How Did We Get So Dependent on These Machines?

The laptop crashed last week. We were devastated. Being without a computer suddenly is a bit like having your house burn down--you keep reaching for things that used to be there, and you keep realizing the loss of even more things. No banking, no addresses, no phone numbers, no weather report, no photographs, no record of upcoming appointments or birthdays, no working on the taxes, no blogging, no looking up words, no translations, no recipes--and I haven't even gotten to no email.  Of course, we had a backup, but of course, it wasn't really recent enough.

We did what first aid we could, then bundled the little machine that contained our entire world off to Tech Boys. Came home, sat around looking at each other. Couldn't look up movies to add to our Netflix queue. Couldn't check to see how many library books we had out or when they were due. Couldn't read our favorite blogs, or the news, or the obituaries from back east (a secret hobby of mine). Jumped in the car and drove 90 miles to Lubbock, Texas and spent just under ten minutes giving up a lot of cash to get a MacBook. 

Great decision, I must say. The Macs were more expensive than the PCs, but were on sale and not as much as we had anticipated (read: feared). But this little baby came loaded with features we had never seen in all our years of Microsoft products. A built-in microphone! A built-in video camera! Great graphics! Voices (it can talk to us and displays a great sense of humor)! Incredible media tools! It was easy to set up, except for the horrid moment when Beez tried installing enough Windows stuff to transfer over our old files and the computer FROZE. Luckily, the Mac expects this and came with instructions as to what to do in this exact situation. 

So we are back in business. Here's a question for you, fellow bloggers--have your computers been crashing lately? It seems that several of you have mentioned problems, including June and maybe Linda? Or Sylvia?