Because I usually spend my computer time on the couch with my laptop, and I'm at the desk in the basement instead. My couch is very comfy. This computer chair, not so much.

Sure, I could take my laptop and go sit on the couch, but I wouldn't be able to see the screen very well. The last time I used the laptop was Saturday night. I shut it down and packed it up to come home. Since then, I've been busy doing other things and using the basement computer. So my poor laptop was left neglected in its case for three whole days. Tonight I pulled it out, turned it on, and when I looked at the screen, I realized something was wrong. I could barely see what was on the screen. Thinking something had gotten bumped and that had messed with the brightness, I looked for a way to adjust that. I found it. The brightness was where it was supposed to be, and bumping it up to maximum did not help anything. I rebooted a couple times, but nothing changed.

I ended up calling Dell. I was on the phone with them forever - turning the computer off and back on and doing all kinds of things. Nothing changed. He finally had us hook it up to an external monitor to see if it is the video card or the LCD. Jeffrey hooked it up to the basement computer's monitor, and it runs that monitor just fine. There is something wrong with the computer's LCD - so Dell will send someone out to replace it. How long will that take? 3 days or so. If I'm lucky I'll get it fixed by the end of the week. In the meantime - I'm still using the basement monitor. I suppose I could just use the whole entire basement computer, but all my files are on this one.

The weird thing is that this is the second Dell laptop I have had, and the exact same thing happened to the first one.  Well, not the computer being packed up for a few days and then the screen going dim.  That time I was using the computer.  I left to go visit Jeffrey in the hospital - when he had his appendix out - and when I got back home later that night, my screen was so dark I could not read it.   Of course that happened right when I needed to get the calendar to the printer's - as if it wasn't bad enough that Jeffrey had to go and have surgery right then, too!  I had to hook up another monitor and keyboard so I could at least finish the project, then send the computer back to Dell so they could fix it.  What is with these computer screens?

I just want to say that I really appreciate computer warranties.  I don't like all the messing around you have to do when you call them, but at least things get fixed in the end.

as a side note:
Desktop Weather says it's 8° outside. I think I'll stay in.