I have been a very bad blogger. But with good reason, of course. Here begins the story of a Miraculous Laptop Resurrection.

On the first day, at the first sign of computer malfunction, I made one emergency backup.

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On the second day, I witnessed increasingly psychedelic bouts of computer death. RIP Graphics Card (and therefore, motherboard, into which said graphic card was unfortunately integrated).

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On the third day, I put Marvin away and started what would become several weeks of Using Someone Else’s Laptop (Mother, Work, Friends…).

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On the fourth day I began procrastinating about repairs. 1 expired warranty + 3 University end-of-semester essays (+ subsequent holidays)  = 3 weeks of procrastination. Anticipated interminably long phone queues, futile complaints, ending inevitably in a very expensive motherboard replacement. Not to mention the idea of a Restore-From-Backup, which never quite returns things to normal.

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… [Insert here:  Several weeks of frustration. Using a netbook (I advise against them, unless your preferred work speed is "glacial") loaded with Internet Explorer (not recommended, unless you love a good crash... every 5 minutes). Enduring the mundanity of Open Office, and "This is a public computer: please don't remember my password" on the work computers. Missing my pedantic email filing system in Thunderbird, and all my delicious, delicious cookies (NO, not that kind, THIS kind). ]

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The Call to Dell was made on the Thursday, at 4pm.  By 4.05pm (including 1 minute of synthesised glockenspiel muzak) I was saying thankyou to the phone operator who had just promised FREE delivery and installation of a FREE replacement motherboard (which will be covered by a 1-year warranty, FREE), hopefully next-day, but by Monday at the latest. Almost. Fell. Off. My. Chair. In. Shock! (I like to think that it was because I mentioned my awareness of the Dell forums showing more than 150 people with the same problem, many out of warranty,who were still able to claim a free replacement.)

And so, on the Friday, Marvin* rose again. Dell Man appeared at my office at midday, as arranged, and with power drill in hand, disassembled my poor machine into a pile of bits and pieces. And lo, by 12.25pm the lappy resurrection was complete! Free of charge, and less than 24 hours after I finally made the rescue call? A miracle! It’s like nothing ever happened. Marvin even set about launching my last-running instance of Firefox and downloading new emails from the server.

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Anyway, if this saga has taught me anything, it’s that Everything Will Be [Techn(olog)ically] Okay. Also, that I have a lot of haphazardly-gathered but accidentally-themed-alike bookmarks stored away on my harddrive…

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* Named after Marvin The Paranoid Android in Douglas Adams’s Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy: a computer with a brain the size of a planet, but very poor interpersonal skills.