1st time in armor in... something like 3 years

Fighting for me is a question of momentum. If I do it on a regular basis, all is well, but if I take a break, I don't seem to want to do it anymore.

Come to think of it, many things are like that - sewing, for instance. I mostly enjoy sewing, but if I don't do it for a while, it's harder to get started again. Fighting, however, is the worst of these, because on top of my natural momentum problems / easy distractability there's an element of ... intimidation, if that's the right word. Probably is, because let's face it, at the moment? I'm a baby seal out there (see icon!)

Anyway. that said, other than some persistant issues with the new body armor, and with my helm needing different padding and maybe a different chin strap, it went wel. soucyn wanted me to work on footwork much more than I ever had in the past, which was helpful, except for the part where once I got to where I was supposed to be, I no longer remembered how to throw a decent shot. (This goes beyond rust into just needing to start over. On the upside, maybe I've lost my bad habits too?) And I did seem to at least remember how to block, a little. Not well, but a little.

Maybe I won't be an *absolute* liability come War. Maybe.

It seems to be the season for computer ponderings...

I may be turning to the dark side.

Or possibly the light side, depending on who you ask.

I haven't actually owned my *own* computer for years, as the work laptop I'm typing this on had many advantages. ( I have about as much control over it as I would one I owned, and it gets upgraded on a reasonably consistent basis, and of course the ever important, I didn't have to pay for it portion of the experience. )

But...See, y'all know I'm in love with my iPhone. It practically makes me breakfast in bed. More on this later.

I've realized that I rather like having a desktop computer these days - most of the functions formerly served by having a laptop at home, like reading my email from the comfort of my couch or bed, are now served by my phone, so when I want a "computer" computer these days, I've been using Pandora. The catch here is that Pandora is Nick's baby - he built her from scratch, and he's not entirely happy with me having sort of appropriated her for my own use.

Thus me acquiring my own desktop to share my desk with my sewing machine would be a Good Thing. And here we come to the Dark Side.

Did I mention my love for my iPhone?

I'm pondering a Mac. Specifically a cute little Mac Mini, ordered from Amazon bundled with the extra memory (soucyn says he can put it in fairly easily, and it's well under half the cost of ordering it from Apple with the memory pre-installed. ($60 vs $150 seems a nobrainer there). That, and a 20" HP monitor (is it sad that I can get THAT cheaper through Amazon than through work??!?!) and I should be all set, though I haven't decided on new keyboard/mouse yet.

I'm sort of conflicted over this though. I've never owned a Mac, but they appeal to me. That said, I'm afraid I'll hate it and will have paid a significant premium over getting a Windows box - for instance, I could get an HP desktop with better specs and the same monitor as the one I'm looking at, for the price of *just* the Mini without any peripherals or even the memory upgrade. So that tradeoff for a user experience that I'm not *absolutely* sure I'll love is... scary.

And yet... I *adore* my phone. And I wouldn't have believed that the user experience there would make it nearly as cool as it is - certainly the Helio phone I had *before* my iPhone had similar specs, better in some areas, and yet it sucked. So maybe it's worth it?

Oh, and of course to further complicate things, there are rumors that prices on iMacs are falling soon. So that's a temptation, but not MUCH of one, because even with the price drop, it'd still be outside my budget. Sexier than the Mini and not-matching monitor, though.

So... reassure me? talk me out of it and into something else? Either way...

Trying out a Mac for giggles...

So on siderea's advice of "try before you buy", I brought home the old mac that lives at work for the weekend. (It's a iBook G4 that hasn't been used in years - it got bought in ~2003 or 4, I think, for a color sales rep who needed it for graphics customers and then left in something of a huff... it's a couple versions out of date, running OS X 10.3 (and I have no idea which cat that is...)

I'm writing this entry on it.

So far, the thing that's bothering me the most, not that I've done much other than "kick the tires" as it were, is that I can't figure out how to truly maximize a window. My standard way of working on things tends to be a lot of maximized windows that I switch between - having the edges of the other windows sticking out here and there sort of bugs me in an OCD sort of way. Likewise, the shared menu bar will take some getting used to, though I can already see some advantages there.

Otherwise, it's *damn* peppy for a 5+ yr old computer, which gives me warm fuzzies about the possible speed of a new one.

Off to go download trial versions of some of the software I want for "my" future computer, if I go that way. Assuming much of it runs - as I said, it's an *old* computer.

Hi, I’m a mystery plant

This is in my yard, just beginning to bloom (maybe a third ofthe flowers are open). First I thought rose of some sort, before it bloomed, then I thought blackberries, now I’m wondering if it’s a rosa multiflora like Jenny’s. Help?

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Mirrored from Erminespot.