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I have a possessed skull plasma lamp, and I’m f$%&ing thrilled with it.

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I have entered into a period of my life at which fiscal responsibility is of paramount importance.  So of course I bought a $35 skull-shaped interactive lightning-shooting plasma lamp with no warranty last night from Spencer’s.

This is possibly the best decision I have ever made in my life.  Aside from the massive coolness evident in the pictures below, it has the added feature of actually being possessed.  Consider the following:

  1.  It is impossible to photograph.  Those photos you see below?  They were yielded from a Google image search.  Something goes wrong every single time I try to snap a shot of my product in action — you cannot see the sublimely excellent rainbow lightning shooting from its base to the inner circumference of the glass skull. It just shows a whitish, otherworldly flare!  Like angel fire!  Or the wrath of Abbadon!  Or anything, ever, in a J.J. Abrams movie!
  2. The MOMENT after I attempted these photos, the battery light on my digital camera flashed and the entire device went dead.  COINCIDENCE?
  3. EVERY time I turn it on, my computer malfunctions.  I SWEAR I am not making this up.  Whenever the lamp is activated, I lose all control of my cursor, which simply leaps and twitches and shudders around my screen like a terrified jitterbug.  (That is a real species, right?)

Anyway, I cannot articulate how wicked this thing is.  It’s a damn fine product.  Like any plasma lamp, when you touch it, the caged lightning shoots to the point where your hands make contact with its surface.  [EDIT: “wicked” is early 80’s slang for something that is very, very good, and very, very impressive.]

This product will be an outstanding muse for a horror writer who hasn’t published or posted anything in a very long time.  (I know you people have been totally cool about that.  Would you believe I have a bunch of handwritten short stories that I just need to typeset and submit?  There’s a really cool time travel story!)

It also has an “audio” function which is kind of a mystery to me … apparently this is a function in which only sound activates the lightning?  I switched that on, then clapped a few times, but nothing happened.  I was perplexed.  (The third photo below illustrates me being perplexed.)  Then I just began shouting random words at it.  I started with “NATE WADE!!!”  I have no idea why; apparently there’s some free association thing going on there that I can’t explain.

Still no luck.  I consulted the packaging but found its instructions sparse.  They reminded me that this product indeed has a “Sound Responsive Mode,” but says little of help beyond that.  Then the box exhorts me repeatedly to “GET THE PARTY STARTED,” but those are redundant instructions, because, Christ, I do that every time I breathe.

Tonight I am going to blast Slipknot’s “Psychosocial” to find out if that will do the trick.  I figure that’s just the song to placate an angry ghost.  I’ll also replace the batteries in my camera, and this time try to shoot video.

Unless my camera now is just too demonically damaged.  We’ll see.

 

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Damn fine product. (A one-month review of the ASUS X551-MAV-HCL 1201E laptop)

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I can’t possibly pass for a computer expert, but I can tell you what’s worked for me and what hasn’t.  After a month, I can cheerfully report that I am quite happy with the ASUS X551-MAV-HCL 1201E laptop.

I read a bunch of product reviews before I purchased it; with one poorly spelled exception, customers reported that it was “good for the price.”

I agree.  As someone who really only uses Microsoft Word and the Internet, it’s been perfect.  It is actually faster than my last computer, even when that was new — it boots up quickly and connects to the Internet in a snap (even with the inferior Internet Explorer that comes standard).  It seems to handle Word and the net together just fine, and doesn’t slow down, even if multiple windows are open in my web browser.  (I didn’t even notice a significant difference when I downloaded and used the speedier Google Chrome.)  Other customers were concerned before purchase that it has a weak processor — the Intel Celeron N2830.  But I only use word processing, the web, and simple multimedia like Youtube and Netflix — not the photo editing and video creation.

It comes loaded with Windows 8.1 — but will upgrade automatically, if you sign up, for Windows 10 when that becomes available.

A few more quick notes:

1)  This laptop comes with no manual whatsoever.  You’ve got to be able to connect with your WiFi, then research the (quite lengthy) make and model to reach the manufacturer’s website for specs and information.

2)  It doesn’t come loaded with Word.  You need to download that and pay for it independently.  If you don’t want to spring for the entire Microsoft Office suite, you can get a monthly subscription to word for about $8.

3) The desktop layout is kind of useless.  There’s a matrix of square icons for programs and websites that you will probably never use. Or, if you do, you’ll habitually select them from your bookmarks.  “Trip Planner?”  “Reading List?”  “Baked Eggs and Ham?!”  We are approaching the singularity if my computer can provide me with baked eggs and ham.

4)  The laptop’s camera is pretty poor. It takes grainy images.

5)  It comes loaded with the cumbersome McAfee antivirus program.  I downloaded AVG, which I prefer.  (Most of my friends use something called “Avast” these days, but I refuse to use any antivirus program that sounds as though it were named by a pirate.)  It is always proper to have only one antivirus program operating at one time.  So I not only disabled, but dutifully tried to remove the McAfee program from my hard drive.  For some reason, I could get rid of the main program, but the “Uninstall” function will not work for its apparent companion program, “McAfee LiveSafe.”

6)  I was surprised at how easily I got customer service.  Might’ve been on the third ring, and I wasn’t placed on hold.  The representative was quite helpful.

7)  There is a one-year warranty, you’ve got to keep the document handy and ALSO register the product online with ASUS.  Beyond the one-year period, you can still call customer support for advice over the phone, which I thought was pretty nice.

8)  As for the “Incredible Beauty” and its “Classic, Timeless Design” that ASUS advertises on its website?  Well … I can’t really vouch for that.  It’s a shiny black laptop, not the goddam Mona Lisa, ASUS.

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