Well…that horrible thing we all hope and pray won’t ever happen? It happened. My beautiful, wonderful, beloved Alienware laptop passed into oblivion recently. It was very sudden and very sad. I mean, I was working away happily on a writing project and decided to make myself a cup of tea and grab a gluten-free “bite” as a little break. When I left the office, things were humming along nicely – and when I returned from my five-minute sojourn to the kitchen, well…things were NOT humming along nicely!

Actually, when I returned with my tea, the screen on the laptop was this horrible PINK – and not the kind I like. It was sort of a New Year’s Eve sparkly-dress-gone-wrong pink, and it was all mixed up with flashing black rectangles and muddy, swirling images of photographs I had taken. It was a ——– freak show! I was not amused. (Go ahead, use your imagination on that. I guarantee you won’t be wrong by far!)

After six hours of working with Tech Support and on my own to sort the puzzle and put the pieces back together again, it became quite clear that there was no other alternative: clean off the hard drive and say GOODNIGHT. Later, I discovered that it would have cost – at least – $800 US to get a new screen for that particular model. Add to that probably another $200 – $400 US for ancillary repairs and labor charges, and I was ready to throw the thing out the back door and go shopping. Which is just what I did.

To make a much longer and much more maudlin story shorter and less madness-inducing, let’s just say I’m back in action with a new Alienware – but this time, I bought the longer warranty package to go with. I feel fairly secure, because Alienware (even though the…umm…folks…at Dell have taken them over) is a solid name for speed and performance. So far, the screen is gorgeous and all is working seamlessly. Let’s hope I’ll be saying the same a few months hence. Thank you for your caring thoughts and prayers; I truly appreciate them!)

And so…we’re soft-pedaling it a bit in both RL and SL this week. For one thing, I’m exhausted and all I want to do is enjoy life at Ce Soir. So…here we go, doing just that this week. Come on over and join us! Check the schedule below, as there are some truly outstanding offerings….

Your sleigh (sled, skates, snowshoes, helicopter…) is ready! Hop aboard to The Magic Tree and Château Ce Soir. See you here!