Fruits of Labor

So, I know I've been pretty neglectful of the blog and fridayflash and all the other things I should have been doing the past few weeks. The problem was/is, that my day job workplace imploded due to a suddenly unexpected rush of work, plus one of my co-workers being out for a month, leaving us drowning and shorthanded. I've always been the kind of person who needed a lot of down time, but when I was working 60 hours a week, 7 days a week, I essentially had the energy to exist and work and sleep and not much else.

Thankfully, it looks like it's all settling down finally, and it's time to get down to business. The first order of business is what to do with the MESS of overtime I got. The most obvious choice, because it's the one thing in my life I'm least satisfied with, was replacing my older, not-so-awesome computer with something truly epic.

So I decided to set out to build my first computer, with the help of one of my friends (because work is slowing down a bit, but I really don't have time to do all the research on equipment right now within anything resembling a reasonable time frame). My needs were many, in part because I'm making a transition from being primarily a console gamer to splitting my free gaming time between PC and console.

Anyway, because I'm proud of the rig that's about to be put together (hopefully at the end of this week), I figured I'd post all the components here, both to say "look at what I've got!" because secretly I'm just a bouncing 8 year old about some things still, and in part to keep some record of what I did and why.

Case: Raidmax Smilodon
Motherboard: ASUS M4A79 Deluxe AMD
Processor: AMD Phenom II 3.2 GHz Dual Core
Video Card: GeForce GTS 250
HDD: 250 GB Western Digital drive
Other Junk: Card Reader, DVD Drive, 4 GB of Ram, 560W Power Supply
OS: Windows 7 Professional

Now I'll admit that there are some concessions made. That hard drive isn't NEARLY enough, but it was the easiest place to cut corners on my budget because I can slap in a TB drive next month and keep going like nothing ever happened. But otherwise, it's pretty solid. 4 GB of RAM will work for now, though I think I might go more sooner or later.

Windows 7 was easily the most expensive part of this rig, but that's because A) I need Virtual XP due to some of my game tastes. How am I going to mount virtual drives in DOSBOX to play Daggerfall otherwise? (No, I don't actually do this. Though I have before.) and B) I wanted support in case something breaks, so I wasn't going to go out on a limb with the OEM. If I'm spending the money anyway, why dick around with half measures?

Anyway, that's the computer. As of this morning, all three shipments are out and slowly making their way towards me. I can't wait to assemble this, but right now I'm playing the 'move everything out of my old computer to the safe haven of my external HDD. This is probably the last time I'll mention this computer on the blog, but I'll be tweeting about it this weekend, I'm sure.

And that's all the update I have for today. I swear swear swear swear I'll have fiction up for fridayflash this week, so look for that at the end of the week. Otherwise, be excellent to each other.