The Worst PC in America: Found!
By Harry McCracken | Tuesday, October 20, 2009 at 12:55 am
Reynaldo Rivera’s 2007-era MacBook Pro has lost its screen, not to mention a few of its keys. Its trackpad and optical drive don’t work. Its mouse is held together with tape, and he uses a battered copy of Dante’s Inferno as a mousepad. It outputs video to a 13-inch standard-def CRT TV–and must do so by routing it first through an old VCR. Oh yeah, I forgot: It recently stopped running, period.
This, my friends, is no ordinary bad PC–and that’s why it’s the winner of Technologizer’s Worst PC in America contest. Reynaldo gets the nifty HP Envy 13 laptop, courtesy of HP. Thanks to them, thanks to Reynaldo–and thanks to everyone who entered. You guys own some terrible computers!
To wrap things up, I’ve published some visual highlights of selected contenders as a slideshow, and you can also check out all the entries.
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October 20th, 2009 at 6:07 am
Always nice to see Macs taking top place. So…this guy have anger management issues or just clumsy?
October 20th, 2009 at 6:11 am
So you’re giving a brand new computer to a fellow who obviously will beat the ever-loving sh-t out of it? FAIL.
October 20th, 2009 at 7:24 am
@Tom B:
I took the metal case for granted and just got really lazy about it’s care, but all that really led to was a scratched-to-hell bottom.
The electronics stopped working on their own, mid typing no-less (I was in the middle of finals when the keyboard and trackpad just gave up on life)
A bed that was leaning against the wall vertically fell on top of the screen and completely snapped it off, taking a few keyboard buttons with it.
The mouse…. is just shit. Period. I don’t recommend anyone get a “mighty” mouse. Maybe the new one with the touch surface will be cool (or is it MS coming out with that cool mouse now? Can’t remember).
It’s really more about bad luck than anger or clumsiness, but MAN was I angry when the KB and Mouse stopped working. When my roommate asked why I was angry my response was “I WANNA STOMP GOPHER SKULLS”, then I kinda just left the room to see if anyone had a KB I could use temporarily.
I’ll tell you what though, I’ve been looking at Windows 7 and I must say I’m interested. I tried Vista and kinda liked it, but overall I was underwhelmed.
October 20th, 2009 at 8:44 am
So the winner gets to replace his battered MacBookPro with a new HP laptop, heh? … I think I’d stay with the battered pile of junk.
October 20th, 2009 at 11:28 am
Oh, man, Reynaldo–you’ll be the envy of the computing world with your new Envy. What a sweet machine! But please keep it away from non-Teflon surfaces, beds, and mouse shit.
October 20th, 2009 at 11:36 am
Wow Harry, I don’t mind losing, but to a guy that obviously treats his computers in much same way he probably treated his matchbox cars as a kid? Thats just messed up. If I was going to pick anybody, based on creativity, you know like in the rules, I would have picked the guy who entered his own brain.
And Tom, good luck with this one. If you’re really lucky, maybe Harry will give you another new one in about 3 years.
October 20th, 2009 at 12:17 pm
If the goal of the contest had been to find the person in America most likely to treat a new PC gingerly, we would have had a different winner, and it would have been a different contest. Me, I’ve sometimes had computers end up in shaky shape at least in part due to my own clumsiness and rough treatment, so I have a soft spot for computers that have seen better days, and the people who own them…
I LOVED the entry by the gent who entered his own brain, incidentally, but I’m guessing that at least as many people would be disgruntled if he’d won…
–Harry
October 20th, 2009 at 12:21 pm
Alright Harry, I got your message. I guess you right, I just hope he has better luck. Way better luck.
October 20th, 2009 at 1:31 pm
The stacking on top of the pokemon cases does make me giggle for some crazy reason. I sadly thought I had a lock with my altered Odyssey sketch but unfortunately my entry level understanding of French continues to not pay off. Damn you French language!
October 20th, 2009 at 1:49 pm
I TRIED to be creative in my description of my down trodden MBP… When I read my original entry to my brothers they cracked up (particularly at the bit about my empathy for the poor sod wandering Hell with flayed flesh and missing limbs) Actually I was afraid of the brain entry and seriously thought he might win, he had me in stitches by the end of it. In any case I seriously need this computer and you can bet your first two children I’ll be more aware of my computer’s location.
October 20th, 2009 at 1:55 pm
Dude, Reynaldo, now you’re making me feel bad for having said anything. Yes, you computer really sucks, and I really do hope that you have better luck with he new one. That line about wandering in Hell was really funny.
October 20th, 2009 at 2:28 pm
I have a friend who goes through computers like they were water. He managed to break his Macbook and his Mac Pro on more than one occasion. Eventually he was convinced it was due to Apple and switched to Windows machines. In the past year he’s completely killed one new i7 machine and is on his 4th laptop, clearly it wasn’t Apple. 😀
Sometimes people are just really hard on their hardware.
October 20th, 2009 at 7:08 pm
It won’t take him long to make the new PC look like the old one.
May 23rd, 2010 at 11:50 pm
my best friend has been in an Anger Management class for 2 months now, he improved a lot when dealing with anger.~*;