New Laptop

Property of Stormberry

It has come the time (ok, it came over two weeks ago), when I had to replace my laptop for a new one. The last time I replaced my laptop was on... 2014 or 2015, I believe. It was when I was in the middle of my Accounting thesis and my laptop of back then (a 10.5 inch ACER) just... gave up. Then I bought my 11 inch Toshiba, who has been my faithful companion since that day, under the name of Björn. 

Up to this day, all my computers - which have been laptops since 2001, when I bought myself my first laptop, a used IBM Think Pad, Lain - have been... how shall I call them? "Windows" laptops. Or PC laptops. Well, this time around I knew I needed something else, something that would give me the chance to remain fast more than 12 months, reliable and durable. I wanted a long term, long relationship laptop. And so I planned and invested in a MacBook. I asked more about it, consulted with friends, at the store, checked prices, and finally, on my brother's birthday, this year, I've got my Mac. His name isn't Mac, he's Virgil. I had to pick a name quite quickly, on the store (later on I realized I could have just given it my name, but... Virgil isn't me, just as my car, Nathaniel isn't me), and Virgil was what came to my mind. I certainly liked the Aeneid, and right then I wasn't thinking whether I should call it after one of my Gods (Mercury, Neptune or Odin). Yes, it could have been Minerva, but this laptop doesn't feel like a "she", but a "he". (Only my first two laptops have been "she", Lain and Iria. Both were IBM Think Pads).

I'm still learning how to use it, and there are like a gozillian things I still don't get, but I'm getting there. So far, I like it.

This year I started going to therapy with a psychologist a friend recommended me. Actually, I heard her talk about her, mostly for being a Pagan-friendly shrink. I have decided to start working on my shadow in order to start getting over and moving past recurring themes in my life and maybe also getting off the hamster wheel I feel I am in with certain people. There is so much my lovely mind can figure out, but then there are other parts I need professional help to figure out and to know how to start solving. Hope all that works well. I have been in therapy before, but now I expect something different. I want to work on issues I have found I may have rooted in unsolved family dynamics, that may not be helping me move entirely forward with my life, or that make me more sensitive to certain things than what I would like to be. And yes, I want to be able to let go of the deep, burning hatred I have felt at time at some people. Sure, feeling hatred is something I encourage in order to know your hating self, but I know plenty of my hating self, I don't need more, and hatred doesn't bring me any joy or any satisfaction.

That sounded strange, right? Well, think about it: some people seem to thrive when they are in a situation where they can gang on someone or something, when they can unite in hate, be in an "us vs. them" scenario. People who thrive in conflict and fight. I am not one of them. First of all, I am a Moonchild, a Cancer-born, and as such, I avoid conflict. Second, I actually find joy in emotions like love, happiness, mellow, harmony, soft, comfort, cozy and so on. I would fight if I have to, as I have proven time and again when I have faced situations and given voice to concerns and doubts while others cowered, but I rather cocoon, put on a record of jazz, were soft socks and read, knit or do something like that, in my blue couch, with a comfy beverage.

And so, I want to work out to reach my blanket-and-blue-couch-with-knitting state of mind.

Studies are going well. This is the last quarter of the Master's program, and... I feel expanded. (Ok, maybe that is Mr Jack Daniels talking through me ;) I had a night cap). Each day I try to pull two oracle cards and today I've got Jupiter. And yes, I feel less like I'm moving nowhere, and more like "I get it" with my thesis. I see the big picture, I see the point of it. I see the prospect and the promise. Last time my thesis tutor said: "I feel like I can expect more from you", as in, more as what he can expect from others, and that felt to me like my topic is going to take more time, BUT it will reach into something important. How exciting is that!?

My house of seven gables is also doing well, and I may be on the verge of adopting a new cat. Goodness Gracious, a decision I can make by myself! My house, my rules! I can become the cat lady! I love having my own house.

