#computeronfire

Such a long story, but I'll try to keep it as short as possible for all of you lovely followers. I recently decided to splurge after all of my hard work for all of these years and never once buying something I wanted with my money. I bought myself an Alienware laptop and an Oculus Rift S. However, I didn't buy these things willingly. Of course, something always has to happen for me to make big purchases such as these. 

About a week ago, I was sitting on the couch, minding my own business, and working on my students' grading course work. For those who are unaware, I'm a Middle school teacher. My laptop started to smoke; for me, this is honestly a regular occurrence after about five years of owning a laptop. The issue is I've only had this laptop for almost three, so this was unexpected and out of the ordinary for my device to be doing this while not even hitting the five-year mark. My laptop was a 2018 version of the Acer Predator Helios 300, considered a budget gaming laptop, and I loved it. It was my first gaming laptop I ever bought for myself (during Black Friday) because I'm broke and usually don't buy things unless it's for a relatively reasonable price. Consider me stingy with my money and a bargain hunter. Who could blame me? I'm a teacher. 

Anyway, when it started smoking from past experienced, I unplugged my charger, took the battery out immediately, and carried it outside to the sidewalk. This is not my first time dealing with my laptop, either catching fire, exploding, or having some dangerous wild episode. I'm just unlucky with technology, but it taught me how to deal with an electrical fire, which's always a great thing. Right? It was still smoking, so I backed away from it, with the battery out and not being plugged in, it even caught fire. I'm not sure what happens to my computers towards the end of their life, but this tends to happen quite often. I just sat and watched it. The flames controlled but charbroiling my laptop to a crisp. I almost wish I took a video, but of course, this is not the first thing on my mind when attempting not to start a fire in my own house. This is also not my first rodeo with laptop explosions and fires. I watched it burn while calling the fire department. Because let's be honest, you never put out an electrical fire with water, and I'm not trained to put out electrical fires. 

They came, put out the fire, and my poor laptop laid there helplessly... How am I supposed to grade and play my Steam games now? Of course, I immediately took to the internet on my phone without a laptop or computer to use. I, of course, needed to buy a new one; Labor Day sales were happening. Not as good as Black Friday, but hey, a sale is a sale. So I splurged. Dell has sales on their Alienware's randomly now, and I think it's because of COVID, but they also had a sale going on during Labor Day. They had the specs of one that is usually USD 2,000 for about $1,750 with an Oculus Rift S. It was some bundle. I probably could have spent more money and upgraded the RAM, which is perhaps the only thing I would've upgraded, but the type of casual gamer I am, I didn't need high-end specs to be happy with my purchase. So I went for the bundle with the laptop and the Rift S. Of course, this was just before the Oculus Quest 2 came out. Oh well! 

Let's be honest, though. I delved into VR once before with my Oculus Go. A starter VR headset used when sitting and mainly for entertainment. This means light gaming from the Oculus Go store and applications such as Bigscreen beta, which I love, Netflix, Hulu, Facebook, and Web browsing. I loved my experiences while using the Oculus Go, so I already knew having an actual gaming PC and Oculus headset to play VR software's and game titles that are popular on Steam and the Oculus store itself was something I was looking forward too. In my next post, I will be discussing my adventures while using my VR headset and what I love and don't love about my purchases. 

I hope you all enjoyed my story. Until next time.