For the past month, my personal laptop has developed a range of quirks.

It started with the g and h keys of the laptop no longer registering when I typed. Or, as was the case before they failed, requiring me to maneuver my fingers in such a manner. Do you know how often those two letters are used in passing? On-screen keyboard has helped me in the interim, by using it to type the g or h in any word I’ve been misspelling. But it does cut down on my productivity on that laptop, I’m not going to lie.

The quotation mark also became a key on that laptop that didn’t function, nor the left shift key. Which just added to issues and workarounds to get things to function while investigating how to potentially clean under the keys.

A few weeks ago I was watching a streaming movie on the laptop, and I got a warning that my battery was critical. It was plugged into the wall, so I thought it was charging. Turns out, the battery that had been there for five years had reached that critical “I’m no longer charging/holding a charge” and was ballooned. So, I ordered a replacement battery from a seller on Amazon.

When the first battery arrived and I replaced it, it did not apparently have a charge in it. And the laptop did not recognize the new battery in the laptop. So I let the seller know, and they sent me another.

That one the laptop identifies as existing, but it is not charging or getting a charge. With the laptop essentially being plugged into the wall at all times, it did not serve it’s purpose as a laptop any further. It isn’t very mobile, at the very least.

So, I went into the New Year and a portion of my tax refund buying a laptop that will serve as a replacement and allow me to play a few video games I hadn’t gotten around to.

Which means that I’ve spent a good deal of time moving old folders over to an external hard drive and then to the new hard drive of the new laptop. Or, if it isn’t critical, to the external hard drive itself…