Slowly but surely, my life is rolling out, taking form. I see my sister-in-law getting into all sorts of fights with some neighbours, my brother trying to manage his life and family, my nephews and niece finding their path in life, my parents getting by... and I have a life that feels like all that cushy, fluffy, warm, nice comfy and cozy comfort, peppered with heaps of witchy, the kind of music I like and the kind of food and cooking I want. More than free and independent, I feel... whole. I feel me. I just want to feel more me, more... how can I say this? More unlimitedly me.

Stand in the Eye of the Storm

I've been falling off a little on my regular rhythm here. A lot of changes have happened, there have been a lot of things over which to think about, a lot to meditate on, and also a lot of things with which I sumply have to come to terms, accept them as they are.

This week I finished the first of two graduation seminars at the University where I study, with a less-than-satisfactory grade. Less than satisfactory for me, mind you, as I did pass and not with the lowest grade possible. The bar was raised much higher in this class than in others - regarding the grade you needed to pass (normally you pass with a 7 out of 10, but for this class you needed an 8 out of 10), which wasn't told to us  from the begining, but only in the last session with our tutor. Sadly, the actual tuition wasn't matched to these expectations, nor was the actual paramethers of grading any clearer than a picture of the monster of Lake Ness in a foggy night. I did spent a few days mulling over it quite upset, but then again I decided that it wsn't worth my time. Truth to be told, what matters in the end is the diploma I'll get and the knowledge I've gathered, and all the rest is simply "inmaterial" for me. In a weekwe'll be starting he second and last seminar, which will be on auditing. We are supposed to go auditing an enterprise, which will be interesting. I have no idea how people at universities actually think students can so easily find companies that will allow them to peek into their books and get information for school projects. That's just not the way it works.

In this week that passed, I have racked up my debt on my card due to an emergency: my previous laptop - well, my eight years old netbook, Nagi - died on me. He was having a lot of trouble of late, being incredibly slow to open even the simplest of things, like a word file, or a dossier, and then on Monday, it showed the "blue screen of death" as it crashed on Carrie and I while we tried to download some episodes of Hannibal. Nothing else to do, I had to buy myself a new netbook. This one, actually, an 11 inch Toshiba, Björn. I like Björn, but I'm at odds with it as I can't set the Hungarian keyboard on it, and the Latin American one (which I haven't used in ages now) is driving me insane. Choosing Björn was actually a long process in which I requested Carrie's expertise in computers. My only requirement at first was to get a 10 inch netbook, and not in an off color. However Carrie convinced me to look at other stuff like hard drive space - ok, I was considering that one too - RAM, and the processor's MHz measurement. Thus, after a long chase, and me outruling everything of 12 inches and I, I allowed myself to be convinced to choose an 11 inch netbook. I honestly consider it a commitment, because I do want something I can put easily in my bag and also something that fits in the folding table of a plane.

Setting Björn to work wasn't an easy task either, as Björn can't get on the internet with a cable, so you have to deal with in entirely on wireless connection, and have you tried to install Office with a wireless connection? It took me over nine hours to get it on with the trial version! I do bought a Home&Student Office - one of those perennial packs, because I'm not into paying loads for yearly licenses - but if I have the chance to get a trial, why not profit from it?

Anyway, this is how things are currently. Björn isn't as fast as I expected him to be, but it's ok, and I'm much happier now, feeling safe about my documents, knowing things won't just get up in smoke and disappear from my computer when I most need it.

I've now a couple of days of calm before the new seminar starts. I'm getting ahead with my letters and also took the chance to start reading "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" in Hungarian. These days of peace and quite should be savored. However, a damp spot just fell upon these perfect days yesterday, as my cat Hyperion came home in a pretty bad shape. He was salivating a lot and acting a bt strange, unable to walk well and generally looking bad. As we could, we took him to the vet, not knowing what had happened to him, whether he was poisoned or not. He started getting more and more aggressive until he was just crazy out of it. The vet said he was completely disoriented and couldn't recognize anyone. He was in such a defensive, out of his wits state that it was impossible to try and treat him, even after being shot with diazepam. The vet said he wasn't poisoned, but he suspects he had been hit hard and that the blow may have affected his brain, due to which he couldn't recognize anyone, making him rather dangerous. He has been kept at the vet over night, and today we will be told if there's any hope for him or if he shall be put to sleep. It´s kind of awful trying to imagine life without Hyperion. We have other two cats, but Hyperion was, really, like a ray of light, the one that made stuff more colorful around.

