This year for my birthday, I couldn’t really think of much that I needed or even really wanted – my room is so full of stuff that I really didn’t need more stuff. (Of course, that said, it’s still amazing how that stuff still keeps piling up despite my best intentions…) I kept thinking and thinking, knowing that surely there must be something I could ask for.

    Finally, it came to me, only about a week before my actual birthday. My trusty Acer laptop that I’ve been using for years now was finally starting to show its age. It’s really remarkable how long that thing has lasted, considering how much it’s been lugged around. It’s gone on so many trips, been lugged to so many hospitals, and has spent as much time stuck in bed as I have. Not only that, it’s also been knocked off that bed several times, yet it’s kept on going strong. The entire time I’ve owned it, it’s never once given me the blue screen of death, which is really quite remarkable. But after so many years, the mouse was starting to get a bit of arthritis, the monitor had some scars where I’d bonked it, and it was making a bit too much noise as it tried to run bigger programs. It was a bit sad, and since my laptop is truly a desktop replacement now that I can’t sit at my desk anymore, I really needed something that would run perfectly.

    I talked to my parents about it and they agreed it was about time to get a new one. Since I use it so much now, I came up with a scheme to get an even bigger and better laptop than we’d normally get. My parents agreed that instead of getting me more stuff, we’d invest the money they would have spent on a bunch of little presents and add it to our laptop budget, thus allowing us to get an even better, more powerful laptop.

    I did soooo much research and looked at sooo many different companies. But nothing seemed quite right. Since I’ve been playing a lot of computer games lately, I really wanted a silly amount of ram and a good video card. But it seemed like all the decent gaming computers were lacking in other areas and far exceeded even our enlarged budget. Plus, it was really disturbing when I’d read reviews and there was a large disparity between company reviews and individual owner reviews. I looked at Dell, I looked at Sony, I looked at Alienware, briefly looked at Panasonic Toughbooks before gagging at the prices, and after all of that, I kept coming back to Acer. My trusty, brilliant, long-lasting Acer laptop has lasted longer than any other laptop I’ve ever owned, and has outperformed everything. After dealing with that stupid HP laptop several years ago that I swear was possessed, I really didn’t want to risk having another computer that would shut down and scream at me like that one did.

    I started looking at Acer notebooks, but I was having a hard time finding any in stock. I’ve always coveted their Ferrari branded notebooks because not only were they pretty, they offered a lot of amazing, well-rounded specs. But the original Ferrari notebooks were long out of date, and I didn’t want that. I kept looking, and much to my surprise, the Ferrari notebooks were making a comeback.

    That comeback is in the form of the Acer Ferrari 1100. It’s a cute, compact, ultra-light portable with insanely nice specifications. It offered an AMD Turion 64 Dual-Core processor, 4GB of DDR2 SDRAM, a 250GB hard drive (a huge upgrade from the 80gb hard drive on my last laptop), a slot-loaded DVD+RW drive, a built in webcam, a cute little Bluetooth VoIP phone, and my absolute favorite computer perk of all time – a fingerprint reader. How freakishly cool is that?! And on top of all those snazzy specs, it weighs only a couple pounds, and its nice little compact carbon fiber frame was exactly what I was looking for to make it easier to lug around, take up less space on my bed, and allow me to carry it around the house without much effort. It was heavenly, and much to my surprise, the price was perfectly within our budget range.

    I was ecstatic. Before I found the Ferrari, I was seriously considering an Alienware notebook, but to make it fit within my budget, I had to strip it down to the most bare-bones specs possible, which was really depressing. Once I found the Ferrari, I compared its specs to a comparable Alienware – to get the same equipment on an Alienware laptop, I would pay more than twice the cost of the Ferrari. How nuts is that?

    So the decision was made, I was thrilled with the idea of the Ferrari, I loved the specs, it was everything I wanted, and I was happy to get another Acer after the positive experience I had with my last notebook. But alas, the notebook was nowhere to be found. I looked through all my favorite online stores, and no one had it in stock. I finally found this one rinky-dink no-name online store that had a handful in stock, and thankfully the price was actually $100 cheaper than anywhere else. I placed the order a couple days before my brithday, paid extra for faster shipping, and got all excited about getting a new shiny toy.

    But it didn’t show up. I didn’t get any emails from the company. I never heard from them. Finally, several weeks later, my Mom was talking to the credit card company about an unrelated matter, and thankfully she thought to ask them what had happened with the laptop purchase. Much to our surprise, our normally fantastic credit card company had frozen the payment because it was with an online company they didn’t recognize. Apparently it’s their procedure to freeze unexpected large online payments and then confirm them with the customer. But they forgot that all-important second half to that policy and they never notified us. Whoops.

    My Mom sorted it out and I went back to the stie to try and reorder the laptop. But big surprise, they were sold out too. I was so disappointed!! I tried to find another shop that had it, but it was nowhere to be found. I’d look every day, hoping someone would get it in, but no one ever did.

    Fast forward to this past week, and I had finally found a shop that had it. I was just about to place the order late one night when my pain meds kicked in and I literally fell asleep with my hand on the mousepad. It’s a really good thing I did, because the very next day, a box arrived. In it was my beloved Ferrari notebook, delivered from the no-name online retailer that my credit card company didn’t like. I still have no idea if they got paid, I have no idea how it got sorted out, but I’m oh so very glad it did. Because now I have my new toy and I am completely head over heels with it.

    And you wanna know the best part? Not only does it run brilliantly, not only is it cute and compact, not only is it lightning fast… but that fingerprint reader is so Star-Trekky awesome!! I thought it would just lock certain files more securely than a password, since it would take insane effort to replicate my fingerprint, but it has oh so many other uses! My favorite is that I can input each finger’s print, and then assign certain programs to it. That way when I swipe my index finger, Firefox opens! How cool is that?!!? I don’t even have to touch the mouse!! If I swipe my middle finger, Trillian opens! Ring finger, VLC! Pinky, my favorite game!! My left index finger can even shut down the computer. I’m totally in love with it, and sure enough, I spent ages last night swiping my fingers and giggling as my computer responded. It’s so enthralling, I love it! Teehee. One little motion and bam! That fingerprint reader is totally freakishly awesome! Whee! My fingers are allll powerful now, hehe.

    So hooooray! My birthday present is fantastically fabulous. It’s definitely smaller than my old laptop, but its small stature is exactly what I needed. It’s so sleek, so powerful, and so perfect. And you should have seen the packaging! That thing was a work of art!! I’m totally keeping the inner box, it’s gorgeous. One of these days I’ll take picture of it so you can see. Oh yeah, and the laptop also came with that VoIP phone I mentioned – it’s really cute and petite. You can stand it up next to your computer and use it for skype and stuff. It also came with a wireless mini Ferrari mouse. 🙂 But my favorite little toy it came with, was this pretty little leather portfolio thing. It’s just about the size of a sheet of paper and looks like those portfolios that businessmen carry their papers in. When I first saw it, I thought it was a little folder for the manuals. But nope! It’s a portfolio for the actual laptop! It’s so cute! And oh so very Ferrari.

    Even though my actual birthday was kinda sucky this year, I’m glad my present turned out so well. And hey, now I get to say that my parents bought me a Ferrari for my birthday. 🙂