So I went out and purchased a new laptop this evening, and besides the hit to my credit card, I am taking a hit to my brain.

For instance, where the hell are the buttons that allow me to use the features that I know for a fact to be in this notebook?

With all of the manuals consisting of either a) troubleshooting notes on things that would make me want to pour gasoline on the notebook, or b) contain advertisements of things that I would never in my life buy. The only things that I seem to find are the easily displayed “uninstall” buttons, which ever so eaily delete all of the beautiful features that I just purchased.

Maybe it’s because I have been living happily at home with my 1999 Compaq Presario, where everything definately ran slowly, however, at least it was all clearly labeled.

Even the control panel is conpletely different.

What happened to everything in this world.

I now know what “Brooks” from the Shawshank Redemption must have gone through when he left prison and went to live in that halfway house.