [Fiorina, CEO of HP]. Too bad I don’t really like any of the possibilities. I will never buy a computer from a “discount” or “starter” vendor ever again.
And then I cringe to think of the $270 spent on this thing to keep it running. It’s just sad. I’m tired of upgrades; it’s like throwing money down a bottomless pit, or into a black hole. Worse, it’s starting to show signs of age. The fan died not long ago after four years of good performance; it took $40 to replace it because HP doesn’t use standard parts (there was this big hood thing that directed the air to the processor, rather than a processor fan). And now iTunes has been skipping sometimes when playing music, though I think it might be the sound card, not the program, that is having issues. This morning, my mom couldn’t log into her VPN because certain services wouldn’t start. It seems I’ve pushed Windows too far by keeping it running for over a year without reimaging the computer from scratch.
It’s amazing to think that, when we first brought it home, I was thrilled to be getting a new computer. I was just as naive then as one of the neighbor kids who lives nearby. His family recently got a new Athlon XP 3000+-based system made by, who else, but HP. He seems to think that he is techno-savvy, but I had to help him register a Hotmail account, and he can’t even figure out iTunes, probably the easiest-to-use program in the world. And then, when I was over at their house a few weeks ago getting the new computer set up and running according to their needs, he asks his mom if he can have some friend or another over to work on it the next day because I wasn’t doing things the way he thought they should be done. I could barely control my anger, and was about to arrogantly proclaim that I probably knew more about computers than anyone within a ten-mile radius when he pipes up again, saying, “[insert friend here] can build his own computer. He’s done it lots of times.”
Furious inside, I just kept smiling and nodding. Who was he to tell me that his friend was better just because he could put a computer together? More than likely, this friend had rich parents who gave him whatever he wanted, so it was no big deal if he fried a motherboard. And then there was silence since he knew that I hadn’t built a computer of my own (yet), though he was obviously too thick-headed to realize that computers are expensive, even when you build them yourself, and I hadn’t the money to buy all the parts yet. He still thinks I’m just some smart kid who is good enough with computers to use Word. Urge to kill rising!
But I shouldn’t take out my anger on this kid alone. Other people are the same way. They assume, automatically, usually because of my age, that I am only a self-proclaimed computer geek who is good at pretending to know what he is talking about. And what am I supposed to say? Any attempt to refute those thoughts comes off as immodest. They learn, eventually, as I shock them by miraculously making their computer run four times as fast as normal, or by getting that seemingly irrecoverable data back from the depths of the abyss. Maybe I should get RHCE or MSCE certified, or something. Anything to show people that I am more than your token geek, your simple tinkerer.
It would help to have a particularly impressive computer system. Imagine walking around with an Alienware laptop tucked under your arm. People know you’re a geek immediately, of course, but they also think, “Wow, that looks cool…that kid must know a lot about computers to get such a nice laptop.” The same thing happens when they walk into your room to find it glowing blue because of lighted fans shining through a see-through side window. What a nightlight that would be.
But I don’t even want that. I just want power inside, not a pretty looking case or a 30″ flat-panel monitor. I’m happy with a beige-box and a CRT. But even with tradeoffs, the total still comes to about $1300. Meaning that I need money. My target date is my birthday, June 21, 2004, and I only have about $600 total. Add that to promises of summer work with Mr. Trapani, and I just might make it. I can even build the PC in his lab, if I want.
But now I’m having misgivings. Is all this work really worth it? I’ve been scraping and saving (while still spending a bit) since October. I stand to get a few more bucks in birthday money, and I’m going to ask my parents to just give me money rather than gifts. But even then…I’ve worked so hard, for so long…sometimes I just want to give up. I’ve even contemplated investing in the stock market instead, which might be a better decision. It really all depends on how much money I end up having.
Conservative Budget Estimate
Current Funds: $300
Accounts Receivable: $240
Monthly Revenue: $60 (chores) + $100 (websites) = $160/month
Monthly Expenses: $60
Monthly Profits: $100
Account Total by June 21: ~$700
With Birthday Money: ~$900
With Possible Trapani Earnings (assuming $15/hour for 4 hours/day): ~$1200
So I can still make it. And certain unexpected pitfalls may come through, such as my parents finally giving in and helping me to pay for it. Just $200, or even a $200 loan, would make a big difference. I could easily pay for a system from Best Buy in 6 months using their 6-month zero-interest policy if my mom would let me.
