Second Life – Ahuva’s Blog

2 Faces of Ahuva

relaxing at The Vault — Relaxing after a long day at the spa

I am having NO difficulty getting into the vacation mind-set this week. Let me clarify that a little – MY vacation mind-set. As you know, I spent Monday at Spa Ahuva. That night I sat down and made a list of all the things I needed to get done this week, things I’d like to get done this week, things that at some point need to get done around the house, and the list of this month’s donations. I had everything written down – 4 separate pad pages. Impressed with how industrious I was going to be, I treated myself to logging in to SL to hear Calli DJ’ing. She was at The Vault, doing a set of sultry tunes. It was the perfect end to a lovely day. I relaxed, chatted with the friends who were there, listened to the tunes, and savored the moment. I went to bed and slept a good sleep – the result of spending the day at the spa and the wonderful music.

Always good to hear DJ Calli spin the tunes

I woke up the next day and stayed in bed, listening to my husband puttering about (he’s VERY noisy in the morning). There was no BC to come and cuddle. She hadn’t ‘tucked me in’ last night, either. So really – it was all HER fault. I was relaxed, thinking no need to move, let my husband feed the cats, when all of a sudden I realized: IT’S TUESDAY!!!!! I need to make 100 sandwiches this morning. It was about 10 to 8 in the morning. Lately I’ve been getting there about 8:05. I jumped out of bed yelling “It’s Tuesday – I need to make sandwiches”. I threw on my clothes, brushed my teeth, made a to-go cup of iced coffee, called to my husband – take care of the cats and raced out the door. I made it there by 8:20. 🙂 The other 3 were already there. When I walked in, Helene called out “The Birthday Girl!!!!” It’s true – they were 2 days early, but I’d already said I was taking off Thursday. Jay had baked me cookies, and they had prezzies for me and my brother-in-law, who also makes the sandwiches on Tuesdays. They had face masks from the soup kitchen we are supporting. They also brought the Birthday Crown for me to wear. 🙂 I need to return it next Tuesday because Helene’s birthday is the following week and SHE needs the crown then. 🙂 As you can see – I look stunning.

birthday princess — I have taken better pictures. Please remember that is unwashed hair. Was not intending to have the “off the shoulder look” – just part of the total being off-balance

We got the sandwiches and lunch bags done and out the door by 9:30. The stupid squirrels had dug up my dill, and my radishes had died, so I had 2 empty pots that needed flowers. I decided to give up on herbs and vegetables for the rest of the season. I’d planned to go way down to my favorite nursery, but was too lazy and befuddled at that point. Missing the morning routine had me completely off balance. I went to the nearest big box store to find something that would supply bright color and survive the sun (the temps have been in the 90s now for over a week). Well, I saw some canna lilies there at a very reasonable price. They looked so neglected. They looked like they deserved to be rescued. I did what had to be done – I bought 2 canna lilies and 2 pots of yellow marigolds. They were sooooo root-bound. Let’s hope they flower.

canna lily 1 — I do hope it flowers – it was so root-bound

I came home, still somewhat off-balance. I looked at my many lists. I made it to the chiropractor that afternoon, before he left on vacation. The nerve! Who said HE could take a vacation??? I made a few phone calls (on my list, unlike making the sandwiches), crossed off buying flowers. I paid the bills, made the donations, and decided the rest of the chores could just wait until tomorrow. 🙂 I have to say, this is the first vacation where I am truly not thinking about work. I see the emails come through on my phone, but I just delete the garbage, mark others as read, and then stop thinking about them. I’m not at all tempted to just send one email, just do one thing. I have a password that is going to expire this week. I’m trying to decide if I should logon and deal with it or just let it expire and deal with it when I return. This vacation is proving a point that my dear friend Honour has been making for years: There is so much to DO if you are not working. I’m NOT going to be bored. Okay, most of my lists are what some would call ‘chores’, but for me they are very satisfying. I’m finally fixing and changing things around the house that have annoyed me for years. There might be something to this whole concept of ‘retirement’.

canna lily 2 — This one looks in better shape. Gorgeous leaves even if it doesn’t flower

On Vacation

rudbeckia — Beautiful golden Rudbeckia Laciniata Hortensia

I started my one week vacation at 5:36 pm Friday night. *grin* That’s when I posted my last document to the team and signed out of all my applications and shut down my computer. Ahhhhh. We headed over to my sister’s where my brother-in-law had made the PERFECT Shabbat dinner: chicken, broccoli, potatoes, challah and SALT STICKS!!!! Oh my, his bread is absolutely amazingly delicious. As was the entire dinner. I drank too much white wine but I kept toasting “To Vacation!”.

