Annals of Computing

I got back from Onyx Computing less than an hour ago, and I can now finally take my victory lap - the computer is finally fixed, this time for real and for good, and I even have a warranty and guarantee, just in case.

New, cracker-jack fast, solid-state hard drive makes the laptop even better than when I first purchased it, so the cost for the repair, which by the way was $55 less than the estimate, was worth every penny.

My existential crisis (how can I lead my post-retirement life without a powerful computer?) is now averted.

I don't really need much. I have a pile of bricks up on a hill to call "home" and a nice walking path (the northern Beltline segment) near my house for exercise.  I have a supermarket, liquor store, good pizza (Fellini's), and a dive bar nearby, walking distance if necessary. Although most of my friends are usually busy with jobs and family and things like that, or now live/work out-of-town (OTP to way OTP), at least I still have friends, so there's that.

Meanwhile, the only other things I need are high-speed internet and a machine capable of accessing that high-speed internet.  I need access to this blog and to social media; to Spotify for music; YouTube for music, gaming tips, and cat videos; and various news sites to keep me up to date on the world beyond these bricks.  I need access to NetFlix and Amazon Prime for general entertainment purposes. I also need Steam and video games to keep me entertained, to divert my attention, and to waste away time when music, videos, television, and news don't cut it.  If I have all that, I'm good.

And I like it all available together, in one place, and in the format to which I am accustomed.  Maybe I'm stuck in my ways - too bad - but if home computers are McLuhanesque extensions of our minds, I don't like my mind scrambled up, or changed, or different.  I like my portal the way I've got it all set up now and in the way I've enjoyed it for the past several years, and I don't want it to change.  So I need my computer - this computer - to keep working and working in the way that it's currently set up.

And thanks to the boys down at Onyx, it looks like I'm good, at least for the foreseeable future.