Not Much More Motivation

Those of you (all three of you) who subscribe to Threshold may have noticed that you haven’t been receiving updates lately.
That’s due to the fact that Bloglet, the service I use for subscriptions, has been unable to communicate with Blogger for the past few days.
There’s nothing I can do about that, beyond go to Bloglet periodically, test the connection, and re-enable it if it’s working again.
So in the meantime you’ll just have to read Threshold the old-fashioned way…
I never did manage to get any kind of motivation today, beyond getting up and going into the bedroom to take a nap, at least.
As I mentioned, tomorrow (or, at this point, today) the “Sin City” DVD goes on sale.
On Sunday I’d checked out the weekly ads for various places to figure out which one would have the best price. Like I figured, Circuit City had it the cheapest at $14.99. As a bonus, the DVD comes with lithographs of the different poster images for the movie.
So that looked cool.
However, while Best Buy was selling it for $2 more, they’re including a free “A Dame to Kill For” comic with purchase of the DVD.
I don’t know if that means a full copy of the entire “A Dame to Kill For” trade paperback, (which is actually the story that will serve as the basis for the “Sin City 2” movie) some kind of low-cost “ashcan” version, or just an individual issue of the limited series, but at the very least I’m going to hit Best Buy first to find out. As long as it’s at least an ashcan (which basically just means printed on low-quality paper) version of the full story, I’ll be willing to pay the extra $2.
While I was at it, it had been my intention to pick up an in-dash mp3 CD player for my car, as Best Buy has one on sale that will actually fit in my car. I don’t see that very often.
However, since first seeing the CD player, I’ve decided that I probably won’t bother getting it. Sure, it’s only $100 (which as far as Brian is concerned is a reason not to buy it, in part because that would indicate questionable quality, but mostly because he’s just a snob), and I can afford it, but honestly, I don’t feel like investing any more money in my car at this point, particularly since I really don’t even listen to regular CDs in my car half the time.
Still, I’ll probably take a look at it while I’m there.
I did spend some money over the weekend, though.
Last week I was sitting on the couch watching TV when I heard a high-pitched whine.
Quite reasonably, I think, I concluded that hearing a high-pitched whine probably wasn’t a good thing, so I got up to try to locate the source.
My biggest concern was that it was coming from my main computer, which, fortunately, it wasn’t.
It was, however, coming from my secondary computer.
My secondary computer is more than four years old, and, despite the fact that I’ve upgraded it considerably, it was already an extremely low-end system when I bought it.
One of the main functions of the system since I set up my network has been to allow me to watch DVDs in the kitchen.
However, recently the DVD drive has pretty much crapped out, which has been leading me to consider replacing the whole thing.
Sure, it’d be much cheaper to just buy a new DVD drive, but as I said, the system is old and extremely obsolete, so, with this new, unpleasant noise that had developed, my decision was made for me.
I had planned to just build my own system, and because it didn’t really need to be a high-performance machine, I figured I could build something decent for around $300.
Still, I figured it would be worth checking out some retail sites to see if I could find a good deal on a ready-made system.
I did, at Dell.
It’s actually a lot more high-end than I needed, but hey, at $324, it was a bargain I couldn’t pass up.
The reason it’s so cheap is that it’s refurbished, but so far I’ve had pretty good luck with refurbished stuff, so here’s hoping it continues.
For those of you interested in such things, here are the system’s specs:

2.66 GHz Celeron processor
512 MB of RAM
Double Layer 16x DVD +/- RW (the double layer part is what’s really cool)
80 GB Hard Drive

All in all, not bad for under $350, or for a secondary computer.
The final storage capacity will actually be higher, as one of the few things that I’ll be salvaging from the old computer is its 40 GB hard drive.
Now I could have just spent some more money and replaced my main system, which itself is almost two years old, making my current main system my secondary by default, but I want to hold off on doing that. For one thing, as things stand, my current computer holds its own pretty well in the performance arena, so there’s the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” factor.
For another, I want to give dual-core processors (from Intel and AMD) a chance to mature a little before I invest in a system based around one.
And finally, the longer I wait, the more I can save, and the cooler the system I can buy.
Of course, there is still a good chance that somewhere within the next few months I’ll be picking up a Tablet PC, which itself could have served as my secondary PC.
Ah well, it’s not like I wouldn’t have a use for a third computer (fourth if you count my PDA).
In any case, that’ll do it for this entry. For any of you who think you’d appreciate it, pick up the “Sin City” DVD and make sure that it sells really well. Pick up Seasons One and Two of “Dead Like Me” while you’re at it.