We came home, STILL running the air conditioners. Maybe that doesn’t sound odd to you folk who live in modern houses with central air. I live in a house that is nearly 100 years old. MY air conditioners are all window units. I hate the sensation of being locked into the house. I love open windows, fresh air, fans moving the air. We’ve had the a/c going for 8 days straight. That may be a record.

incipient canna lily — Looks like this canna lily will be the first to bloom. surrounded by Bolton’s Aster (False Starwort)

It was Friday, I was on vacation, I was a little tipsy, and I was not in the mood to watch TV or read. What to do? Second Life. 🙂 I logged in. An “old” friend was inworld – I’d not chatted with her in at least 8 years. I pinged her and we had a lovely, lovely chat. We caught up on life, life under the pandemic, and then had a WONDERFUL time chatting about our cats and cats in general. 🙂 I also chatted with another “old” friend – one with whom I’ve maintained contact over the years. I know that some people do not feel as if this kind of connection is ‘real’. I’m sorry for those folks, because in times like this pandemic, for those of us who believe in social distancing, the ability to be together virtually does wonders for my emotional health. I’m looking at scenes that tell my brain I am out and about and interacting with friends. It really works for me. I only wish I could reconnect with some of my friends who are no longer in SL – Dale, Zha, Chestnut, Honour, Jessica, Oura, Svea, Alem, Fricker Fraker, Winston and all the rest. We had such fun back in the day.

is this a squash — I seem to be growing a squash of some sort. It snuck in with the flowers

Now here I am, the first morning of vacation. I treated myself by staying in bed an extra 90 minutes. BC was obliging. She did jump onto the bed after the first 60 minutes, but settled in when I began rubbing behind her ear. 🙂 She often prefers love to food. When I finally went downstairs and outside to bring in the newspapers, I discovered that the temperature and humidity were at a reasonable summer level. I opened ALL the windows. Yet another pleasure on this first day of vacation!

look at this bug — Just LOOK at this bug. It was huge. I have no idea what it is

It’s Been 12 Years

perfect hibiscus — Most beautiful hibiscus with white superbells

That’s what WordPress tells me – 12 years ago today I started blogging. That sounds about right because my SL birthday is June 26. Wow. Twelve years. So much has changed. I don’t blog much about SL anymore. I’m not even in contact with most of my SL friends, even though I met so many of them F2F. Maudlin though it might sound – they are all still very much a part of me. Very real to me even if it’s been years. My SL life was so vivid. Intense. It started me on a great path that led to a new job, a new outlook on life, a new me. I think my enjoyment of taking and framing pictures began with all those zillions of screen shots. 🙂 Prior to SL I’d been curating a haiku board on someone else’s website, but blogging my SL life gave me a whole new way to write. I thank all of you who follow me and who just drop in to visit. 🙂 Having reminisced, I know to move on and talk about cats and food and flowers. 🙂

outake from bc's photo session — An out-take from BC’s photo session 🙂

I don’t think I have any new cat pictures to share. WC is not feeling very well. She’s spent most of today under the bed. 😦 She and GC will be 18 in August. They’re entitled to whatever foibles they care to exhibit. BC says she has no foibles. She is a work cat, she says, helping me get things done. Funny, somehow whenever she is in my lap while I’m working, my productivity rate slows.

perfect baked rolls — c’mon – LOOK at these rolls! they are PERFECT!!!

I do have some food pictures I haven’t shared yet. 🙂 You’re probably tired of me raving about the perfect 40 minute rolls. I baked a PERFECT batch of them the other night. I also made sesame noodles and coleslaw that night. I’m wanting the wheatberry salad but that takes a lot more time and effort.

swamp milkweed — Swamp milkweed and goose neck

And of course the garden. There are ALWAYS pictures of flowers and plants. I get such joy from the flowers. I have 2 rose mallow plants growing in the front garden. They are a variety of hibiscus – perennial in this zone. I’m hoping that they thrive. It would be such a joy to have hibiscus flowers every year. I don’t think the colors will be as spectacular as the tropical hibiscus but I think the size of the rose mallow flower is much larger. Only time and good fortune will tell!

grape tomatoes ready for harvesting

My grape tomatoes are ripening! The radishes are doing something, but I really think they are doing something odd, not something radishy. I am sure they are growing down and long, not round. The bits of red I can see between the leaves and the soil look distinctly oblong, not spherical. I’m giving them a bit longer. No pictures of those yet.

