I went ahead and ordered a new computer. I was just browsing Dell's website and decided why the heck not? Just look at those prices! Four years ago, if you had told me I could get a computer for half of what mine cost and with maybe 6-8 times the power and 10 times the storage capacity, I'd have thought you were nuts. If there are mid-level home computers below $1,000 already then there's no point in continuing to maintain and repair the one I have. That's just not going to be a good investment of time. Shipment will be in about 10 days.
Anyway, I got to thinking... Gateway has those Gateway Country Stores. Essentially, those are computer showrooms with bales of hay and white picket fences -- a farm theme. What if Dell had its own country stores. They could have one guy in plaid and overalls walking around in there. He'd be the farmer in the dell.
The real reason why I rarely upgrade is that's a lot of work and I'm lazy. This evening, I had to round up all the software installation CDs. What a mess... it looks like I haven't sorted those out in... uh... a number of years. I needed Lotus Smartsuite, Quicken, Acrobat, Photoshop, Painter, Fireworks, Streets & Trips... each one in a different corner of the room. In fact, I couldn't find the Smartsuite CD and thought I had left it at work, but no... there it was under a pile of comic books inside a storage box. Hardware drivers can be downloaded from the web and that's a good thing because I don't think I'll be able to find the driver CDs for some of these peripherals. I'm planning to move the secondary hard disk over to the new computer so that should help a bit.
Saw a parked van this afternoon with the usual "How is my driving? Call 201-xxx-xxxx." message on the back. This van, however, had a sticker over part of the phone number. Hrmm... Let's say you're driving along and you get cut off by this van. Quick! Dial 201-xxx.. uhh... now, wouldn't that be annoying? On the other hand, does anyone ever dial those numbers?
Manager comes by and says take a look at this problem five friggin' minutes before it is time for me to go. Yes, that's the same timesheet guy who now can't respect my time. I should toss it back at him and leave but no... I debugged the problem. Guess what? It's a 'fix' that he made. *bangs head on table*
After work, I was standing in line for the self-checkout machines at a supermarket when this lady walks past the entire line and goes right to one of the machines. Geez. I had to go tell her that I was in line and so were all those people over there. Yet another annoying twit in Bergen County. Ho hum.
Then, as a complete non sequitur, I found a wallet someone had dropped and left it with the self-checkout attendant.