Failing

So remember how in Be Kind, Rewind Jack Black's character gets magnetized and thus wreaks the havoc that propels the film? Well, recently I've been wondering if I may have stumbled into some sort of unfortunate field that is currently causing the failure of my personal electronics.

The first to go was my cell phone. For months its battery life had been steadily diminishing, until a brief phone call or two and a few text messages were all it could handle before beginning to beep at me. Last week, however, the screen began to go out. I could receive calls and text messages, but until the screen decided to reappear (which could occasionally be prompted by plugging it in, unplugging it, turning it off and on, removing the battery, or having someone nearby call me) I could neither place outgoing calls nor read my text messages.

I loved my Red Razr (I knew it was cool, because my junior high students who had to use it to call their parents last summer told me so, or breathed its name in a sort of awe), but Sprint doesn't seem to offer it anymore. Yesterday I bought the only other shiny red phone they were offering, the Samsung Rant. It's slightly bulkier and heavier than the Razr, but it does have a nifty slide-out keyboard, and should have a longer battery life than the Razr did even at its peak. Hopefully I'll even be able to figure out soon how to stop it from defaulting to speakerphone on incoming calls.

Next up was my camera. I've mentioned before that the flash stopped working a few weeks ago, but on the trip back from Santa Rosa it started doing a new thing where the display--and resulting photos--are smeary blue and purple blurs. Thankfully, I've discovered that a smart tap on the side returns it to normal; I hope that this solution holds.

Finally, the ailments of my beloved Lappy have been well chronicled here, from its asthmatic wheezing and fuscia-tinged screen to its mouse drift. Even in its top running condition, the letters are still worn off the keys, a sizeable patch of the touchpad coating has worn off, the screen is scratched, and the plastic around the power button likes to snap out of place and gape alarmingly. ("Hasn't your computer been in hospice for the past year and a half?" my sister asked.)

Yesterday, however, I thought I had lost it for good. The screen flashed off and on as I was booting up, and I eventually encountered the Blue Screen of Death (I gave my camera a whack and took a picture). I was able to get back in after starting in safe mode, but only managed about ten minutes of work before the screen went black in the middle of attempting to Google, for my dad, the new version of NEWSTART.* Thereafter, I couldn't get back in at all...

...until this morning! This morning my computer let me boot up in safe mode, and I transferred a few files to my flash drive. I wanted to burn a back-up CD, but my disc drive didn't seem to be working. I thought I'd try restarting in "safe mode with networking," but it wouldn't turn on again. It remained locked up this afternoon, but later this evening I was able to get back in in safe mode. I am, in fact, typing on said Lappy, having transferred the last of the files I wanted to be sure to save, and having downloaded Nvidia drivers in the hopes of installing them and eking a few more useful hours or days from this very old, very tired machine.

I don't think there's a moral to this story. I'm thinking about buying another Dell laptop; thoughts or suggestions?

*This is one of those things that's basically impossible to Google; can any of you Alert Readers answer this question? If you have no idea what I'm talking about, just ignore this.