canna lilies pre planting — 3 dark leaved cannas, 2 green leaved cannas – ready for a home in the ground

I had to hunt down canna lilies this year. Last year I had no trouble finding them and I noticed that the butterflies seemed to really enjoy them. I already told you my thrill upon seeing one of those tropicana canna lilies wintered over and is growing. I have a recollection that I usually head out the last week in June to get my cannas. I went out on Saturday. Unlike my usual style I’ll cut this story short. It took me over 1.5 hours to find them. 3 Home Depots, 1 Lowes, 1 of my usual nurseries and a Walmart. It was the 3rd Home Depot where I finally found some. They were not all that great looking either. 2 of them had tags indicating variety, the other 3 did not. I’m hoping they are tropicanas because those grow to 6 feet. I was planning to go online and pay whatever I had to pay to get some cannas if that last store had not had them. I was exhausted, it had started raining, the humidity was horrible and I was distraught at the idea of no cannas. There were 7 left at the store. At one point I had all of them in my cart, but then I put 2 back. I wasn’t really sure I could fit 7 in the garden (they get fairly large) and I thought maybe someone else was hunting for cannas as crazed as I was by the scarcity. I promise you a picture as they get larger.

cactus with weeds — It HURTS to get stuck by the cactus when I’m trying to remove the weeds

My lovage is doing very well in its new location. The ones I left behind in the planter are not as happy. I do like the blue flowers. 🙂 Do you have any idea how difficult it is to weed around a cactus? They don’t seem to appreciate the effort I make to keep their pots clear of clover and other weeds.

flowering lovage — Blue lovage flowers and a very healthy lovage plant

My pollinator plants are doing well. I have lots of bees all over the goose neck (Lysimachia clethroides) and the swamp milkweed. No one seems to have discovered the hyssop or the butterfly weed yet. I hope the butterflies get here. 🙂 Can the bees use up all the good parts???

flowering hyssop (see the rudbeckia leaf behind it???)

12 years. wow. 🙂

Taking Another Step Away

I treated myself and bought a new computer. It arrived yesterday – a Lenovo Yoga 730. I got the active pen as well, about which I know nothing. 🙂 I gather it lets me draw on the screen. How can someone be so ignorant about their new computer? I don’t pick my own computers. I (like Blanche DuBois) often depend on the kindness of others, in this case coworkers, not strangers.

Way back at the end of the summer I asked a former coworker for advice on a new computer. He’d given me great advice when I was searching for a hard-core gaming computer to handle Second Life and Open Sim. That was all the way back in 2010 and I got an Alienware. I still have that Alienware and it is still going, but I can’t upgrade it and USB ports are a bit different now, and so are operating systems.

Somewhere between then and now I bought myself another computer that could handle gaming and virtual realities. That one was the same machine that we’d bought our son, with a few enhancements added. I never got a chance to use it. First my son broke his, so I gave him mine. Once it returned to me, my sister’s computer ceased to run her programs so I lent her mine. Permanently. 🙂 I love my sister. So here I am, without a modern functioning computer. I back up all my iThings to the Alienware, but I’ve discovered that I cannot write from it to the iThings. I had to do my last phone update by using my work Mac. It’s time already for a new machine.

I took the list of suggestions from the first coworker and showed it to my former teammates, whose opinions I have ALWAYS sought and trusted. I told them all that the only thing I do anymore is read mail, blog, social media, and process photos. They all agreed on the Yoga 730 and they all told me “buy the pen, you’ll like it”. Okay, I did. I haven’t even opened the box yet, *grin*, but I’m sure one of these days I’ll figure it out.

So why “another step away”? Because I suspect this machine will NOT run Second Life. I loved my time in SL. I’ve written about how much fun I had, how it challenged me, changed me, shaped me. I’ve written about the friendships I made that exist today and moved from virtual reality to RL reality. I still, foolishly, maintain my premium membership, although I have surrendered all my land. I want to go back, but there is no “back” – we have all moved on. Some of my friends are virtually dead, others have passed away in physical reality. Buying a non-gaming computer is yet another step away from the past.

You can take the woman out of SL, but you cannot take the SL out of the woman. No matter WHICH computer she buys.

