| | From Glenn to GlennI'm amazed at the response I got to my posting yesterday! I didn't realize anyone would really pay attention, so I finally bit the bullet and ended up buying the HP Pavilion DV9230US (at this point I've actually memorized the model numbers and specs - yeesh!). It was only after clicking BUY (on Buy.com, no less) that I came back and saw all your comments, including one where Jill told me to buy the Sony. I was pretty sad I'd already made my decision, because usually do just exactly what she tells me without question, same way God speaks to George Bush. (It works out much better for me than it has for GWB, though - go figure! Does that mean Jill is smarter than God??!?!?) Although I agree that the Sony, being made by Asians, is probably more reliable, the graphics card was a Nvidia 7400 on the Sony and Nvidia 7600 on the HP. Clearly, the one with the name whose name has over 200 additional undefined units of measure is superior, so that was a deciding factor for me. I probably bought more computing power than I need to write a novel, but the World Of Warcraft will thank me later for overdoing it, once I've saved them from an invasion of tiny unicorns (or whatever it is you fight in the World of Warcraft. ) As to NKOTB's spurious comments about Macintoshes, (which are a specific breed of apple that evolved from the lowly Apple II + ): I didn't want a Mac. They only have one mouse button and it drives me fucking crazy trying to right-click on everything with only one button. I feel like I'm missing an arm. Once I have the PC, I'm going to spend some my time looking at pictures of the Mac guy, Justin Long, with his shirt off - does that count as purchasing an Apple? No? Whatever - no computer purchase can actually make you cool, unless you buy an Alienware computer. Those are actually cool, because they not only light up, but they are made by real aliens, one would assume. A Mac is about as "alternative" and "hip" as a Chipotle franchise. (And by that I mean I'm sure they're fine, but one does not become a trailblazer simply by buying a product that one has seen advertised on the television, even if that product is advertised by a slim and muscly young man with no body fat nor body hair .) Think about it - I haven't! I forgot to even mention something yesterday: a hard drive! This is another exciting invention that we now "take for granite," as they say on the Cosby show, but at the time I was shocked - SHOCKED - at the idea of a disk you can save stuff on something that you didn't need to stick in a drive only to have it get covered with jam or preserves at some later date, causing you to lose your work. Instead, with the amazing "hard drive," you can now just "save" it to some mystical hidden recess deep within the computer, very likely in the selfsame forest glen where the magical tiny unicorns that run your computer live. They're amazing! A few other rememeberies that you kids mentioned yesterday that I'm remembering also: - Commodore 64: We never had one, but I recall seeing one in a store and it had a TAPE drive - like, it ran on an audio tape. That was a method of software distribution that never went anywhere.
- The Oregon Trail "Yay! I'm having fun AND I'm learning!" Too bad it was only a little fun and a little learning: I can spell dysentery, but other than saying "Oregon," I'm not sure I know anything else about the location or purpose of the Oregon Trail. Was it a cattle drive? [UPDATE: I just did spell check, and it turns out I can't spell dysentery, either - no "A" in that word - who knew?]
Did you know that if you buy a computer from out of state, you don't get charged sales tax but you're supposed to declare it on your taxes the following year? How many dollars, on a scale of 1 to 10, do you think the government actually manages to collect from people who purchase computers from out of state and then voluntarily surrender said tax dollars by declaring such a purchase on their taxes? I'm just wondering because I'm almost 100% certain that by the time I'm doing my taxes next year, I'm going to totally forget about buying this computer. Accidentally! I couldn't for the life of me think of a witty title for this entry, except to try to reference the Glen of the Tiny Unicorns with the glen where the titular Danny Boy is piping his song or whatever, and now that I've looked up the lyrics, is Danny Boy some freakish Irish gay ballad? For people who try to keep the homos out of their parade so stenuously, I can't imagine why they're so fond of some dead guy singing about his boyfriend. Yeesh! Why, I have half a mind to look up the lyrics on the wigglypedia to see what they really mean....naw, too much trouble.  That is all. |
