Impending Silence

So… this quarter’s been kinda rough. Personal things, plus almost everyone being away at France… then my phone display crapped out and I was basically without it for a week.

Now this. My laptop’s hinge got knocked out of alignment in a very short tumble off my bed (I think). At first it wasn’t a big deal…and then all of a sudden last week it worsened considerably. I couldn’t open or close it without the casing over the hinge making a terrible cracking noise, and I could see where it was starting to split, too.

Lesson One: Don’t go to Geek Squad.

Yeah fyi? If you’ve got a computer issue, either go to the manufacturer or somewhere you’ve heard good things and trust. I tried Geek Squad because they were in the city and therefore, I thought, more convenient than shipping my laptop off to Dell.

Not. So. Much.

Ordered my box from Dell on Friday and it got in to the campus package center this morning. But last night just as I was going to bed, my laptop proved that it is, I’m pretty sure, suicidal. It took a sudden slide off my bed, through no effort of my own and completely without warning.

In a way, it was like ripping off a bandaid– no worrying about trying to get it closed to put it in the box, cuz now it was DEFINITELY closed. But I still needed to back up my files, blah blah… so I nervously opened it.

This is what it’s supposed to look like:

Sortof. It’s a little out of alignment, because of what’s on the other side…

This is what it actually looks like:

Oops.

Oh yeah, and this piece snapped off too in impact:

There used to be two of those hooks. I found the other one in the carpet, so I’ll be putting it in a ziploc with the first piece, in case they need it.

Right now I’m just hoping Dell doesn’t charge me extra. If they do, I’d deserve it; according to the website the flat rate is 159 (which I already paid) and the only things for which there are additional charges are motherboards and LCDs. The silly thing about this whole situation is that the computer works just fine. There’s nothing wrong with the inside, or with the screen– it’s all superficial damage.

Tonight I’ll be doing a massive backup of everything I have, and tomorrow I’ll be picking up my box and, most likely, shipping it off again. Sooner it goes, sooner it comes back…?

Either way,  I will be online less frequently in the next couple weeks. Dell says ten days to get it back, but I don’t know when the ten days starts.

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