I'm back at work now after having had 2 days off due to sickness. I needed it, that's for sure. It was one of those head / sinus colds, that leaves you with a horribly leaking nose and eyes, occasional earaches due to sinus buildup and runoffs, and a very heavy head with a dull headache. On Monday night I was a mess, tossing and turning and plugging up my nose with tissues. I could hardly sleep. Poor Deidre. She told me yesterday that she figured if she can't handle this, then there was no point in staying. She said she could handle it. But next time… Next time I have to block up the nose with tissue plugs or she's going to sleep in the other room. Can't say I blame her. Waking up in the middle of the night and seeing me laying there with tissue hanging out my nose must be pretty traumatic.
I got the laptop on Monday and have been enjoying it immensely. Obviously there's not much different from one laptop to another, but here's the bigger differences:
– Where the old one had a 15" screen (equivalent to a 17" monitor) this one has a 15.4" inch screen. Marginally bigger.
– The old one had a maximum resolution of 1400×1050 (standard resolution is 1024×768) while the new one has a resolution of 1680×1050, which means that it has a much wider desktop area, allowing for more information to be seen on it.
– The old one had a 64Mb Radeon 7500 video card while the new one has a 64Mb Radeon 9200 card, making it a bit more modern.
– The old one had a 40Gb hard drive that ran at 4200 RPM (revolutions per minute) while the new one has an 80Gb hard drive that runs at 5400 RPM. This means I can store more on it, and it's faster.
– The old one was a Pentium 4 1.7Ghz with 512 Mb RAM. The new one is a Pentium M 745 1.8Ghz with 1Gb of RAM. Not really sure what it means, but it's more modern and runs faster.
– The old one had wireless networking capability, but I never bought a wireless card. The new one has a built in wireless card, but I'm yet to play around with it. What this means is that I can buy a wireless access point for my modem so that the internet access is wireless all around the house. Instead of being stuck at the desk with the modem connected, I can take the laptop to bed or anywhere else around the house, and still be net-connected.
So yeh, I'm pretty darn happy about it. Everything's faster and better. I tested Desert Combat a bit while I was off sick, and while there's not that much improvement in the gameplay, since my old laptop was already able to do well at it, at least the loading time for the maps are much faster. What I'm really wanting is to play The Matrix Online when it comes out, and I'm hoping the new laptop will be up to spec.
Ok, that's enough of the laptop. Let's get onto the next thing that's related to it. I came in to work this morning and one of my managers said they're going to get me to help bring in another client, the same way I helped with the client last year, where they sent me off to Christchurch in the south island. This one's in Auckland, so they're probably going to send me up to Auckland for it. Sweet! That's going to be sooo much fun. No real details yet, so I'll update this journal when I find out more.
Next… Deidre moved in last night.
Not 'officially', but she has. She gave her flatmate a month's notice last night, and started moving some stuff into my place (our place now). It's all very exciting! It's so nice being with her and having her stay with me, and being there for and with each other. It's all so relaxed, and enjoyable, and natural. I'm feeling great about it, and where it's heading.
I've been paying double rent for 7 weeks now. It's been a HUGE drain on my resources. It'll be good when Deidre starts paying me some rent in a month's time (or sooner if she helps her flatmate find a replacement for her), and then I'll be breathing easier. This coming Sunday, I volunteered to do a 12-hour shift that's become available on the helpdesk. It'll give me $360 for the day, which will be very handy considering I don't have much money right now. (Oh, if you want to offer donations to me in support and appreciation of how much pleasure you get from this site, just contact me and all donations would be warmly received. I'll give you my PayPal contact details.)
Deidre wants to move to Australia within the next year or so. I've always said that I'll be in NZ until I have a reason to go back to Australia. Maybe she's the reason.
The future is going to be an interesting adventure for me.
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