So I survived yet another Black Friday….

Ok, for the record my day-job is in retail (I’m not disclosing where I currently work at as my opinions may not exactly mesh with my employer’s, and plausible deniability….)….

So this weekend I survived another Black Friday. In fact it was Black Friday #29. I thought it was #28, but I’ve apparently lost count. It started in 1995 at The Original Cookie Company (before the merger with/buyout by Mrs. Fields). Then Target (yes, I worked there for 3 1/2 months 25+ years ago). Then back to Mrs. Fields, this time with 2 stints in Corporate owned stores and 3 franchises. And then Home Depot. And now my current employer.

Anyway, several retailers that I purchase from (namely Steam, Gog, Spamazon, Newegg, etc.) started their Black Friday sales early. And I had willpower. I resisted. All weekend long.

And I get home from work Monday morning, and sat down to my computer, and Cyber Monday. I had resisted all the Black Friday sales. But my willpower has its limits. And I realized that the prices on SSDs are going to go up in the upcoming months. And there was a 4 TB one on sale at Newegg. And I could afford it just barely.

Long story short, I’ve just broken my promise to myself on no more computer upgrades….

Happy Shove Bread Up A Turkey’s Ass Day!

So, Happy Thanksgiving. Or, Happy Shove Bread Up A Turkey’s Ass Day. Owing to the work schedule, I have to work tonight, and my roommate/brother was invited out for Thanksgiving. So, for me, it’s just Thursday. But while I can’t celebrate with the excessive protein and carbo intake that is traditional for a day like this, I can still be grateful. I may not be sitting down to a turkey dinner with all the trimmings, I still have food in the pantry. I have to work tonight, but I’m still gainfully employed. I didn’t sleep that well last night, but I still got up and wore pants today.

Loosely translated, even though life may not be the best that you want it, it is still good. Always look for the good things and be grateful for them….

Well, it took about 6 hours….

Well, it took about 6 hours, but my laptop is usable again. Just for comparison, my Tower only took about 10 minutes to update yesterday….. I guess I have a usable laptop now. For another month, at least….

Just another slow night….

So I thinks it’s documented that I can’t leave well enough alone. Tonight, I’m redownloading my Epic games library (I think you can pretty much figure out why), so I set my downloads up and stepped away from my Tower. Sat down in the easy chair with my laptop (which again if you recall, I wiped completely 2-3 weeks ago). And it was slower than molasses. Yep. Patch Tuesday strikes again. Given the age of my laptop, the only choice I have is to just let it run its course. But that means I have two computers, and both are down for the duration. A part of me really wants to say that it’s that time of the month, but that just sounds too misongynistic….

I guess it’s India vs. New Zealand tonight in a World Cup semi-final, then…..

Just a reminder:

This is just a reminder. A courtesy, perhaps. But there is to be no Yippee-Ki-Yay Motherf*cker until you’ve stuffed bread up a Turkey’s ass.

One holiday at a time, people….

Just a lazy night off….

So, it’s my night off. And my tower is not running. I turned it off. I figured since I spent most of my vacation trying to get my laptop up to date and working, I might as well use it. So I’m sitting in my easy chair, rooting for the Dutch (England vs. Netherlands in the cricket World Cup). It’s also ideal for the ‘midday’ nap attack. When I had my big office chair, I could just lean back and have a quick snooze. But the chair broke, and I replaced it with a regular desk chair. It’s a better fit. I now have more space in my room. And from my easy chair, I have  a better sight line to watch my TV.

Now, about the tower: Sunday night, I pulled it out again. If you remember, when I put the Ryzen 7 5700X in it, I decided to go with my Wraith Prism cooler. Sunday night, I decided to put my Thermaltake cooler back in (no link, it appears to have been already disco’ed) mainly because it’s designed for 170w tdp vs. 105w tdp, And my processor averages about 30 degrees cooler.

Now about Sunday night: yes, I called out. I looked at the weather forecast, and saw that it was going to rain all night long, and my shoes aren’t the most waterproof. And then I woke up at 4 with the serious cast of the runs. A review of my time off showed that I had accrued sufficient sick time to cover my shift, so I used it. Good thing as I had to make another rush trip to the men’s room at 9, when I would’ve been normally on the bus… This was a decision that essentially made itself….

23H2 is underway…..

So apparently Windows 11 23H2 was released. Well, at least the .iso files so you can do a complete install. For those of us waiting to ‘update’, apparently Microsoft was working on patching the MCT, it should be out in a couple of weeks. But being the inpatient sort, and having just finished yet another system wipe, I downloaded the .iso file and used Rufus to create a usb flash drive (another advantage to using Rufus to create your usb media is that you can also disable the compulsory Microsoft account as part of the Windows 11 installation).

So skipping a bit, brother, I’m now on Windows 11 23H2…..

I have space in my room again….

For those of you keeping score at home, my really big office chair broke a couple of weeks ago. Last week while I was on vacation, I ordered the replacement. This time, I didn’t go for the really big, high-backed boss’s chair. I just went for a plain, desk chair. It arrived Friday, and today I dismantled the old, broken chair and assembled the new one. It’s much smaller. But, on the bright side, I now have space in my room again. Which means I can watch TV from my easy chair now. While using my now recommissioned laptop.

Oh, and I upgraded my processor. This time I went with a Ryzen 7 5700X. I was looking at the Ryzen 9 5950X, but the price is an issue. The 5700X was on sale at Newegg, and I figured save a few bucks. When I installed it, I also switched coolers, going back to the Wraith Prism, just because of the ease of installation. The TDP of this processor is 65w, vs. 105w of the 3800X/2700X that I was running before (and I still have, just as a backup…), so I should see cooler temps…

Having said that, I think that this will be the last upgrade I make to this computer. If something breaks, I’ll probably replace it, but I also need to remind myself that what I have is perfectly good, and this isn’t cheap….

