Monday, November 25, 2013

Too much spending on disability?

I was working this afternoon when my desktop began making a grinding noise. It was my CPU fan failing. It sounded like it was going to shoot blades through the case. I backed my work up and shut down stuff pretty quick, but not before the fan totally quiet. For some reason, my computer didn't shut down. The fan had to still be running because you have less than ten seconds. AMD processors will shut themselves down before they burn up. Oddly, it's not a feature Intel processors have (last I checked).


So, I whipped out my laptop, went to the Microcenter website and bought a water cooler for just $76 with tax. Yes, I could have bought a fan for less than half that, but I've never seen a better price for a water-cool system.

I assembled my desktop myself and have for about a decade. If something breaks, all I have to do is replace a single part myself and not the whole system. However, I've never been able to restrain myself from upgrading rather than replacing, mainly because the previous cutting edge components always come down in price.

This failure comes at a bad time, though. I resolved to put off my discretionary spending until the first of each month. A few days ago I broke down and made a discretionary purchase. Microcenter offered an Android tablet computer for only $40. When I lost power, I had to lug my laptop around to the library and cafes for work. I began to resent the weight of my laptop. So, I went for it. Add ten bucks for the three-year replacement plan (makes sense for a cheap tablet) and ten more for the SSD memory, and with tax, I've spent $65.

It might sound frivolous, but it's not. Everything is aimed at keeping myself writing. Yes, I have a laptop. Why do I need a desktop? If either one breaks down, as things always do, I want to be able to keep writing without interruption. A laptop or desktop alone doesn't give me that option. Also, I need things set up so I can't lose work.  So, I have a lot of redundant data storage, hard drives, flash drives and cloud drives.

(I couldn't actually wait, either, to get gloves and a hat after the cold snap this weekend. Another $40.) I could still break even this cycle.

Even with all that, I've had the most horrible luck getting writing done ever since my power got knocked out by the wind storm the previous Sunday. I accomplished is that I finalized two installments for reading for my writer's group, and finished outlining this draft. I haven't been able to advance as I thought this draft 1,000 words a day as I wanted to. Shit happens.