One Red Hot Country Mama!

For 9/10 years of my life in the corporate world, I got a company-issued IBM Thinkpad. I grew to like their simple design, their reliability and their sturdiness. So, when I started out as a contractor last year and had to purchase my own computer, I immediately thought of an IBM Thinkpad. At the time, Lenovo had already started the manufacturing of them, but my model still said Thinkpad on it, since they had not yet switched over the brand.

So – after about four weeks of waiting, last September I had a brand spanking new computer. The first thing that surprised me was the large size of it. I had gotten the middle of the line model, but I didn’t expect it to be so… well… huge. My colleagues laughed at me when I told them it was a new computer because it looked so clunky. The feel of it also felt less sturdy and more flimsy. On top of it being an eye-sore, it lacked touch. Opening it and carrying it was not a pleasure.

But, functionality-wise, it worked well.  I could get my work done and the battery lasted a long time so all of the problems seemed more cosmetic than anything else. Not that that can be completely ignored because design is being found more and more to raise the consumer’s willingness to pay – explaining my MacBook purchase earlier this year, which I am very happy with.

Anyway, about a month ago, my left mouse button on my Thinkpad stopped working. I used an external mouse for a while but it was annoying because the left mouse was broken in a way that if you floated over anything long enough, it would become selected, which, as you can imagine, killed productivity. So – 10 years or so of never having a broken IBM, (other than an exceptional time when a lunatic intentionally smashed it), now suddenly, my clunky 1-year-old machine, is totally broken. From me left-clicking too much.

I brought the machine to my hardware guy down the street, who could not fix it – I will have to send it back to the manufacturer. We got to reminiscing about how great Thinkpads used to be. He said that years ago he had an old Thinkpad that came in, that had been smashed to bits, but it was still working! He said it looked like Terminator 2, totally destroyed but still going. Well, the next generation sure does not act like Terminator 2, or even Terminator 1. It is more like cheap plastic crap from Walmart.