Goodbye, old computer...

I'm writing this post from my old computer. It's the first time I've really used this computer in, oh, probably some time in August. I used it then to check websites while my laptop was otherwise occupied (I was playing Oblivion). Now it's been so long that even the keyboard feels strange. I can't believe I'm saying that. I used to hate laptop keyboards. It was my reason for thinking that I would never want to own a laptop. And then when I finally did buy one, I sort of assumed that I'd still be using this computer for word processing and such. Now I'm so used to the laptop keyboard that my old keyboard is uncomfortable. I suppose I should have expected as much, but I didn't.

My series of posts on the drama associated with my laptop really aren't that far back. It all seemed so uncertain then. I was glad that I had this machine to fall back on. Now that the laptop is working and I'm acclimated to it, this thing is looking as obsolete as, well, as it really is. The laptop takes up a fraction of the space and does everything better. Everything. Well, close enough, anyway. I probably can't run Lords of Magic on the new computer without some sort of emulation or adjustment. The same goes for a few other old games, including Diablo. If anyone knows of a good way to play old computer games on new computers without paying money for it, please let me know.

So I had already copied almost all of the files on this computer to my laptop (pretty sure I posted about that). One of my reasons for doing that was so that I could actually use those files without having to get on my old computer. Another reason was to preserve them if this computer were to die. At the time, there was no indication that it would. Well, with that out of the way, this became an auxiliary computer. And I had it running all the time. Not the monitor or the speakers, but the computer itself. I think that's the only reason I can write this post from this computer now. If I had shut this thing down every night, component stress would have killed it. Probably.

Since I didn't need the computer, and since it would be off for five weeks while I was on vacation, I shut it down early. I forget when. And I stuck to using my laptop only for September. And then I went on vacation. Well, when I came back, one of the things that had happened in my absence was that my parents painted my room. My mother kept saying she was going to while I was gone, that it would be the perfect opportunity to or whatever. I asked her not to. I forbade her from doing it. She wouldn't listen. So they moved all of my stuff out, boxed it, and painted the room. They did more than that, actually. They also removed a shelf and changed the closet. Oh, and they put new blinds in, which really was pretty necessary: the old ones were hideous.

Well, I had to finish uploading photos to Facebook and do other things, all with my laptop. None of it involved this computer. When I did get around to booting this one up, I left the room a short time later, and the thing crashed on me. Then I spent several hours trying to get it to boot up again. I kept getting messages about the boot record being unavailable and I had to go into the BIOS screen a few times. I was pretty sure that the old computer was finally dead. Maybe my parents had busted it when they'd moved it. Or maybe it was finally worn out. It didn't really matter. The only things I would miss would be one story I'd barely started writing that had never been transferred over (not sure if I like it anyway) and some gaming things, mostly my Diablo II characters.

I was giving up because it wasn't worth the trouble when the computer finally booted up. But then after a few hours, while I wasn't in the room again, it crashed. Fortunately, it didn't refuse to boot up again. I tried to figure out why it crashed, but eventually decided that the computer was still probably dying. I used it for a while and went to bed. When I woke up, I saw a blue screen, which had probably been sitting there for several hours. I restarted the computer, then shut it down again. I gave up. I figured I would try to boot it up again long enough to save my Diablo II characters, then abandon the computer entirely. But I never got around to it.

Well, now it's December. And for the month of December, there are two things I must attend to. Or rather, two categories of things. Oh, and I'm excluding work, I suppose. Firstly, there's getting ready for school. If I were a more self-disciplined person than I am, I would totally be brushing up on integral calculus or something right now. Yes, right now. Two in the morning. A perfect time for calculus, yes? I like how my fantasy version of myself is so unrealistic that actually saying these things forces me to sneer over it. I'm weird. Secondly, there's getting ready to live in Seattle. Well, dealing with this old computer thing and figuring out what I'm finally going to do about this machine is part of that second issue.

Instead of doing things that have anything to do with either school or moving, I've been playing Oblivion. So I decided that it was time to finally address this one thing. I still have a lot to do as far as moving goes. But, in principle, figuring out what to do with the old computer shouldn't be a big deal. One thing I wanted to do was remove the case and clean out any dust, just in case that was having any effect on the components. I ended up not even doing that. I just moved it back to the spot on the floor it used to occupy, fixed the speakers (my parents had put the computer up against the desk for some reason and had made everything backwards with the speakers), and turned on the power. The computer booted up just like it always used to. And it hasn't crashed yet. Maybe it will after I fall asleep. We'll see.

So yeah, apparently this computer still works perfectly (or as well as it was earlier this year). But now I'm moving. I don't really see any reason to bring it with me, and I don't think I want the computer to be where it is now if other people in my family will be using this room at all (two people have expressed interest in that). So I think now the plan is to keep this computer running for most of this month. I'll shut it down and move it into storage right before permanently occupying the apartment in Seattle. And maybe someday I'll have an opportunity to use it again. But maybe not. I don't know.