Is This a New Leaf? Or, is This a New Shiny?

I bought a new laptop the other day. After dropping way more than my budget on it, my first thought was about how to justify the purchase. The second? Well, it’s that I have to, at least, actually write. It’s a good thing I have my own little space on the web.

Wait. My last post here was March 3rd, 2020? For real? Judging by the mix of sporadic posts in a folder full of drafts, I have been writing, but nothing to completion. A couple of thousand words, orphaned, with no eyes to see them.

That is the thing I am known for–much to my wife’s discontent–when I get a fantabulous idea in my head. I go all-in like a fish with a seven-two off-suit. (You never know what can show up on the river, am I right?) I’ll go hard for a couple of weeks.

Let’s say you were to ask me six months later about my progress on the project. I guarantee that it will be at some stage of unfinished. “I’ll get around to it eventually…” is the lie I continuously tell myself. It’s probably the first time I’ve thought about that project in a while.

I bought a new laptop because my old one bit the dust.

I bought my old laptop seven years ago from Future Shop (remember that place?) for 300$ CDN. It lasted barely six months before half the number key row stopped working, along with three-quarters of the function keys. Acer products? No thanks.

Lately, it’s been giving me Blue Screen of Death™ daily. Sometimes multiple times a day. It got annoying because it would crap out on me while using it for a second monitor to manage the chat during my streaming.
I hoped that it would last a while longer, but the final deal-breaker was the kitties ripped of some keyboard keys. I don’t relish using a keyboard that would be difficult to type “inconspicuous” with the missing I key.

I didn’t get the laptop that I want, because it was out of stock.

After a bit of light obsessing research into what laptop I wanted, something about a Best Buy ad I saw struck me. “Holy shit, I only have fifty minutes before the store closes.” If you were to see me making my purchase, it would seem like I walk into a store, grab the first item I see while cackling madly, daring you to say something about my new purchase. By that time, I’m fed up with the bit of light obsessing research (and endless opened Chrome tabs on my desktop, laptop, and iPhone) and have just said, “Fuck it, YOLO BITCHES!”

I have been “saving up” for new computer stuff for a few months. That means that I paid off my line of credit. So, I had room. My aggressive repayment plan will take a year to pay off. Those were my justifications that I sold to myself while stuck in traffic, mentally calculating what I was willing to pay.

When I got to Best Buy, I didn’t see the laptop on display, which is a bad sign. It didn’t take long for the salesperson to circle in like a shark smelling blood in the water. It was like laptops were good for business. After confirming that the model I saw in the flyer wasn’t there and that it might arrive around the 19th, I took to looking around at what was available. (This is almost always a bad idea for me)

It’s funny how a budget can balloon. I had an idea happened to see a decent laptop complete with a chroma keyboard. (Nothing scratches the shiny itch like a backlit keyboard with rainbow colours) What sealed the deal was a numpad keyboard. I can’t use the number row on a “normal” keyboard–my Achilles heel when I’m typing.

Okay, so now that I have a new shiny, what does that mean for the future?

“It’s already the 12th? I have to pay for the blog again?” Every single month I grumble under my breath and realize that not contributing anything to my writing platform for over a year looks more like a money sink than a “Business” category in my budget.

Then I thought, “Perhaps I ought to get back to using this new, shiny backlit computer to finish writing all those entries I’ve been procrastinating on.” I have to write something, daily if possible, even if it’s only twenty words.

There’s a new function that WordPress has called “Stories” that looks interesting. Wouldn’t it be fun to see my ADD work its magic? If it interests people, giving updates on my progress to obtain affiliate status on the Twitch platform. Of course, there are recipes and pictures of food.

Thank you for reading my ramblings. I can’t wait to write some more.