New Computer Report

The new computer finally arrived. It's... fine. The keyboard, the screen, the weight—all just okay. Nothing to write home about, certainly not "over the moon," but it will absolutely get the job done. Specifically, the job of banging out my often poorly written blogs and online posts. It reminds me of a conversation I had a long time ago with an Internet moderator where I confessed my geekiest purchase: the Sony Ultra Mobile PC. That thing cost over a thousand bucks and, frankly, didn't work. It came out around the same time as the iPhone, which was similarly priced and, you know, actually functioned. But for some inexplicable reason, I had to have that Sony computer. It was an obsession that came right after my fixation (and significant spending) on collecting advanced AIBO robotic dogs. Thankfully, I managed to flip that Ultra Mobile PC and recover a good chunk of what I paid, so it wasn't a total disaster financially. Fast forward to today: this new machine is perfectly mediocre, and I paid a tiny fraction of what I shelled out for the Sony UMPC. The Sony UMPC had the "wow" factor, but it ran Windows Vista—a complete non-starter. I genuinely tried to enjoy it. I even took it to the public library, where it immediately failed to connect to the Wi-Fi. The connectivity problems were real. The library technician wasted an hour trying to get that exotic, Japanese Windows machine to work with their network. I didn't mind at the time; they were essentially getting to kick the tires on a bizarre piece of tech. This current computer, however, runs a normal OS and has just okay performance. But here’s the key: it works. Everything seems to work, which is a massive relief since it was a used device from an online flea market. It's completely up to date, and I figure it will let me bang out posts like this one for maybe a year. Not bad for the price!