Hurrying to Post This Before my Laptop Burst into Flames

I've been really pleased with my Dell laptop. Until today when I found out that it may burst into flames at any moment. While announcing the recall, Dell tried to pass the buck, blaming faulty batteries it says are manufactured by Sony.

I'll have to wait until tomorrow to find out if my particular model is one being recalled. If mine is faulty, and given my luck with laptops, I'm sure it is, If it's defective, I'll have to wait for Dell to ship me a new battery. Until then, the government says I should only use my laptop with the power cord. Kinda' defeats the purpose of buying a laptop in the first place doesn't it?

This is just another in a long list of problems I've had with laptops. My last laptop was a Toshiba. It quit on me four weeks after the warranty went out. Before that, I had a Hewlett-Packard laptop. After sixteen weeks of ownership, it conked out. No worry. It's still in warranty. That's when I found out that H-P's idea of warranted repair was shipping it off to God-knows where and waiting 6-8 weeks for its return. Who the heck can do without their computer that long? In the mean time, I'm surfing the 'net, looking for an asbestos blanket to lay across my lap to protect me from fire.