Upgrading and the passing of a technological friend

This may be the last blog post I write on my old Dell XPS M1530 laptop. I’m a little sad. This old wordmill has served me very well. It’s helped me produce at least half a million words of fiction, probably a lot more than that. I can’t be arsed to work it out. It’s done an awful lot more work in terms of non-fiction, online interaction, artwork, book design, cover design, publishing (of my own and other people’s work), video editing, photos and music. The list goes on. But the old beast is showing signs of age. I decided to act pre-emptively, bit the bullet and bought a new laptop. Here’s the old XPS ready to write this post, and below it, the new one with data downloading to the hard drive.

I couldn’t afford a new XPS this time around, but I’ve got myself a damn fine Dell Inspiron. I’m currently transferring data and software, getting it all set up for the tasks ahead of it. And there will be many. I’m halfway through the current novel, got all kinds of other projects going on and who knows what I’ll be up to over the next few years. Once it’s up and ready I can mothball the old XPS, letting it retire happy rather than shit itself and die on me, causing untold grief. It’s best for everyone.

After the recent loss of my favourite mug, this certainly feels like a time of transition. Forced transition, but then all transition tends to be forced, at least with me. I’m a creature of habit. My wife calls me a stubborn old badger and she refers to my office as my cave. I once pointed out that if I was a badger, the office was surely my set. She said no, I’m a cave badger. Fair enough. But I don’t change unless I have to, so sometimes having change forced upon me can be a good thing. Not that I can afford this current change, but needs must when the devil pisses in your ear. It never hurts to give things a good shake-up.

So there’s a new mug on its way to me, bought gleefully from the Valve store. It’s an Aperture Science mug that I’m geeking out about receiving. If you don’t know what that is, shame on you. Go and play Portal and Portal 2 this fucking instant. Go on. GO! Soon the new laptop will be ready to become the main machine in my life (don’t tell my motorbike I said that) and I’ll drink hot, sweet caffeine from my Aperture Science mug and I will birth new and fetid word babies for your reading pleasure. From my cave.

Vale, old XPS, we won’t forget you. Welcome to the word farm, new Inspiron, prepare yourself for battle!

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This entry was posted on September 5, 2012 at 1:18 pm and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.