We now must wait.

Tablet Kills Netbook?

The other day a coworker of mine sent us an e-mail where in an online article the end of the netbook era was being heralded. Acer, Asus and other big names in the field of netbooks said that they would stop producing netbooks, since the market was choosing tablets over them. This made me sad. I have a netbook, and as it's getting old (it's maybe some 5 years old, but it still works really well!), I've been starting to think about its replacement (due in one or two years, the earliest, since I've currently other priorities that take up all of my money and then some). I have checked tablets on stores some time ago and then again, and truth to be told, they don't cut the deal for me. Maybe there isn't much of a market for netbooks anymore, but from my point of view, tablets are not a suitable replacement for netbooks.

Netbooks are a bit less robust than laptops, as you all know that, and often lack some things, like CD-ROM, not to mention the capabilities in terms of harddrive, RAM and so on, but for someone who isn't going to hack into the NASA or direct a Multinational Corporation from a computer, a netbook is perfect of any civilian, regular citizen needs. What does that mean? That on a netbook I can comfortably check and reply e-mails, blog, upload a video, browse the net, but also do off-net stuff too, like work on different Office programs like Word, Excel, Power Point, Project, and even other special programs you might use for whatever reason. For those of us who use programs that deal with numbers - like Excel - often the numeric keyboard being merged into the alphanumeric is already a bit of a pain in the behind, but now imagine giving away the keyboard all together, or to work with touchscreen keyboards, maybe even keyboards that detach from the tablet. Um, no.

It's important to understand that tablets and netbooks cater for different needs. A netbook gives you mobility, allow you to take your work, your projects with you and usually fits in your bag. It's a tool for working. For instance, my thesis mate an I wrote our whole thesis, run the numbers, made the math, tabbed the interviews, all on a netbook - this lovely thing of wonder I'm typing away on right now. A tablet is more of a tool to check on stuff the way you would on your big screen smartphones. Yes, you can type, answer e-mails, probably blog and write, but it's not as comfortable as a netbook. It still doesn't give you a CD-ROM, and doesn't offer you the same memory capacity. It certainly offers you more mobility, and can easily swallow up your e-reader, so you don't have to invest in a Kindle or a Nook, but it the end, it can't really swallow up the job of a netbook.

When the market comes to this point - and it reaches it quite often in the tech arena - you must be very clear with what your needs are and what are the best tools to fulfill it. I know I need capacity, and I need something that doesn't weight much, that's very mobile and I can stuck in my bag without problem. I mean, I've already downsized my planner as I went from an A5 planner to a personal filofax! I certainly don't need any more bulk! So, a laptop won't do it. Yet, a tablet runs short when it comes to the fact that I may want to flip out my netbook/whatever I have then on my flight to wherever, and watch an episode of whatever I've, or read some document I have, or I've a sudden struck of inspiration and I want to work on some document I have. Maybe I feel like doing my accounting (yes, I have sudden strikes of numbers. Today I had one), would the tablet be able to hold all this for me, and stand in a position that's comfortable for me to hold for hours and hours. Would the tablet be able to do that? So far I haven't seen the tablet that can hit the measure for me.

So, when the time comes, what will I do? Ask me on 2015, and by then, I may have the answer.

