Once on a donkey in Tunbridge Wells

Okay, so when I said that next time I was getting a laptop it was going to be a Mac? I ... kinda got seduced by a certain Toshiba notebook and ended up getting a computer with Windows installed again. And not just Windows, but Windows Vista. Oh, how I have fallen.

On the plus side, the laptop is insanely powerful. It has the dual core Intel processors, and then on top of that it has two GeForce 8600M graphics cards, which mean when playing games its processing power is boosted to stupid levels. I installed Oblivion, set the graphics setting as high as they could go, and it didn't even blink. I realise I am an enormous dork, but I may in fact be in love.

The one real downside is ... Windows Vista. It's a pain in the neck, put bluntly. It's almost impossible to stop the programmes that are set up to run on startup from doing so without installing a programme like TuneUp Utilities that will give that capability. Add to that the fact that it's set up to whine at you every time you don't let it do whatever it wants with updating etc., and this may get very annoying very quickly.

Well, if all else fails, I still have the discs for XP! I'm pretty sure that someone will have got around most of the issues Windows Vista has with regards to user control, so I'll go hunting on the web at some point to see what I can find.

Anyway. Still no data recovery from the old laptop, though. That might take a while longer. In the meantime, I shall play Disgaea and enjoy the geeky power levelling.

(Also, look, new icon! It cracks me up. XD)

Sometimes, when reading something, you'll come across a seemingly inane or random comment that nevertheless manages to sum up something you know quite beautifully.

The most recent example I have seen of this came from this fic. (Which I have not yet finished reading.) The example reads as follows:

After wiping the soil from her hand, she came and took Teddy back. "Harry Potter, godfather," she said. "Do you believe in God, Harry?"

"Not particularly," Harry confessed. "I was raised Church of England."

Just. So beautiful. ♥

(NB. For those who do not have a working knowledge of English history, the Church of England was established by King Henry VIII because the Pope refused to grant him a divorce from his first wife, Catherine, so he broke from Catholicism so he could go marry Anne Boleyn. Technically, if you are Church of England, you are Protestant.

However, in terms of actual use, Church of England is widely known in the UK as what you put down on forms when they ask you what your religion is and you don't give a flying toss but feel like you have to put something down anyway.)