new computer

So, our PC in the living room is a bit dates. We bought it in 2008 and had to replace the graphics card in 2010, both hard drives are corrupted (from the graphics card overheating). It's out of date with an old Pentium Core 2 processor, 6 gigs of RAM, 500gb hard drive, an obsolete graphics card and crappy Windows Vista. It's not a bad computer and runs really well considering the damage to the hard drives. It plays Sims 3 with all the expansion packs on high settings but it's starting to lag a lot. Otherwise it's great for our needs. Except the new Sim City game comes out next month and it will definitely NOT play that game. My laptop could barely handle it on low-medium settings (I tired a beta version) and it has an i5 processor and the newer built in HD graphics which is better then the card on the other PC.

We looked around Best Buy to see what was out and found out the sell almost exclusively all-in-one computers and laptops. They had like 8 desktop models and they were all low end sucky crap and way overpriced. I think Patrick and Nora really like the touch screen ones but they are pricey. So I went home and did some research at Tiger Direct. I found a few contenders but none had all the things I wanted. I decided to start looking at prices for the parts individually. I had looked at Costco online to see how much their customizable PCs were (which is how I got the last one) but I noticed they were charging $100s over the cost of the graphics card to upgrade. Like to get to the next better card they were adding $100-$200 when that's more than the thing costs in total at Tiger Direct. Rip off.

I ended up finding a "barebones" kit that had most of what I wanted. The kit has the parts, you put it together. It was cheap and a million times better than the stuff we saw at Best Buy or already put together at Tiger Direct. And I could get exactly what I want. So Patrick said go for it although he's teased me a million times that I won't be able to get it put together. It's not rocket science. I watched a video and it seemed pretty straight forward. The kit came with the case, motherboard, processor (AMD FX-8120 which rated a 10 on some site I was using to judge processors and graphics cards), DVD writer, power supply (750w) and 8 gigs of RAM. I added in more RAM and the graphics card (Nvidia GTX 560 which rated a 7 at the site which was about the best I could afford, they do get pricey after that model). And Windows 8.

I ended up not getting the right extra RAM. I got distracted and ended up choosing two 2Gb ones instead of two 4Gb. And if you read over the above list you might notice one other thing missing. A hard drive. *headdesk*

I remember bringing up the page on hard drives and was looking over them debating whether to splurge to get a solid state drive to run Windows off of, researching at another site and some one came in and interrupted me. I guess when I finally went back to order the stuff I completely forgot about the hard drive I had yet to choose. D'oh.

Well, the case and everything but the power supply came today. That's when I realized the hard drive was missing so I ordered a 1Tb one and the memory that I actually wanted and then started the process to return the memory I didn't want. All in all I probably spent more than Patrick wanted (about $820 or something total) but it's going to be a killer rig. At least for our needs. And I'm excited to put it together. I like to do that kind of stuff. Patrick kept teasing and teasing so I had to ask him who's the one that sets up all the electronics in the house? That would be me because he has no idea how to even plug stuff in. I like that I can always add stuff (like a Blu-ray player or more memory) when I want.

Now we'll just have to consider getting a better monitor. We have a 22" flat screen but it's pretty old. I'm not sure it even has an HDMI hookup on it. Right now I'm using the SVGA one which is then fed into the DVI on the graphics card. I didn't have a DVI cable so had to use the SVGA cable with adapters and that wouldn't fit into the DVI slot on the monitor. It'll work for now, though.

Anyway, I'm super excited. Once I get the thing together it will go in the living room. The other one will go in the kids' living room for them to use although it won't have internet because I didn't think to look for a wireless adapter for it. I really like ordering from Tiger Direct. They are super speedy with it. When we lived in Chicago I ordered something from them (even though they have a store in Orland Park which was 45 minutes from our house) and it was there in 2 days! And that was with standard shipping. I ordered all the stuff for this one on the 10th (Sunday) and it was ready to be picked up by UPS on the 11th in the morning. That was all shipping out of Chicago and got here today, the 15th. The power supply is coming from Georgia for some reason and would be here tomorrow except UPS doesn't deliver on weekends so I get it on Monday. Then I have to wait for the hard drive which should come by next Friday (I ended up going with expedited shipping so I wouldn't have to wait until the Monday after that).

Can't wait. Of course, I'm sure half of you have no idea what I'm talking about and the rest probably don't give a fuck but I needed to get it all out there.

writing update

I broke 100,000 words for the year last night. I know, right.