Almost Like Old Times

If you’ve read this blog from its inception, you know it began as a chronicle of my adventures in Second Life. Although I still maintain my (premium) account, I’ve not logged in for well over a year, maybe even longer than that. But for several years Friday night meant hanging about in SL, and listening to live music. I could always count on hearing Komuso Tokugawa, Von Johin, Taunter Goodnight, Keeba Tammas, Euterpe Queller, and Noma Falta. I loved them all but 2 of my best buds were friends with Noma. Friday nights would find me hanging with them for an hour, rocking out with Noma, who covered a lot of the strong women rockers, with a lot of Melissa Etheridge’s work. I loved my Friday nights filled with music, whether the live performances or hearing my favorite DJ Calli spin the tunes.

It’s been a very long time, as I said, and not only do I not get inworld anymore, I rarely get out for live music in the RL (is that outworld?). When my husband asked me a few weeks ago if I’d like to hear Melissa Etheridge I couldn’t say YES fast enough. Last night was Melissa-night.

We headed out for dinner in town first. We love catching an easy meal at the bar of one of the local restaurants. We love the bar (I mean the physical tangible wood, shape, look), the bartender (we’re on our 2nd bartender there), and the bar menu. I’m less thrilled with the dinner menu – the chef is enamored of pork in all forms and I don’t eat treyf. We were in luck all night long. There was room in the parking garage with a spot right near the exit door we needed. We walked to the restaurant and it wasn’t too cold nor was it raining. Given the weather lately, that was extremely lucky. There were seats at the bar (often come the holiday season the bar is full). When I told Matt (the bartender) I wanted something that would be warm and comforting he mentioned they had hot mulled red wine. PERFECT!!! My husband and I both ordered our favorite selections and sipped our drinks, chatted with each other, with Matt and had a great dinner.

We headed up to the theater and although it seemed like it might start raining, it stopped after just a very light sprinkle. We were warmed up from our meal so I have no idea if it was cold or not. *grin* Funny thing happened as I went through the bag check. The usher was looking in my bag and saw my lip gloss (really a lip moisturizer). She saw the brand name and got all excited saying she had wanted to try that brand, how did I like it? *laughing* So I stood there discussing cosmetics with her before being waved on through.

Perhaps my memory is faulty, but I seem to remember that when someone went to a concert there was no food or drink allowed in the theater, people listened to the performance and being there was about enjoying the performance, NOT about having conversations and wandering all over the theater. Times have changed. I admit I like being able to take a drink to my seat. But I noticed the gentleman in front of me reading recipes on his cell phone (I was standing, he was sitting and I happened to glance down). Really? Melissa is rocking the joint and you’re reading your cell phone?

I’m old enough to remember folks lighting cigarette lighters or matches as appreciation for the artist. I do not find folks holding up their cell phones to shine that light to be anywhere near as intimate and compelling as the fire. 🙂 I also marvel at the people who spent most of the night filming Melissa instead of putting down the phone and WATCHING her DIRECTLY and moving to the music.

It was a great night, don’t mistake me. Melissa has such energy, such passion up there. As my husband said on our way out “she has energy like Bruce” and I agreed. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone who has Bruce’s energy but she may have come the closest. Oh really, you need me to tell you who BRUCE is??? Shame on you.

But there I was, rocking out to Melissa Etheridge on a Friday night. It was like SL, but better. 🙂

An Unexpected Gift

They say that revenge is a dish best served cold, meaning it happens long after the fact. What do they say about gifts that appear long after the gifting? There must be some equally apt phrase. Maybe it’s “good things come to those who wait”.

fricker1 I have finally decided to upgrade my blog from a free account to a paid account. I have no good reason. Or rather, I suspect the final straw is NOT something that will be handled by a paid account. The last week or so I’ve been getting trackbacks from spam sites. It was annoying. I’ve also used over 75% of my media storage. I thought I’d investigate and see what I’d learn.

I had a wonderful, informative, upbeat chat with the online chat support. Do you know that they are called “Happiness Engineers”? I think that is a GREAT title. The person with whom I was chatting was a fantastic representative of that concept. She gave me a discount code to give me 2 months free. I noticed something odd when I went to pay. The screen was showing me a $15 credit, bringing the bill to $33. When I put in the discount code, the amount was just over $39. ???? I asked my happiness engineer where the $15 credit originated. She said “The $15 credit is applying the value you have left in your current plan to the upgraded one.” Well that was odd. fricker 3 My current plan was a FREE plan, I had never paid any money to WordPress. The HE agreed my plan was a free one and she investigated further. “I show $15 in gift credit from a user named “Fricker Fraker” back in 2009. Dear reader, I kid you not – tears came to my eyes.

