The inverse law of functionality.

The post otherwise entitled ‘In which I go GARAAAAAAgggghhhh rather a lot at inanimate objects’.

I think my many complaints about my no-longer remotely trustable (even for something as normally intuitive as the manner in which to hold a full-to-the-brim virtual bedpan the correct way up, we’d be in for rather a lot of Electronic Brown if I tried it) Intel Rival (TM) Start ‘er Up and Go Make Coffee PC have probably made it quite clear to many of you that I am somewhat of a technological cretin.

When it comes to all things that live in shops behind glass cases, looking sleek and expensive, well, I missed the iodised salt.

Call me Girtie Goitre.

To be honest I find those shops with the bright lights and Gadget Savvy Young People especially intimidating, because I know deep down at gut level that the more the seller proclaims how clever, and easy, and useful something is, it won’t be. They also almost always, with a laughably straight face seriously proclaim how I’ll wonder how I ever managed before.

Ha. Quite well, usually.

Then they hit me (most importantly) with the implication that simply everybody has one and I am the uncoolest individual in the multiverse. Also, no, I can no longer get replacement parts on a chisel and slate. I must upgrade, and by golly, I will LOVE it.

The more of these items that happen in a transaction, bitter experience tells me the more likely the inverse will be true and the Bloody Thing(TM) will accordingly be in and out for repairs for half of it’s usable life. It’s positively guaranteed if I am solemnly informed just what a light-year leap of technological wonder the particular expensive breakable is with regards to the old model.

The old model, you will note, which I never acquired because I was happy with the positively neolithic prior version. Well, after about two years spent getting to know it properly.

If I buy the New Gizmo, I just know I’ll spend the rest of it’s life studiously ignoring the manual on the basis that those things usually only inflame an already delicate situation, writing down birthdays in my diary instead of the incomprehensible organiser. Oh, and charging the bleeping thing.

They all suck power like an electric chair.

Anyway, given both my mobile phone and PC were both doing their level best to die with dignity, the Time Had Come.

Overriding the urge to run, far FAR away from the prospect of spending over a thousand dollars on things that would probably cause significant upset and only result in some unfortunate tendencies to swear loudly in crowds (courtesy of how-the-heck-do-I-work-THIS bluetooth headset, apparently MUCH better than putting a phone to one’s earhole for the mildly hearing impaired), I replaced both items.

My Shiny New Computer, I am relieved to report, does appear to almost offer to make me a cup of tea, rather than allowing time for ME to make one and have it go cold while starting up. For those that care, I am assured it has a Lightening Jack Fast processor, an indecent amount of GiggleBites of best Male Sheep with Horns On (RAM), A Whopping Big Hard Drive and many other goodies I shall only discover when they stop working.

Unfortunately, my old computer had all my Precious Data on it. Data that I simply couldn’t bear losing and so I’ve been rather quiet the last few days, busily using my measly thumb drive (itself only a recent acquisition since computers don’t seen to have disk drives any more) painfully to move files bit by bit onto LS’s PC. A PC from which I could burn it all onto CD’s and thus have Real Backups, just in case everything comprehensively went to shite with BOTH computers at some point.

Trusting aren’t I?

No, to answer the obvious question, I was not deliberately being convoluted, I couldn’t just put them on CD straight from my old computer (even though that would have been infinitely simpler) because the CD drive had gone tits up at some point, and I had resorted to using it in the open position as a drink coaster.

Suffice it to say it takes a bloody long time to transfer five years of odds and sods in this manner, especially when you realise at the very end that the burner is actually a DVD burner (and therefore Huge), so you’ve been needlessly cutting down all your files into neat 700Mb lots and cleverly wasting 30 DVD’s time four gigabloodybites each in the process.

Argh. I suck at this stuff.

Anyway, returning to my point, thus far the new PC itself seems to be fine. I’ve yet to cause it to crash and Christmas does not pass while I wait for it to do something.

The phone, on the other hand?

Let me count the ways it’s f*cked thus far (and I’ve only had it a week):

• Battery unexpectedly has a lifespan more commonly associated with the average gnat, despite happy talk in shop of usability in the hundreds of hours of constant yak-time and gleeful predictions I would forget where I kept the charger.
• Not deigning to recognise the card with the phone directory from my old one, necessitating manual entry of ALL my numbers, and part two of this irritation,
• Not being clear on just how one then copies said painfully entered numbers from the memory on it’s card to on the phone itself, so that THEN it will let me enter birthdays. As far as I can tell it will not let me enter a birthday for somebody unless I have their mobile number stored thusly. That is a bit of a problem for most of the under ten set for which I buy birthday gifts, since I do not have a mind like a steel trap, unless colanders count.
• The fancy little memory card, promised to permit me to store more pictures of the Indian Takeaways than my Real Camera that suffers no role confustion whatsoever and Does Not Moonlight Calling People does (the phone has a better! camera!, anyway!, I am told) , has already turned up it’s delicate tooties and refuses to work.

In summary, one doesn’t need a crystal ball to see that I’m now heading back to the shop for about the third time in the last few days to exchange Broken Gadgets.

Last time, the assistant, smelling impending expense and kicking in whole banks of cost-avoidance circuits, almost flat out refused to exchange the phone on the basis that 36 hours battery life was entirely reasonable (once I’ve purchased it, clearly. It was rather better before I handed over my credit card details).

She caved when I pointed out my very first BrickPhone(TM) performed better than that. More than a decade ago. While she was still in primary school.

Also, I need to whinge at them on the grounds that they haven’t fixed swapping my long-held number across yet, and so I’m resorting to secretly still using the old phone.

When I can get it to work, of course.

Sigh.