Musings & Thoughts for Tuesday, April 5, 2022, or: My New Lenovo IdeaCentre is Here

“Computers are heaven-sent when they work and hell-spawn when they don’t.

There’s just not much middle ground when it comes to technology.” ― Dani Harper

My new computer – a Lenovo IdeaCentre AIO 3 AMD All-in-One – arrived at our Tampa Bay area house yesterday at 5:01 PM Eastern, two days after my Lenovo C560 All-in-One unexpectedly stopped working. Right now, it’s still in its Amazon shipping box, propped up next to our dining room table, where it will stay until the weekend. I need to police the area around my desk and find a place for my dead C560 – we have to remove that PC’s hard drive and destroy it so no one can access my files and personal info – before we assemble the new Lenovo IdeaCentre All-in-One.  That last part isn’t too difficult; it’s just a matter of attaching the All-in-One to its stand and plugging in the power cord. The keyboard and mouse are wireless, so there are no pesky cables – besides the power cord – to mess with.

I have mixed feelings about this development. I’m unhappy that I had to buy a new PC at all; the Lenovo C560 was not brand new, of course; I bought it in Miami in August 2014, 11 months before my mother died and 20 months before Stage One of my move to Lithia. Still, considering it was nearly eight years old, it was – per the last diagnostic test it underwent a few weeks before – in good health. It was a bit slower than when it was brand new, but not alarmingly so. As I have said in earlier posts, it was normally

I am also less than thrilled at the cost; I have a fixed income due to my disability, and even though the Caregiver charges me a generously low monthly rent, I still must pay that before anything else. As a result, I can’t buy, say, an Apple Mac – which I can’t do anyway because all of my software (productivity-related and gaming) is for Windows – or an extravagantly expensive PC that would cost over $800. The IdeaCentre PC I ordered on Sunday would have cost over $800 (its regular price is $799.99 before taxes are added) had it not been on sale.

Per my invoice:

Item(s) Subtotal:	$699.99
Shipping & Handling:	$0.00
	—–
Total before tax:	$699.99
Estimated tax to be collected:	$52.50
	—-

               Grand Total:                                    $752.49

If it wasn’t for the monthly rent responsibility on my shoulder, I could pay this amount off in a couple of months. As it is, though, I will probably have to spread my payments over a longer period – say, 10 months or so – because in addition to my rent, I also must pay for my Amazon Music and Disney+ subscriptions.

“The fact that not one has ever laughed tells us much about computers. Either that, or it tells us much about our jokes.” ― John Alejandro King a.k.a. The Covert Comic

That having been said, I am grateful that I can buy a personal computer in the first place; when I told the Caregiver what had happened with the Lenovo C560 on Saturday, she didn’t say, “Well, you should just use your laptop; it’s only a year old and it has Windows 11, so you don’t need a new computer at all.” Nor did she remind me of my responsibilities as a tenant or say, “Make sure I get my rent money, Alex.”  On the contrary, she was both understanding and enthusiastic about the new IdeaCentre.

As a friend wrote on my Facebook page yesterday:

“It’s always a pain to get a new one and set (it) up and all that, but most of the time, you end up with a computer that’s better than the old one, and that’s always fun.”

Yes, that’s true.

Well, I don’t have anything else to report, so I’ll close for now. Until next time, Dear Reader, stay safe, stay healthy, and I’ll catch you on the sunny side of things.