The lowdown: He can’t really say hello yet, but you can say hello to him. You don’t get to see him yet, but you get to hear all about him.

Today, James picked me up at my house early in the morning and we went to a mall about fifteen minutes from my house. After we got lost and found ourselves in a homeware mega mall full of furniture stores (no, we’re not ready to buy furniture yet, at least not until we get a house) and drove past a shop called “OMG Lighting” (they really couldn’t have picked a better name), we lined up for about ten minutes watching this idiot in overalls ask the guy over the counter for assistance. It wasn’t the kind of place you could look into and browse around. You had to know what you were getting.

James remembered everything, bless him. /eee I didn’t really quite understand all the specifications, but we walked out with a motherboard, four gigabytes of ram and a processor. Only Intel i3, because this computer’s just for doing work, study, designing, watching some movies – nothing big and heavy like gaming.

Of course, there was a phase during which I was so excited about the game Duke Nukem Forever, but half a year down the track I’m not as thrilled. I actually took the time to read reviews about the game and I wasn’t too pleased; many hardcore fans were also disappointed. James knows me well and he says it isn’t the kind of game I’d like, and he wouldn’t like it very much either. (He’s more of a gamer than I am.) I suppose I’d better go back to the 80s and 90s when video games were not full of sexist remarks and were all about explosions and female assets. Right.

We went across the road and I spied a black and red case. Oh cheeseballs, it was the sexiest thing I’d seen that day, before James said that it would gather dust so easily even if I did put it on a table and vacuum my desk once a week. It had red. I think I just totally fell in love. At $200 though, I felt it was much better to buy the $70 one and get something that wasn’t aesthetically pleasing but something that was just a better idea. :P

When we finally went back to my place after getting a spill-resistant keyboard, webcam and a 24 inch monitor, we had fun looking at all the bits and pieces and fitting them together. I was excited to open up the monitor, but we looked at it last. It took us some time to fit things together and get things together, but after about two hours we had it going. When I finally saw the monitor I couldn’t help but exclaim, “It’s gorgeous!”

I wasn’t too fond of the size before getting it. 24 inches seemed rather large. It seemed a little too large, but I think it’s just the right size. :) I use a 27 inch Mac at work and I can’t believe it’s that big. James’s monitor seemed bigger and I got the one that is the same size as his.

Unfortunately the software wasn’t all cool; we had a lot of trouble trying to install Windows 7. While James tried to figure out the cause of the problem I grilled some chicken and washed some lettuce so we could have some chicken wraps for lunch.

At the end of the day not all was well. But hopefully we get it figured out tomorrow. I plugged Fin (my laptop) into the monitor. I remembered that this was what I wanted in the first place; just a monitor to use with my laptop. My mum was the one who suggested a new computer for me and I can’t thank her enough for that. I hope that my laptop lasts longer since I’ll be using it less.

So, he hasn’t come out of his shell yet. But say hi. His name’s Kepler. After Johannes Kepler. Because Kepler’s Laws are as follows:

1. The orbit of every planet is an ellipse with the Sun at one of the two foci.
2. A line joining a planet and the Sun sweeps out equal areas during equal intervals of time.
3. The square of the orbital period of a planet is directly proportional to the cube of the semi-major axis of its orbit.

And, you know, because I like space and all. /faw