September 2023 I wrote about having just purchased a new laptop; an Asus TUF A16 that I named Amarys. She was a bit of a downgrade from my previous laptop, an Asus ROG named Valerie, but Valerie was nine years old at the time and couldn’t keep up anymore.

Almost two years on I realize just how spoiled I’d been with Valerie, who ran smoothly for six years before any problems hit her and even then it was just a battery issue. Right up until she gave out, she worked at near-peak performance, only starting to lag a little a few months before she finally threw in the towel. Amarys… hasn’t been as sure of herself. While she’s generally worked just fine, there have been some issues. A weird line of dead pixels on the screen that I didn’t do anything with because it was nearly unnoticeable… and occasionally, VERY occasionally, she just turned herself off with no warning.

For the longest time I thought these shut-downs were just me accidentally pushing the power button… the mechanical keyboard I use sometimes moves a little, and well… But in hindsight it was probably a sign that something else was going on. I noticed it after the clock set back after Daylight Savings Time; suddenly the shutdowns got more frequent. I was looking at several sudden shutdowns per week, and after a few of them it took nearly five minutes before the computer would respond to pushing the power button. As if that wasn’t enough, after some of the shutdowns the clock reset to midnight.

I checked official sites and message boards. I watched YouTube videos. I checked Asus customer service and even consulted a couple of AI chats. I tried several solutions, to no avail. It got clearer and clearer that we were looking at a hardware issue that I couldn’t take care of on my own. So finally I had to face facts: Amarys needed repairs.

And so, with a kiss and tons of well wishes I cleaned her screen, packed her down in her original box with lots of bubble wrap for protection, and sent her off to Asus for repairs. (She actually functioned great for an entire week before I sent her in… but then the night before she shut off an impressive four times in twenty minutes and then reset the clock and sulked for five minutes before I could coax her back for one final boot-up and a last session before her journey… yeah, she REALLY needs those repairs.)

So, now while she’s gone I’m without my main computer. Buuuuut that’s not the HUGEST problem, since I still have my Chromebook, an Acer Spin 314 that I mainly use at work and that I’ve affectionately named Lyra. Now, Lyra doesn’t have one-third of Amarys’s power or versatility, but as a temporary main computer she’ll at least keep me online. I can still write my Holly Blackthorne story, surf the web, keep up on social media, stream Netflix and Disney+, and even keep editing this website. And when it comes to drawing… luckily I still use my Wacom MobileStudio Pro for that.

No, I didn’t name my Wacom MobileStudio Pro. What am I, weird or something?