(no subject)

Yahoo's BUZZ reported yesterday that Harry Potter fanfic regularly pops up into the top searches list on Yahoo, but on January 14, it spiked 147% (this editor wonders if that was because of LiveJournal being down for much of Friday and Saturday).

I nearly swallowed my biscuit whole reading that. Bwahahahahah.

After our aborted attempt to see a movie, we watched the old Battlestar Galactica, which was a creepy good story hampered only sometimes by goofy lines. Got to love those 70s costumes. Man the Cylons are shiny and neat. Alan nicely pointed out the slashiness between Starbuck and Zack right at the beginning of the film, and there's quite a chnk of BG fanfic out on the web. how could anyone resist the lure of a character named Starbuck?

There's a writer group meeting this afternoon I should go to. That means I need to stop being so lazy. I laid there for a long time in the comfortable blanket nest, and rejoiced in the knowledge that I never ever have to work at Flood again. Whee!

shiny silver laptop

My computer is making a terrible sound. For some time it's general machine noise has been more noticeable, and that I can abide without too much trouble. But in the past week some running piece has begun to produce a sound I can only describe as the whine of a metallic locust. It's unsettling, to say the least.

I've been emailing important documents to my gmail account, and realizing the only things truly special on this machine are my novel draft, and a handful of image files. I could replace the programs, the hundred odd random images I saved for some reason or another, or the random recipes. The rest of it is not so important, though I would be despondent without Photoshop for a time. It's something of a relief to realize this crucial fact. I no longer have to dread the eventual demise of this machine with a sense of horror.

To be honest, I will miss it when it goes. I've carried it across the country and over the ocean. It's the first computer I bought for myself, the first one I picked out on my own and it has served me well since the autumn of 2001. Despite odd places, cramped bags and being dropped so many times it has survived fairly well. I've only ever had one major system malfunction, and that can safely be blamed on Windows ME, which is the crappiest OS I know. on this little silver computer, I played my first online RPGS and Warcraft III. I wrote some of my best academic work here, and started my novel. I'm dreadfully attached to its silver simplicity and sparse design. When I bought this machine, a PII 733 was fast and the DVD player was near miraculous to me.

I hope my little laptop still has some life to go, because I am not ready to part with yet. It feels almost cruel to shop for a new computer on its screen, as if I'm betraying the poor machine.