Need for Blessed Fridays

Finally the Blessed Friday has come to our lives. The day when you can finally summon those beloved four letters of the most loved acronym ever: T.G.I.F. Week after week we don't get tired of saying them, because we simply never get tired of Fridays. For Hell's sake, they even made a Restaurant around this very concept! And don't we love it. ^_^

Unlike any other regular Friday at this time of the day, I'm sitting now at a Subway surfing the net with the unique aid of our beautiful assistant, Nagi, may Hyne bless his digital soul. Stuck in my faded conbat green cord bag next to my trusty journal, he's with me now, preparing for a long day, long meetings with friends and the time in between spent among us, doing what we do best: search the net and work on the thesis. Yes, I can do that with Vonnegut or Azrael, but there's nothing better than doing it with my faithful, trustworthy, beautiful Nagi-kun. Unlike you would think, no, I'm not bailing out of work, nor have I been sent on sickdays or anykind of "leave", but more like I had to come to the Sabana Norte building because the technicians need their broadband and equipment to treat Azrael, who received Wednesday his brand new winchester (hard drive, but can you blame me for rather using such a lovely name if I can?), so he had to be set ready to work, and comply to my desires.

Naturally Mr.B had to make sneaky remarks, on the line of "well, yeah, that's the excuse now", while frowning his nose and acting as if he were 6. Well, he is, only he forgot to tell his horrid body not to age.

I have no need to tell you how good this feels right now: a break from the dull of the office, even though now that I have talked to B's Boss, Mr.D, I'm much happier because I finally realized I do have a job to do and I finally understood my tasks. Hell, I've even spread out a new Post-It Mental Map for the job! It's amazing, the hard part now is to land it on a .doc, but the .ppt will be a piece of cake! ^_^

My plans for tomorrow are hectic because I can't remember whom I was supposed to meet. Needless to say that I didn't wrote down any apointment in my PDA, so there you go. Today I have a dinner with Li and Sunday I have Supernatural with Vic. Was I supposed to do thesis job with Mile tomorrow? Hn, I do have to press her for the 2008 and 2009 data analysis, so I can load it into the chapter and keep the tutor over his head with job.

Plans, plans, plans... days become a series of tasks to do and tasks to cross.

Fresh Coke Anyone?

Hell, I'm starving... well, not "starving", but more like inhumanly thirsty for some coke. I do have a can in the drawer, BUT that's my "emergency-emergency" can.

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So I started writing this entry a few hours ago. Since then I went to the store, the pretty one because the closest one is astonishingly dirty, and I like my coke and crackers PLAIN, not liberally sprinkled with dust, and aged to perfection past the expiraton date before being put on the shelves. Call me unoriginal, traditional and dogmatic, but I like my food "fresh". You see, usually you find the "gracefully aged to dated" products in Chinese stores, where broken stuff are magically held up together, spelled to look "okay" by the gods of these people. The spell, however, is spacebound, because usually as you walk out of the store, the goods rot, break, fell apart, stop, spoil, or any other natural, organic or mechanical procedure that taked the good from good to "waste of your wage". Well, Chinese stores are not the only ones, for this store in the corner is ran by Iranians. But I don't want to be xenophobic on the topic.

As I remember, and this is a piece of information that could aid many currently living or working or studying close to the Mall San Pedro, there's a small store somewhere behind the Z Tower, before reaching the corner of Spoon (a coffeeshop), where you COULD buy soft drinks, water, candies and daily things. I stress the "could" because truth is that you wouldn't really want to. You see, I'm a big fan of chocolates, particularly American chocolates, and usually the ones I like are the harder to get, here. So, back a few years, before I fell in love with Reese, I was all about Butterfinger. I was willing to go to any extent to get it, even buying them old at the store in the mall, just to have them. Well, those "any extent" didn't include the man from that certain store assuring me he had some "somewhere" and then DIGGING elbow deep in a glass counter filled with a lot of crap from old chocolates to pencils, flu medicin and nails. And when I say "full", I mean it was all crammed up in there, and the only way to get your arm into it was by pulling stuff out. All small cavities between things were crammed with grey, greasy, sticky dust and cobwebs. Things got interesting when I saw against the glass a dead cockroach covered in dust and cobwebs getting slowly mashed by the movement of things as the Butterfinger bar was searched.