Fricker – I don’t know where you are, or how you are, but thank you, thank you, thank you. What a sweet, generous gesture on your part. Which is exactly how I remember you.

Ahuva ❤ Fricker

Yahrtzeit

The Jewish calendar has many twists and turns. Our dear friend Lalo Telling passed away on the 1st of Tevet on the Hebrew calendar in the year 2012 of the Gregorian calendar. That means that his yahrtzeit (the anniversary of his death) occurs during Rosh Chodesh. Some Hebrew months always have TWO days for Rosh Chodesh. Some Hebrew months always have ONE day for Rosh Chodesh. Some months, well, it varies. You probably guessed that for Tevet it varies. This month Tevet has one day, apparently. I believe that means that starting at sundown on December 3, 2013 through sundown December 4, 2013 is the first day of Tevet and is Rosh Chodesh and is indeed Lalo’s yahrtzeit. If I’m wrong – I think Lalo will forgive me.

It’s been a year. I miss him still, very much. Passover came and went without him skyping in to our celebration. After only 2 years he was a regular and the other regulars all asked after him and missed his presence. The high holidays came and went in the fall and there was no Lalo to discuss d’vrei Torah and sermons and meaning and customs. Now it’s Chanukah. Last year I flew out to be with him. We lit the Chanukiah, we sang the prayers, we sang other songs and blessings. Despite the sad reason for my presence, we had a very very good time. I am grateful that I had the opportunity to be with him then.

Lalo and I didn’t know each other all that long in SL. We met in the late winter of 2011, inworld. We happened to be at the same musical event. I’d been following his blog and IM’d him to introduce myself. As it happens so often in SL, we clicked. We cared about many of the same things, laughed at the same things, enjoyed playing in SL. I still have not written up half the adventures that Lalo, Bamboo and I took together in SL. The one in the truck with Bamboo, when we were run off the road by a tank – that was a true SL/Lalo/Ahuva/Bamboo classic. Shortly after I met him he was blessed with a FL friend and companion, Emspar. He and I had less time to play inworld because his outworld was so full of joy with Emspar and with work. We still had Friday nights at Tribeca with the rest of the gang, and Fridays at The Listening Room with those wonderful folks, and dancing at Fogbound and with Noma and Taunter and Komuso. We visited SL amusements, learned to ride horses at Carriage Trade, did the big SL celebrations. When I look back, by the Gregorian calendar it wasn’t very long. But in SL terms it was. SL has never been quite the same for me since he died. I feel the loss so keenly there. A part of me still checks the friends list to see if he’s logged in yet.

I love to think of Lalo. I love to remember our conversations on Judaism, on engineering, music, books, life. He was intelligent, witty, funny, and so full of interesting information. I miss you, dear friend, more than I could have ever realized. Thank you for enriching my life. Your memory is a blessing to me.

Impossible to Miss

Lest you think I closed my SL account and faded out of the digital world, I offer proof of my virtual presence. 🙂 Dz’s rez day was yesterday and Daez threw a party! *laughing* Of course, being Daez, she put her own twist of fun into it – she had Dz help plan it without knowing that it was for Dz! I rather like that, myself. What I liked even more was that Daez got word to me a week in advance so that I wouldn’t miss the party. I put it on my calendar and made sure I had reminders triggered so that I wouldn’t get distracted and lose track of time.

I rezzed in right on time. It was a big day for Abby Rose, since MALES were allowed to attend the party. Usually the Abby is gals only. *grin* The Abby is MANY things usually but certainly one of them is “gals only”. *grin* Noma Falta was rocking the joint when I caught Daez’s taxi. Dz and Daez were in their usual spot – right up front, stage right. Daez told me the dance hud was on her derriere and to give it a tap. Except…. omg….. I couldn’t remember HOW to do that. Seriously. I stood there watching them dance, trying to remember how to touch something in SL. I actually IM’d Daez to ask how. Thank goodness I remembered before she responded. Whew!!!! Okay, I have DEFINITELY been out too long. That was extremely embarrassing. As usual, Dz needed to give me some directions for getting myself inline. THAT has always been the case! *grin* I parallel park much better than I can line up in SL. Once in my place, I got to rock the night away to the great tunes of Noma, hanging out yet again with Dz and Daez. Felt like home, felt like I’d never been away. *smile*