In comparison: I wrote a grand total of just over 153,000 words in all of 2012. 2011 was my best year with 179,000. That was for the entire year. It's only FEBRUARY! and I'm already over 100k.

My novel is now at 45,000 words (after just 14 days of writing).

I finally broke down and told Patrick that the little story I had been working on this month is actually a novel. He's been giving me a hard time since we were married about me writing a novel and getting rich. I'm not so sure about the rich part but I'm finally doing the novel part. I had to say something because he kept coming in at night when he knew I was writing and start talking to me which is really, really distracting and gets me out of my groove and complaining I'm always writing now. I snapped the other day and was like, "all these years you've been bitching at me for years to write a novel, well now that I am all you do is bitch that I spend all my time writing!"

He thought I was joking the first few times I said but I think it finally sunk in that I need to do my writing and they all need to leave me the fuck alone while I do it. Doesn't stop him from using the bathroom in here a million times a night and he always wants to tell me what's happening on whatever TV show he's watching. I don't even watch TV any more. I haven't really since November. I just read and write all the time. Pisses me off. I screamed at him last night to shut up. Which, amazingly, he did. Without comment. Then he apologized and left. Geesh. I should have to scream to be understood. They wonder why I stay up all night writing.

Meagan came into my room last night (luckily not while I was writing) to tell me about this story she's writing. I have no idea where she came up with this idea but it's a really weird sci-fi story about aliens on other planets. I guess she's developing religions and culture and everything for them (world building for the win!). She was all embarrassed and wanted to read the first paragraph to see if I liked it and if I'd read it based on that. It was actually pretty good. It was all about the smell of a million dead bodies or something. Corny with the metaphors but she's 12 so forgivable (I shouldn't talk because my main character is way overboard with crazy metaphors). It definitely made me interested to find out what happens next.

She was telling me a little about her main character so I told her a little about mine. She said she'd heard me and Patrick talking about the book. She thought it was one I was reading and was thrilled to find out I was actually writing it. She went on and on about how cool it would be to have a famous author as a mom (as if). Then she got all serious and told me I should publish and then I'd be a real writing. I laughed and told her I WAS a real writer and so was she. She writes therefore she IS a writer. It's taken me a long time to realize that.

Anyway, about MY novel... for some reason the last few nights I've had trouble finding the voices of my characters. And now they seem like real downers. I think I exhausted my muse when I wrote all night long. I keep hoping she'll come back in full force soon. I'm also starting to get nervous that I won't be able to figure out the ending. I've got the beginnings of a love triangle set up (completely wasn't planning on having one but then Oliver came along and BOOM Zoe is stuck between him and Colby now) and I think I know how I want it to end but I have to build everything up between then and now. I'm worried I'll forget some plot line or the pace. I guess that's what editing is for but I do better with editing if I don't completely screw up the rough draft, lol.

Actually I think the problem is the scene I lost that morning when it stopped saving. 1600 words that were kind of a big part of the novel where you get to see Zoe and Colby don't have as much hate for each other as Zoe thinks. Colby is even super sweet to her and they have a little talk. There's also some internal stuff that Zoe thinks about that was pivotal to the plot and I can't fucking remember the details. Ugh. It's thrown me off my game. Up until then I had no interest in going back and editing the previous chapters which is a big thing for me. Now I keep wanting to fix that one scene. It's always on my mind and is screwing with my head. I think tonight I'm going to reread everything because I'm starting to forget details from the beginning (which is frustrating). I actually told Patrick the entire plot that I've written so far. He actually pretended to be listening (OK, he was listening some) but I realized I couldn't remember the exact order of events or the details. It's my freaking novel, I should know this stuff, lol. Time to refresh my memory. Maybe if I read the banter between Zoe and Oliver that I've already written it will bring my muse back and they won't sound so off anymore.

yeah, so that's the plan. In another couple of days I'll break 50k for the second month in a row. I had 56k words last month. I've never written that much in a month, not even during NaNo. I'm going to break that record this month. I plan to keep doing this next month, too. Although eventually I might have to stop writing every day so I can focus on editing. I'm hoping I can figure out how to work it all together but writing one story while editing a completely different one might throw me off. I've been unable to even think about writing anything else (even short little fanfics) since starting the novel. I'll have to wait and see.

I never realized how much I actually love writing until this year. I've always liked it, enjoyed it some of the time, but it always frustrated me and eventually I'd get bored. A lot of times in the last couple years it seemed more like a chore. So far this year it's like... breathing. I HAVE to do it.