"Oh... uh... I changed my mind, thank you!" I said and rushed away.

It never ceases to amaze me the degree of messiness acquired by some people, and the best of it, that many of them PRETEND to be liked by a broad audience. Well, I don't know you, but I prefer to buy and eat in clean places. I don't like eatng in a restaurant were rats and cockroaches run around among the clients and the waiters. I don't like to buy my food and stuff in stores that keep everything dusty, spoiled and generally dirty.

This messiness can translate also to poor job. Poor customer service, crappy ensambling, crappy times of answer and crappy solutions. Our company, inspite of all old people and unions could say, is CRAPPY, and people know it, but they don't care, almost as if they've got their jollies out of being outrageously criticized. Our health care is crappy, private medicine is craptacular, with doctors that would diagnose only expensive illnesses and squeeze as much as they can from the patient before it dies.

I have another one for you. At the office I was asigned an HP Compac piece-of-shit laptop. He was known as Nyikolaj Rosztov, later on Azrael, when the demon in it was bigger and more in possession than the machine. Our techs could do nothng against Azrael, so we called HP to demand the warranty for this p.o.s. The dude, a nerd-meets-nerder looking, smelly, never-fucked-anything-but-his-own-hand tech came, said that they covered only hardware, but wouldn't replace the inner mouse (which Smelly Bastard fucked up even more than what it originally was), nor will see why the printer rejected the laptop... printer being HP too. It was decided that Kolya would have his hard drive (did you know that in Hungary they call the hard drive Winchester? ^_^ Well, you know now what would be the name of my next lap top. Or can I rename Omi "Dean" and Nagi "Sam"?) replaced. That was April 22nd. It was said it would be replaced on April 23rd or in five days max. I'm working on a No Name laptop, an HP as well today. Whenever I called the HP people, they promised me that by the end of the week they would replace the winchester. Over and over. Promise after promise.

I e-mailed mad that nothing was done, and then, using my evil contacts, got to a manager at HP and I demanded action. I've got a promise: "We will be installing the new hard drive by June 1st. I'll let you know if something happens and we have to delay".

Okay, No Name is lended. It is NOT my own laptop. Okay, I'll name right not No Name as Vonnegut. I'm having a big Vonnegut moment anyway, so might as well have a name. Anyway, this is not HP letting down Individual Customer Me, it's letting down Corporative Customer, Our Institution. When a company selling posters on Amazon delayed my order two weeks, I wreck havoc royally. Now...

ATTENTION TO ALL COMPUTER AND LAP TOP BUYERS:

DO NOT BUY HP EQUIPMENT. YES IT COMES WITH "WARRANTY" BUT SIT AND WAIT TO SEE WHEN WILL THEY MAKE IT GOOD. IF THEY CAN LET DOWN A CORPORATION, A STATE INSTITUTION, WHAT WOULDN'T IT DO TO YOU?

Don't get fooled by Fergie, Shrek characters and all the people HP is using to advertise. Take my advise: if you want a laptop (which is my area of "expertise") go for IBM, even if they are such motherfuckers as to ship American workers to the India to pay them less, go for Dell, even if they are such sons of a whore that don't let women grow in the company. Go for Mac, go for Acer, go for Sony. Personally I can vouch for the exceptional quality and durability of both IBM and Acer. I've worked so far with Lanix, Dell, Toshiba, HP, Compac and Sony aside from the afore mentioned. Add to it, I can vouch for the customer service of IBM and GBM. They have NEVER let me down. They keep their promises and move sky and earth to do what it takes to get your computer right. Add to it, IBM ThinkPads, just like lovely Acers go the extra mile and keep working nice and fine for YEARS there where other laptops had long died.

But above all, avoid HP like the swine flu. It's even worse.