Dear Gateway

I would like to extend thanks to Gateway for manufacturing a laptop that has a life of approximately 14 months and for their wonderful helpline that is closed at the weekend and once open unwilling to assist in any way with the repair of their products, going as far as to say "that's the rules" and hanging up. The motherboard has died, nothing can be done and the laptop is effectively for the bin, once I've retrieved the stuff off the hard drive. Yes, cheap, but it is unacceptable to sell a product that a) comes with insufficient memory to run the operating system that is installed on the stupid thing, b) that completely dies just out of warranty (trading standards would expect the lifetime of a computer to exceed 14 months) and c) having technical support that is not open over the weekend despite saying so on the label on the stupid product and that are sufficiently rude to say "too bad" and hang up. I HATE being hung up on. I know that it's the motherboard, how does the guy on the end of the phone know that I'm not an idiot making wild guesses and that I have everything connected correctly? Should he not have asked some questions? Should he not have apologised? Should he not have said goodbye?

Just to be a little churlish I would like to say that Gateway laptops are extremely rubbish, that I am very unhappy with Gateway laptops, that I will never again buy a Gateway laptop or indeed any other computer product by Gateway that may or may not include laptops, and that anyone thinking about buying a Gateway laptop should think very carefully and probably find that a different laptop that isn't a Gateway laptop would be a better choice than getting a laptop from Gateway.



Oh, and for the record, there's little operator error can do to break a motherboard. Especially when the operator's me. Huh, huh, strop, huff, etc.

Further irritation today: even godlike people can annoy. I may be a child (although I'm sure 33 makes me a grown up) but that doesn't mean I'm oblivious to things that happened before I was old enough. Struggle. Huh. I'm only going to communicate with people under 25 today.

Someday I may unleash the stuff that's in my head about Led Zeppelin tributes (called The Levee Breakers incidentally), the need to move 255 miles south, and scuzzy hotels, but for now pensiveness beats cursiveness and I shall daydream my day away.