It’s 11:30 on Thursday night and I’m up, tapping a blog post into my phone. Something isn’t right.
The Acer Chromebook that was at last delivered to replace the one I bought last June and subsequently sent for service four separate times has also died. Well, not died exactly. Yesterday morning, the screen suddenly developed an ominous shadow in the lower left corner, and I watched in horror as the shadow swallowed up the entire screen in a matter of seconds. Restarting the computer brought the screen back, but only for a moment before The Shadow returned and victimized the pixels again.
I contacted customer service, eyes fully open. I was advised to send it in for repair and to pay all the packing and shipping myself. Nope. Not doing it. I’m not putting another cent into this or any Acer product.
11:38. I’ve read three chapters of Duck Season: Eating, Drinking, And Other Misadventures in Gascony–France’s Last Best Place, which I picked up at my local library yesterday. This is my new reading discipline: one book at a time from the library. I have a full queue. I don’t allow myself to place a hold on a book until I’ve finished the one I’ve already got checked out.
This one was in my queue because I met the author. His daughter is Baby Girl’s classmate. We met at a playdate in May, and over the course of some small talk he revealed that he was a food writer who had spent a year living in rural France and another year penning a book for Harper Collins about it. I added it to my chipublib.org “for later” shelf that very day.
It’s good. He’s deft with adjectives like “ascetic,” and he describes duck fat in terms that make me want to pour it over cereal. It’s also pertinent to me that he’s telling a story about taking his kid away from her home and the second guessing such a move prompts. No amount of duck fat or crepes will silence those.
11:49. 10 more minutes and I could parrot a Michael Franti song. Another day, if I’m unlucky. Tonight I’ve said enough.
Sleep soundly.
YoRocko! 