Another first this fall….

Can’t sleep today. One of my UPS deliveries is signature required so I have to stay up for it. Which means I slept for most of last night. And as I woke up, the heat was on…..

For the first time this fall, it got sold cold it tripped the thermostat…

The turning of the seasons….

I can tell the seasons are turning. While I was able to take down the AC in my room earlier than normal, my window stayed open 24/7, and that was sufficient to keep my room comfortable. But now it’s down into the ‘30s at night. And this is the second night in a row that I’ve had to close my window. I may have to turn on the heat soo, but not yet.

It’s getting colder…

The Last Day….

Tonight is the last day of my vacation. Agenda tonight is: nothing. Except for the part about getting ready for the return to work. And another cricket match tonight (I should always take vacation during the World Cup).

Ordered a couple of items from Newegg this week, too. The UPS man should be delivering them tomorrow.

And all those posts about working on my laptop this week? This post was written on it. Hello World…

I’m awake! I’m awake!

Tonight would normally be a work night, but I’m still on vacation here. So I went to bed this morning, and somehow my alarm was still set as if I had to work. Side note: it was irrelevant since I got up before it went off.

So I’m up, showered, and I have a night off before me. Agenda: nothing….

Vacation Day 4 Status....

 I think this attempt to rebuild the laptop took. It just takes a lot of patience. Now I'm copying files over to it. In the Cricket World Cup, tonight's match is Australia vs. Netherlands. Hooray the Dutch. Though I'm probably going to take nap through it (I'm trying to keep my circadian rhythm constant as I work overnights).

So, onward with doing nothing...

Ok, so I did write it off as dead…

Ok, so I wrote the laptop off as dead. But by the same token, I now have nothing to lose. And I have three days left on my vacation, and I want something constructive to do. I can still work on it while keeping with my established goal of doing absolutely nothing, aside from watching the Cricket World Cup. Besides with the order I placed this morning with Newegg, I might need a backup system at least momentarily…

Vacation Day 3 Report/Update….

I slept all ‘day’ (I work overnights, so my ciradian rhythm is artificially maintained the opposite). Yesterday, I tried pushing my limit and staying up to the point that I could watch Monday Night Football. And I lasted only through the first quarter. So I pretty slept all night. First time in over 5 years.

Now I’m up for a few hours at least. And now I have to take a break from vacationing for a quick session of adulting. Namely the laundry. And possibly a trip to the grocery store. Than back to doing as little as possible for the next 3 days…

Success!

Success! or a Vacation: Day 3 Update…

Like I posted this morning, I had my target run delivered. And then for lack of anything else to do went back to screwing around on my laptop. Another session of Windows/Microsoft Update that lasted 3+ hours when the same updates on my Tower took only 3 minutes at the most. But I stuck with it being as it’s a 17.3” with a touchscreen.

But it finally happened. I succeeded in rendering it completely unbootable. Yes, I still have a restore flash drive, or I can just use a recent Windows 10 thumb drive to start over again, but what’s the point. It’s over 6 years old. Even more than that because I got it refurbished. It’s slow. I can’t just throw it out since I have my personal info on the hard drive, and it’s gonna be a (four letter word) to take it out. So, I think it will go into the equivalent of The Drawer.

I may end up rebuilding it again if I end up fucking up my tower.

Now to watch what I can of the Monday Night Football game…

Vacation Day 2 Update

Pretty much did nothing today. Needed a Target done, so I'm having it delivered. Decided to pull out the laptop and work on it some more. Currently watching Afghanistan and Pakistan go at it in the Cricket World Cup....

Tonight's agenda: nothing.... 

Vacation Day 1 Update

Currently watching India and New Zealand go at in the World Cup. It took a second wiping of the laptop to make it work. But it is patched and up to date. It is slow, and I’ve realized that I’m never going to use for anything productive (just a backup in case I fuck  up the tower). So I think I’m done with it for now. I’ve copied enough stuff over to it, so that if I ever have to use (God Forbid)….

And I think I saw a cricket match almost get called for fog….

End of update back to Vacation…

Vacation: Day 1 Agenda….

So the laptop still had issues, especially with hangups and freezes. Suspected a hard drive failure. Not that big of a deal (especially since the last time I turned on the laptop was over two years ago, when I rebuilt the tower). So this is just an exercise in the craft, more than actually using it for something productive…

Anyway, I decided to wipe it. First attempt was a system reset with the HP issued recovery partition. And it failed. Second attempt (successful, BTW) was with a Windows 10 22H2 flash drive. Also on the plus side: No HP bloatware that I have to uninstall…

Anyway, Day 1 agenda: work on the laptop, watch the Seattle Kraken on TV, India vs New Zealand in the Cricket World Cup, and the Rugby World Cup.

Failing that, the agenda will be doing as little as possible. After all, I am on vacation….

Vacation: Commence!

First of all: the laptop still works! It’s 6+ years old, and it’s a bit slow, but it still can turn on and surf the web. Proof: this post is being written on it.

So, a couple of weeks ago, I realized that I had three days’ vacation accrued, and thought it would be appropriate to use it. Booked it, and it was approved. Then, when the schedule was posted, I got an extra surprise: a bonus day off. I'm getting paid for it, but I’ll deal with that. So for the next 6 days, I’ off work.

Vacation: Commence!