The ‘new-and-improved’ laptop blues

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Updated Apr 25, 2013

I’m old and wise enough to have figured out the “New and Improved” lie. This is a crime against mankind, carried out by evil mass-marketing overlords whose only desire is to make mankind as a whole miserable. You find a product to love, develop a relationship with it, commit yourself to it, and just as things get serious enough for you to wear the T-shirt in public, it’s “New and Improved.”

“New and Improved” is code for “The company found a cheaper way to make it, and doesn’t care if it involves feeding babies plutonium death crystals — if it makes more money, it’s ‘new and improved.’ Sell it!”

I hate “New and Improved,” and I’m looking to back a candidate who will propose many laws against “New and Improving” things from here on out. If we’re going to regulate the crap out of things, we may as well make it count.

Most of the general quality-of-life improvements we’ve made in the past hundred years have done us no favors. We’re fat from convenience, full of cancer from chemicals, and stupid because we don’t have to think for ourselves anymore. Hell, we’re improving ourselves into extinction.

laptopI’m currently suffering the new-and-improved laptop blues. I’m pretty sure if I return one more laptop to Best Buy, they’re going to arrest me.

My demands for a new machine are very basic. I want the exact same computer I had before, with the exact same hardware, only new and not bashed up from 30K miles in an 18 wheeler. I want it to look and feel exactly like the old computer, which meets my needs completely but is bashed up from 30K miles in an 18 wheeler. Simple, right?

Try explaining this simple concept to one of The Borg who man the counters at Best Buy.

First of all, they’re all 11 years old and have distracting facial piercings. You know, I don’t care if you want to poke holes all in your face and stick weird things in it, but A) Don’t expect me to take you seriously, and B) Don’t act like a dick when I stare at your third nostril, which you’ve apparently self-inflicted with a wine bottle cork wound.

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I don’t particularly care for the ‘New and Improved’ version of dress codes for customer service representatives. And who’s signing the permission slips for all these eleven year olds to get holes poked in their faces? Call me old fashioned, I don’t care. It’s gross to make your ear lobe hang down to your shoulder on purpose. People used to call those ‘disfiguring chainsaw accidents’, now it’s ‘body modification’. Stop it. Call it ‘unicorn rainbow dust’, or ‘kittens dipped in candy’, it doesn’t change the gross factor. You’re an idiot, and you need to go have your damn ear fixed.

Anyway, twice now these festooned children have talked me into buying a ‘new and improved’ version of my old computer, and twice I’ve returned it within days with thinly veiled threats to kill the person who suggested Windows 8 ever be unleashed on mankind, me in particular. Twice I’ve had to explain I want the exact same computer as the old one, with the exact same software and twice I’ve been met with blank stares or incredulous looks. I think the clerks are practicing ‘New and Improved’ ways to piss customers off.

So if anyone has an Acer Aspire, model 5532, with Windows 7 and in the box, hit me up. Until then, I’ll suffice by ‘New and Improving’ my laptop back together with duct tape. You can’t improve on duct tape.

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