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During the last few days, my laptop died, followed by the fancy monitor I use with my desktop. In the course of trying to pick a new monitor, I discovered that my desktop, which I normally replace at the end of its warranty period, was now seven years old and two years out of warranty. (Hmm, guess the death of a close friend two weeks before a global pandemic was the tiniest bit distracting.) Then this morning my washing machine turned up its toes in the middle of a wash cycle.
None of this was surprising. All of these machines had put in a heroic number of years' work. As with my late lamented freezer, my washing machine's brand doesn't even exist any more. But oof.
The worst part of replacing them isn't the money, it's the sheer hassle. When I went to look at washing machine reviews, I discovered that every current machine seems to be built out of leaky tinfoil and has homicidal intentions towards your clothes. This confirms what the washing machine repair guy told me two years ago: he said every current machine seems to be built out of leaky tinfoil and has homicidal intentions towards your clothes. (He also thought my washing machine was on the brink of failure, but I got two more years out of it, so what did he know.) Charming. I ended up ordering a Speed Queen, which is a machine of the old-fashioned type with dials and no complicated electronics to malfunction. Why didn't I just go for this straight away? Because it costs $3,200. This is a painful amount of money, but they're built to last and I expect to get a couple of decades of use out of it, so it seems like a reasonable investment. I'm only grateful that there was one available to buy: it's the middle of a pandemic-induced whiteware drought and I think I literally got the only one in New Zealand. I had nearly resigned myself to hand-scrubbing my clothes in the river.
One down. I've bailed out the washing machine and pried its hoses off the taps ready to haul it off into the garage. (At some other time. Not now, because I can't face it.) On to the computer hardware. When it comes to the PC and the laptop, at least I don't have the washing machine problem, because I already know what brands I'm going to get (Dell and Lenovo) and I'm happy with them. But I work from home and my whole life is on these machines. The disruption from having to move to not just one but new two machines is too horrible to contemplate, especially as the new PC will come whether I like it or not (I don't) with Windows 11. Of course, all that's assuming that I actually have the opportunity to do it all at once. The far more likely scenario is that I have to wait months for both or either of them to arrive.
Off to sort through the endless PCs Dell sells, all slightly different with slightly different prices for no discernable reason. Sigh.
None of this was surprising. All of these machines had put in a heroic number of years' work. As with my late lamented freezer, my washing machine's brand doesn't even exist any more. But oof.
The worst part of replacing them isn't the money, it's the sheer hassle. When I went to look at washing machine reviews, I discovered that every current machine seems to be built out of leaky tinfoil and has homicidal intentions towards your clothes. This confirms what the washing machine repair guy told me two years ago: he said every current machine seems to be built out of leaky tinfoil and has homicidal intentions towards your clothes. (He also thought my washing machine was on the brink of failure, but I got two more years out of it, so what did he know.) Charming. I ended up ordering a Speed Queen, which is a machine of the old-fashioned type with dials and no complicated electronics to malfunction. Why didn't I just go for this straight away? Because it costs $3,200. This is a painful amount of money, but they're built to last and I expect to get a couple of decades of use out of it, so it seems like a reasonable investment. I'm only grateful that there was one available to buy: it's the middle of a pandemic-induced whiteware drought and I think I literally got the only one in New Zealand. I had nearly resigned myself to hand-scrubbing my clothes in the river.
One down. I've bailed out the washing machine and pried its hoses off the taps ready to haul it off into the garage. (At some other time. Not now, because I can't face it.) On to the computer hardware. When it comes to the PC and the laptop, at least I don't have the washing machine problem, because I already know what brands I'm going to get (Dell and Lenovo) and I'm happy with them. But I work from home and my whole life is on these machines. The disruption from having to move to not just one but new two machines is too horrible to contemplate, especially as the new PC will come whether I like it or not (I don't) with Windows 11. Of course, all that's assuming that I actually have the opportunity to do it all at once. The far more likely scenario is that I have to wait months for both or either of them to arrive.
Off to sort through the endless PCs Dell sells, all slightly different with slightly different prices for no discernable reason. Sigh.
