And yet another thing breaks...

Seems like everything around here is falling apart.

This morning when I went to turn on my laptop, absolutely nothing happened. Well, not nothing. The power light comes on and the light that shows that the laptop is plugged in came on too. But no POST, no display, or anything (no hard drive activity or fan noise or anything). Before you suggest any fixes, here's all that I've tried:

• Connecting to an external monitor and my TV - still nothing comes on the screen
• Holding down the power button for a minute without any power source (battery or adapter) plugged in, then trying to turn it on after that - still nothing
• Taking out RAM - tried turning it on with no RAM, testing one stick at a time in both slots - still nothing, not even any beeps or error messages
• Cleaning it with compressed air

The computer doesn't even show the Acer screen that you see when it starts up, so I'm guessing it's a faulty motherboard. But I don't want to spend money on a motherboard since I'm not sure if that will really fix it - I don't want to waste money on something that might not work because that money could go towards buying a brand new one. Plus, I kind of wanted a new laptop anyway. :P

But still, it's not a very good time and I hate unexpectedly having to spend money on things like this, especially since a new laptop with the specs I want don't come cheap.

Here's what I DON'T want:

• Windows 8 - kind of hard to avoid this (along with the other things I'm trying to avoid) unless you custom configure one
• Integrated Intel graphics - no thank you! I plan to play games and most don't work so well with integrated Intel graphics
• A touchpad without buttons - I want a real button for right clicking, not to use a multitouch gesture of some sort
• Something prone to overheating - I think this might have contributed to the death of my last laptop (it lasted about 2 months shy of 3 years). My Aspire 4540 would always overheat and shut off whenever I'd do anything graphics intensive. It would even sometimes overheat with a Cooler Master Notepal X2. I always had to keep an eye on my core temperatures to make sure I stopped what I was doing as soon as it got anywhere near 107 degrees Celsius (not sure how hot that is in Fahrenheit because it was easier for me to look at the degrees in HW Monitor in Celsius)

So that's all I don't want. Even just ONE of those in ANY prebuilt laptop configuration that I look at is a deal breaker. I'll probably end up getting one with Windows 8 though - I'm looking at maybe getting the CyberPowerPC GXX6-9220, but the prebuilt configuration of it comes with Windows 8. It's cheaper to get it prebuilt from a retailer than to custom configure one through their website. Just the shipping cost alone on their website adds $49 to the price of anything I configure - I can get the prebuilt one from a few retailers with cheaper or even free shipping. Plus, if I custom configure it, I'd have to wait a lot longer to get it, which is why I might end up settling for a computer with Win 8 even though I'd rather have Windows 7.

I'm so glad our sprinklers are fixed!

For a couple of months, I've had to water the grass manually because several of our sprinkler heads were broken. They're pretty easy to replace, but for some reason it took a while for us to buy new ones and then take the time to put them in.

Now that they're in, I really appreciate our sprinklers so much more. It's so tedious to stand out there and water the grass. Sure, the water feels nice on a hot day, but still, I'd rather not have to be the one doing the watering. I did buy one of those oscillating sprinklers that you connect to a hose, but it hardly seemed effective. I still ended up manually watering our trees and the parts that the sprinkler couldn't reach, and also the front (I let the cheap plastic sprinkler water the back, while I took care of the front). It would take me between 30 minutes to a little over an hour depending on how much I felt I needed to water it on any given day. I even got a nice tan in the process. :P

I'm not able to use our sprinklers on timer though because one of the valves still needs replacing. But manually having to turn them on and then back off is still loads better than watering the grass by hand.

I dislike having a lawn in general. If ever move to another place, I definitely don't want somewhere with any grass at all. I hate having to water and mow it. Meh. No more grass for me. Hardscaping all the way! Or maybe some bushes or something that requires less upkeep than grass.

A dying buffalo!

No, not a real buffalo. The wireless on my Buffalo WHR-G125 is slowly dying. About a week ago, I took a chance at ordering a refurbished Linksys E2500. I've had good luck with refurbs in the past and I used to have a Linksys WRT54G prior to the Buffalo, so I thought it would work out fine.

The E2500 only came with the router itself, an ethernet cable, power cord, and installation CD. It didn't come with any manuals at all. I used the CD, but it just got stuck on "downloading updates" for well over half an hour, so I manually went to 192.168.1.1 to set up the router. Thankfully, the manual setup worked.

Unfortunately, the E2500 got very poor signal to the same room compared to my WHR-G125. Even after a firmware upgrade and reset, nothing seemed to help much at all. The only place with excellent signal was in the same room as the router, which defeats the whole purpose of using wireless. So, I sent the E2500 back and in its place, I ordered an Asus RT-N10+.

The RT-N10+ isn't a dual band router, but after using the E2500, I found out that my laptop doesn't support the 5 GHz band anyway, so I have no use for a dual band router since all of my devices are 2.4 GHz.

I haven't received the Asus router yet, but hopefully it'll work a lot better since I'm back to using the Buffalo again until it gets here, which sucks since my wireless connection keeps getting dropped or is extremely slow that I can't do much of anything unless I feel like plugging in and being wired (which still works excellently).

Cuisinart GR-4N 5-in-1 Griddler disappointment!

I've had an original first generation George Foreman Grill for years now and it's such a pain to clean after using it since the plates on it are permanently attached. Cleaning it usually takes so much longer than it does to cook and eat the food. So I've been waiting for a deal on Amazon for either the Next Grilleration George Foreman Grill or the Cuisinart Griddler since both have removable plates.

Finally, the Griddler came down in price and I had a gift card balance to use, so I ordered it. Thanks to Amazon Prime, it arrived two days later. I was so excited to get the Griddler out of the box and use it. Compared to my classic Foreman grill, the Cuisinart Griddler is massive! It comes with two removable and interchangeable plates, so that you can use it as a full grill, full griddle, half grill half griddle, or a panini press. Sweet, right?

Yeah, well it does sound great, but after almost a week of having it and using it, I'm super disappointed. Let's start with the pros (well, pretty much just one pro of the plates being removable):

The non-stick plates are quite nice, but I've only had it for 6 days, so I'm not sure what the durability of the non-stick surface is. This makes them really easy to clean, especially being removable since it's so much easier than my original Foreman.

That's really all there is for the pros.

Now for the bad...

The Griddler lid gets too hot to even touch once it's on, which is bad since you have to touch the lid if you want to swivel it because of the way it's designed to swivel. The only safe place to touch the Griddler when it's on is the base of it and the handle. Even my old Foreman's lid was better at staying cool to the touch when on.

The drip tray at the bottom of the Griddler is not very effective at all, especially since the plates aren't angled in any way to help the excess fat get drained into the tray. So, mostly the fat will just sit there with the food you're cooking... well, if your food even cooks at all, which brings me to the next con...

Okay, so you turn the Griddler on, wait for it to warm up and then you can start cooking. But from my experience with it, after the unit is warmed up to your desired setting and then you put your food on, it seems to start to cool itself down while you're still trying to cook, which makes it more like a warming plate than something that can actually cook. Because of this, it takes longer than my original Foreman did to cook.

Overall, I'm extremely disappointed and this'll be the first time I ever have to return a product to Amazon, which kind of sucks since now I'll have to pay return shipping.

Does anyone know if the Next Grilleration grill is any better? I'm planning on getting that once I get my refund for the Cuisinart. If you have any thoughts on the Cuisinart Griddler, the Foreman Next Grilleration, or any other alternative that I should know about (removable plates are a must!), please let me know in the comments.