Happy rez day, Dz!!!!! *HUGS* Great party, Daez! 🙂

Get on Your Bike and Ride

Some days I want to get in my car and drive and drive and drive – just leave everything and everyone behind me. That’s not always very practical, however. Gas costs a lot, time constraints, guilt, you know – the regular mish-mash of mature reality. But I don’t have to be mature or sensible in SL. In Secondlife, I can ditch some of the constraints that I’m forced to acknowledge in my corporeal existence. Tonight, feeling a bit frustrated in several directions, I needed to ride. Thank you black-Kat Choppers for my Grifter Bike. 🙂

I came inworld and changed quickly into appropriate attire. It was a gorgeous day today – nearly perfect weather. I really wanted to just wear jeans and a tank top but I knew the wind would sting. So jeans and my leather jacket, leather boots. and some glasses to protect my eyes. Tie my hair back, (don’t need no stinkin’ helmet in SL), a pair of gloves and I was ready to ride.

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I live near Rt. 12 – an easy hop over to the road. It took me a bit to remember the controls. Always helps to read the directions. 🙂 And I was off….. Ahhhhhhhhh……. Feel that motor purr……..

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Of course, no SL road is complete without one of Ann Marie Oleandar’s vehicles on the road. HAH!!! I had to return a crashed tank that was resting on my land, but I left THIS particular tank waaaaaaay behind. Eat my dust!!!! Or smoke, as the case may be.

I have to say that sim crossings have gotten MUCH better. Yes, I vanished through the road, or careened madly about in the air, but I always found myself righted and ready to ride on. And ride on I did. On and on and on and on. Lalo and I had driven quite aways along Rt 12, but we never made it as far as I went tonight.

Tonight I went to the end of the road and back. 🙂 Without any elves or goblins or hobbits. The road gets a bit bumpy there at the end, and there is a lot of low-hanging foliage. But there are some beautiful sights. There is even a visitors’ center. I may have to head on back there some time and check it out.

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The chopper did the trick. I had the purr of the engine, the sights of the scenery, the adventure to the end of the road. The frustrating situations are still there, I’m sure, but at least I escaped them for a bit and feel as though I’ve left them far far behind.

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As Scarlett would say, tomorrow is another day. Bring it on.
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Define “Repaired”. Because Dell Computers has no clue

Dell, Secondlife and I have a problem. I’m sure that the 2 of them don’t care, but I do. So my gorgeous gaming laptop, the famed and fabled Alienware M17x came back today – “repaired”, or so Dell claims. I headed into SL, turned the graphics up to high, and set out. Only took about 10 minutes before the video failed. The screen goes black, then it turns white, then I get a box (that fades fairly quickly) telling me that the drivers failed, but they have “successfully recovered”. Really? I don’t think so.

Why is it Dell’s problem? Because from now on I intend to tell everyone all over how Dell is incapable of offering proper support for configuring their gaming computers. And because I believe that they are not telling me truth about this repair. I have PAID for in-home support. That means they are supposed to come to my home and replace parts while I am watching. They refused to do this and demanded that I send the laptop to them for “analysis”. I did. I shipped it out Thursday afternoon and saw that they received it Friday. It was back in my house on Tuesday. That means they shipped it Monday. Really? You performed analysis over the weekend? Why do I find that hard to believe? The piece of paper claims they replaced/repaired my video card. I find that incredibly difficult to believe. It’s hard to believe because they didn’t have it long enough. Because when I turn on the computer and head into SL, the fans immediately make more noise than a helicopter coming in for a landing. Because it only took 10 minutes to crash out the M17x.

Why do I think this is Dell’s problem, not SL’s? I bought a new laptop 3 weeks ago. Nothing fancy – an Ideapad Y580. Guess what. It runs SL at Ultra graphics, quietly, smoothly and without crashing. That’s right, Dell. A mere Ideapad laptop whips your famed fabled premiere gaming laptop.

Yeah, when I have the time and energy I’ll call Dell’s Customer Service. I’ll undoubtedly have to beg and fight my way to talk to someone who actually knows something about their Alienware brand. That’s another big runaround that I get from their Customer Support. The techs say “oh yes, I know that”. Only after something happens, like last year, when the machine caught fire, do I find out that I’m dealing with people who have no special knowledge of Alienware.

I’m so disgusted with Dell. I have been a loyal customer for over 6 years. All of our computers were Dells or the Alienware until I bought the Ideapad. I have a year left on my contract with them. I’ll send them the AW every single week for the next year until they make it work properly for my needs. Don’t tell me it’s SL. You should be so ashamed, Dell. Expect to hear from me. Every single week, if not every day.

It’s going to be one heck of a year.