New laptop!!!

The brand new laptop that I ordered last week should be here today! I was contemplating buying it for a few days and by the time I ordered it last Friday, it was already backordered with an expected ship date of 5-14 days. Thankfully, I got an email last night that said that the order was shipped yesterday from a location about an hour away from where I live, and the UPS shipment is out for delivery today. Awesome!!!

I got a deal on it, too: $499 with free shipping, so it came to $530 after tax. I see on the Officemax.com website that it is already back up to $599, so I just squeaked by on getting that deal. Some of the reviews I read were mixed, but since I am going to be using this laptop primarily for basic work, performance wasn’t too big of an issue for me. It has a DVD burner, which is awesome since I only have a CD burner in my computer and my dad’s DVD/Lightscribe burner does not work in his HP Desktop (it’s the second drive that broke after limited use, so I’d be cautious of buying an HP computer!), and DDR3 memory. A lot of the other laptops I looked at only had DDR2 and were the same price, if not more expensive. The rest of the specs can be found on that link above, but yeah- it sounded like an awfully good deal for what I’m going to be using it for.

My first laptop was actually a Toshiba Satellite. It was purchased in 2000 for my 11th birthday at Circuit City for… well, a hefty amount of money, since we didn’t “price shop” back then and I was too young to know better. It had problems over the years, but it took a beating overall. The backlight burnt out at one point and when it was replaced there was a line of dead pixels on the screen; nobody had a clue what happened and it was simply too much to replace so it stayed like that. (It still would cost about $200-300 to replace with a new screen, even though it is a 10 year old laptop. Go figure!!) The battery also died and the power jack is screwed up, which causes the computer to shut off at random points, but by the time those problems finally happened the computer was on it’s way out and I had a new desktop PC set up by 2005. Otherwise, the computer was pretty reliable. It still runs, actually, but because of the problem with the power jack and dead battery, it is very annoying to use for extended periods of time and heavy to tote around.

My desktop is 5 years old and still running well from having been maintained over the years. It could continue to run well with a few minor fixes, but I needed something more portable for school and this deal on the laptop came at the right time. I figure in another few years I’ll do a complete upgrade on my desktop, and keep rotating off that way between laptops and desktops if needed.

Update: Well no sooner did I write this post did I receive a knock on the door, and guess who it was? The UPS man with a box for me that looked about the size of a computer…! I’m actually using it right now to finish writing this, and I was surprised with the size of the screen. It has a widescreen monitor that is about 17″ and a full keyboard with a number pad. It weighs about 6lbs, which is a little hefty but not too unmanageable. I’ll write more about it soon.

Exams, Cannibal Corpse and haunted prisons

Thanks everyone for their advice on how to fix my computer. I appreciate it, however I already tried most of the suggestions that I was given. The screen to choose how to boot up the computer comes up automatically, so I never needed to press the F8 key. I tried all of the options there and the computer still would not boot up past the XP screen – it only flashes that blue message and then goes back to the BIOS/Abit screen. I am pretty sure that I need the XP disc or the boot discs on the floppies, as I mentioned. I was told that any computer place will burn me a copy of the XP disc if I bring the computer with the XP serial number sticker on it, certifying that I have (somewhere) a hard, legal copy of the CD. I have yet to try that and I have a guy who is going to try to get me a copy of the CD. He has not replied to my message in about a week, so I will shoot him another one today.

I think this is a bad luck computer. It took me months, almost a year, to get the computer up and running from the time I bought the parts. The RAM was bad and I had to buy new RAM to have the computer work. Then the power button got disconnected somehow two months after I finally had the computer up and running. I did not know that was the problem, a relatively simple one to fix, and thought it was a bigger problem. Josh finally took a look at it, three months after it stopped “working,” and fixed it for me. The fan control also was not hooked up right and I think Josh fixed that problem as well. Then two of my fans stopped working (out of seven that are in the case) – but thankfully they are easier to replace then a whole motherboard. Next… I am banking on the computer exploding. The case is probably bulletproof, and I know it is heavy as a mother fucker, so the inside will be reduced to ashes while the case remains standing, 11 bays and all. ;)

Anyway. On Friday, I had two exams that I studied and prepped my ass off for. I created two outlines for each of the essay questions that were on going to be on the history exam and made a list of the map places to study. I also printed out previous quizzes and practice tests for chemistry that I reviewed to see what questions I got wrong and needed to re-study. I thought the chemistry exam was relatively easy, except for a few of the short answer questions that I know I missed some things on. The multiple choice section was a cake-walk, though, and there was even a question in there that appeared twice on the exam. So far, my quiz scores have been in the C and B ranges. I got a 85% on the first one, a 72.5% on the second and an 80% on the third… which I admit I rushed through and completed in about seven minutes. I thought I was confident with all of my responses and ended up getting two wrong. Considering my quiz scores, I think I scored a high C to a B on the exam, which is acceptable. I love A’s, but I know that A’s in everything can be a little rough to achieve… and sometimes, I just forget things or fuck up. No big deal, unless it is habitual, which I don’t plan on it being.

After the chem exam, which took me about forty-five minutes to complete, I went to the student center and reviewed the outlines and map for two hours before the history exam. The history exam went well, too, and took me about an hour and twenty minutes to complete. I think I totally aced the 10 map questions and did pretty well on the essays. I was relieved that the two essay questions I prepped for were on the exam. We had six to choose from and it was suggested that we prep four of them.

When all of that was over, I rewarded myself by picking up my check at the Halloween store (which was pretty nice, considering what I was making at my old job…) and going to see Cannibal Corpse at Starland. The show was pretty good; The Red Chord, Black Dahlia Murder, and Goatwhore also played. The music got kind of repeatative after a while, so I took breaks to go and sit outside. Cannibal Corpse were awesome when they finally came on. I left around midnight and I think they probably played until 12:30am or later. I heard “The Pick-Axe Murders,” which is probably one of my favourite songs of theirs, and was instantly happy. It was amazing. “Pit of Zombies” and “The Wretched Spawn” were good, too. I was waiting to hear “Gallery of Suicide,” “Fucked With A Knife” and “Stripped, Raped and Strangled” but never did – they might have played them after I left.

Tonight I am going to the Eastern State Penitentiary in Philly for the nighttime tour. It is supposed to be really spooky and I got some discount coupons at work. It should be fun… Tomorrow it is back to the same-old, same-old: school, school, and lots of driving in between.