Lulu the lachrymosely laggard laptop

lulu and i started off so fabulously three years ago, but lately things between us have not been going well at all.

our relationship began to deteriorate last year when she started showing little quirks and slowing down big time. the quirks were just quirks then, slowdowns still survivable by running a bit of anti-spyware, and i could still feel sentimental about considering a replacement for her. "what? but... but... it's lulu..." i would say, lip quivering, whenever marlon would bring up laptop shopping after i reported my newest computer complaint.

then when 2008 hit, her battery life dropped to a record low of fifteen or twenty minutes, and she started to refuse to hook up to wifi unless she was plugged into a socket. ang arte diba. this was also the year where i began having to force-quit on an almost weekly basis. it would take me anywhere from three to ten minutes to start microsoft word, up to fifteen for photoshop.

i struggled with lulu laying out and printing my cv and portfolio for interviews, which would take me entire afternoons or even the whole day. i timed myself once -- sending out one application by email, a process that consisted of opening word and recasting a cover letter, tweaking a cv and a couple of pages of sample writing, then opening firefox and sending my little e-packet out via gmail, would take me thirty to forty-five minutes. now imagine this done at least fifty times for each application i've sent out.

for the first time, i considered replacing her when an acer trade-in promo came up last month. i decided to live with lulu a little while longer and wait for the IT trade fairs that usually roll around at year-end to get myself a macbook. i just consoled myself by coming up with a lulu-inspired name for the incumbent (i considered lolita, i.e. a little lulu, but eventually settled on something else).

just last thursday, i suddenly lost all my firefox bookmarks. like magic. they just disappeared -- along with them over dozen job postings filed into "to apply" and "follow up", not to mention all my various resources and hobby-related bookmarks. what was the point of a bookmark function, i thought, if i had to write everything down next time "just to be sure"? oh and did i mention that this was the second time in the span of one month that this happened to me?

and today i waited an hour and a half for lulu to restart.

so now i am browsing refurbished macbooks on the apple online store and feeling downright miserable because i feel like marlon and i can't afford this right now. we have a credit card to zero out in june and shared goals and all that crap.

sooooo... that ends my rant. any feedback on refurbished macs?