Bringing up the subject of my mom, I sometimes wonder if she is just plain against me having a new computer. Every suggestion I make, she won’t even listen. My dad is usually pretty open (it was he who got me all the upgrades), but mom just continues to resist. The only time I’ve even seen her use a computer for more than an hour or so was one night a couple of years ago when she played Roller Coaster Tycoon for four or five hours straight. I was amazed, and slightly bemused. But she never did such a thing again.
I know that we (my family) aren’t insanely wealthy (quite the opposite), and that we’ve had lots of expenses lately, such as a new car, new kitchen appliances, etc., but I don’t think that a couple hundred bucks is that much to ask for, especially if I promise to pay them back. They certainly won’t use the new computer as much as I will, but they use it enough that it will make a difference to them. And my mom even said that if I get a laptop she’ll take it on the road with her as a work computer when she needs one. Fat chance, if I don’t get any help with paying for it. And again, I understand that my parents pay for a lot of things, like cable Internet access and satellite TV, but isn’t that a parent’s obligation? My parents continue to use the fact that they feed and clothe me as an excuse to give me nothing that I can be proud of owning, and it’s just not right.
I’m at risk of coming off as incredibly ungrateful here, and I know it and am grateful for everything I have, but I’m just tired of having that fact pinned on me any time I want something. Do you know, I’ve never received a gift, or anything else, from my parents without an occaision? Other kids get new things all the time. They get new clothes, new cars, new gadgets, whatever, but I get nothing. I barely even get new clothes; it takes pressure from me to even get them to “splurge” for a new pair of pants. It took me six months of pleading to even get cable Internet access, and then they told me that it was my 8th grade graduation present. There always has to be an occaision.
Why? Because my parents grew up poor, or at least lower middle class. Both of them come from families that owned farms where they had to work hard to get anything they wanted. And when they were newlyweds, with me about to be born, they somehow subsisted off of $20 per week. Remember this was in the late 1980s when there was something of a recession going on, making it hard to get by for anyone. But my parents stuck it out and didn’t request money from their parents, nor did they take out huge loans (I think our credit cards are nearly paid off now). It may have taken 15 years to become financially sound, but they did it without help, only careful planning and saving.
And after all those hard times, it makes sense that they would want to reap the rewards of being a standard American middle-class family and start getting a few things that we didn’t have before. My mom’s Malib four-door sedan (no ‘u’ because it peeled off in the heat) was traded for a Toyota Sequoia (big SUV thing), and the refrigerator, oven, kitchen sink faucet, and dishwasher were replaced with better ones. Every single room in our house was painted by my mom and dad when we moved in. We got a new pool vacuum. This computer was bought in February 2000. There are faux wooden blinds in every room. Our house is one of the best-looking (on the inside) on the entire block.
And it’s hard to complain about things like that, but I must truthfully say that I don’t really use any of them. Our old stove, refrigerator, and dishwasher weren’t that bad, and I only ride in our new car perhaps four times a week. The one thing that I would truly appreciate, a new computer, is always out of reach. And anytime I try to come up with a compromise between myself and my parents, they launch into the “we went through hard times as kids and so should you” speech that always leaves my mom with tears in her eyes. I get it. Life is hard, and nor is it fair, as my parents like to remind me. But if this is true, and their lives were hard as children, why would they want to subject their own children to a less-painful form of the same thing? Some kind of sick revenge? No. And it’s wrong to say that I’m suffering or anything.
But when I’m at school, and kids talk about their 10,000 square-foot houses and their ten computers, one begins to become envious, even jealous. What can I say; I’m only human. But when I look at all they have and compare it to what I have, my belongings seem very scant. Truthfully, I don’t really have that much in things of my own, anyway. Some computer games/programs, clothes…that’s about it. One of my good friends has a dad who is very much into technology, and they have somewhere around five computers, about one for each family member. Just to have a single good one would please me, and then I won’t ask for another thing for another four years.