Reggaesaurus - The guy in back is from Corbis.
I have always really liked Toshiba laptops. Like that bunny, they just don’t seem to quit. Like just about everything, my last one (recently passed on) had a story about it.
Pikes Peak Writers, in Colorado Springs, Colorado has an annual event called American Icon, wherein — bolstered by by chocolate and alcoholic drinks — about twenty brave souls read the first couple of pages of a work in progress. In front of judges, and — oh yeah — what television calls a live studio audience (also appropriately bolstered.)
As a newbie to the world of writer’s organizations and contests, I figured “what the heck?” After all most of my life has been spent in front of an audience of some kind. I was a bit nervous about this whole writing thing. I’d written stuff for television, a few screenplays, and a lot of music and lyrics, but novel manuscripts, that was a different story. Nervous time.
I’d been debating about getting a laptop, had one already picked out, but was still pretty shaky in the confidence department, along with not having a regular day job at the time. So… I heard about the contest. Immediately, I thought.
This could be a SIGN! (Ok, so I’m pretty big on signs, omens, that kind of stuff.)
So I talked it over with Moni and said, “If I win something in this contest, I’m going to get the laptop and get my a$$ in gear. The evening came. I bought new clothes to go along with my buffalo bone neckpiece and got myself bolstered.
A few hours later – WIN! In Chick-Lit. No, I didn’t stutter… CHICK L.I.T. First place.
The next day, as soon as Circuit City (remember them) opened up, I had a brand new Toshiba Satellite. That was July 8, 2006. Of course I had to put it on my network, so it needed a name. Doesn’t everybody name their technology? First thing in my head was PETER-TOSH. I fired him up and started pounding keys. Three, four, sometimes up to fourteen hours a day, every day. Except in Hawai’i, of course. The only people who work in Hawaii are the people who work in Hawai’i. (Although it is pretty hard work to say humahumanukanukaapuaa three times fast.
But I digress.
So it was 1,964 days, or about 11,784 hours, that PETER-TOSH made a major contribution to my life and accomplishments. According to Malcolm Gladwell, PETER-TOSH had become an expert. (On a side note, speaking of 1964 — on February 9th of that year, four English guys changed my freakin’ teenaged life FOREVER – hence the green dinosaur – another long story for later.)
Yesterday on Black Friday, I found a new Toshiba. The last one in the store. We’ve been communing every since.
I think this one is a she. Her name is REGGAE.
“Don’t worry ’bout a thing…” – Bob Marley
HM
HoarseMan of... 