CrossFit, Laptops, Books, T.V. Shows, and Movies

This is going to be a fairly long post.  I haven't written in a while because of being busy as fuck lately.

I finished Protect and Defend several weeks ago, probably a month or two ago now.  It was good and that's pretty much all I'm going to say about it.  What I will say is that the book has inspired me to go outside of my comfort zone in writing and I've ventured in to the arena of modern thrillers.  I'm writing a story about an assassin with amnesia.  I'm also back to slogging though A Song of Ice and Fire, which is slow as shit, as usual, in A Clash of Kings.

Netflix finally got the 4th season of Merlin and Luke and I blasted through it in a couple weeks.  It was really good.  I'm in love with it Bradley James, the young man that plays Arthur.  I am not one to be fond of muscly blond haired blue eyed guys, but he takes the cake.  Mainly because he has a gorgeous accent and a wonderful smile.  And he's actually not all that muscly.  He has a similar build to Luke, just shorter.  I think the guy is only about 5'9".

We're now watching Game of Thrones, the HBO t.v. show based on A Song of Ice and Fire, specifically the first book, A Game of Thrones.  It's very good.  I actually prefer it to the books.  It's much faster and gets to the point.  George R. R. Martin is not known for his brevity.  So I am thoroughly enjoying the show.

We also saw Skyfall and Argo in the threat recently.  Both were excellent movies.  Skyfall is easily my favorite Bond movie of all time.  Yes, I still really like Goldeneye, and Casino Royale was pretty damn good, but Skyfall turns everything we know about bond on its head.

Argo was superb.  It was very well written.  Ben Affleck is shaping up to be an amazing director and actor.  I have liked his last two or three movies more than anything else he's ever done.  Except maybe Dogma ... still love him in that movie.

I joined a CrossFit gym in the middle of October.  I don't know what I'm really trying to accomplish with it.  I think I just want to feel better, mentally and physically.  I feel better physically because my body doesn't hurt so much from sitting on my duff all day.  And I feel better mentally because I'm doing something about my health.  I kind of feel like an adult, I guess.  Sort of.

And I am writing this on my brand new Sager laptop.  It's an NP9170, 17" matte display.  i7 3630, Radeon 7970m, 8gb 1600mhz RAM, and 500GB HDD.  Dropped $1,600 on it.  Worth it after a few tweaks.

Here's where this post is going to get extensive.  I've been scoping out laptops for the last six months because the one I have is to a point where I cannot play any new games on it.  It's a six or seven year old laptop (got it referbed about four years ago, so it was already 2-3 years old at the time).  That poor Dell XPS M1530.  I've put it through so much shit.  I think I dropped it once or twice.  But it's definitely held up and was worth $800 bucks.

So for about six months, starting this past summer, I was vaguely aware of computer hardware.  I was following it at a distance.  Shadowing it, more than anything.  Preparing for a wedding in October left me with no free time.  So I dove in to laptop world hard in November and analyzed as much data as I could.  I asked computer hardware friends what they know about lappy hardware and came to the conclusion that I wanted the hardware described above.

Next came the brand.  Who in the hell did I want to give my money to?  Well, my first inclination was Dell because THEY'RE MY EMPLOYER.  So right after Thanksgiving (Cyber Monday), I hopped on the interwebs, built out a sick (read: the hardware listed above) Alienware M17x R4 laptop.  I was pretty stoked.  The only thing I wasn't getting in that laptop was a matte display, which I was willing to sacrifice because 1.) I was getting a $200 discount on the laptop because the final cost eaked in at just over $2000 (bringing the price down to about $1,800) and 2.) I was getting a 17% employee discount for buying a brand new laptop.

Sweet, no?  The final price came out around $1520.  I was so frackin' excited.  Mainly because I like the look of the Alienware laptops; I was excited for the color changing backlit keyboard.  And I liked the price point.  However, the pricepoint was also something that bothered the shit out of me at the same time.  It took a $200 off discount and a 17% off discount to get that laptop down to $1520.  Without a matte fucking display.

The kicker was that when I went to place the order, I was two seconds away from clicking CONFIRM THAT SHIT BIATCH when I read that the anticipated ship date was as below:

January 2nd, 2013

I did a double-take and then verbally said "What the fuck?" in my cubicle-office-space thingy, to which a co-worker asked "Are you okay?"  And I said "no, I'm fucking pissed" and proceeded to explain my first world problems.

I messaged customer service using Dell's online chatty service-y deal and they weren't any help.  I called them and asked if they could get the damn thing to me sooner.  Actually, I wanted it by December 21st (a humorous story follows the request of delivery by this date, I'll get to it later).

They couldn't do it.  When I told them that I was a Dell employee and gave them my badge number, I think it pissed them off further and they wanted to push the delivery back even further.  So I gave up.  I told the customer service person on the phone, "Look, this is pretty crappy, and ultimately, it shouldn't take more than two weeks to put a damn laptop together, and even if you're behind on orders, it shouldn't take more than a month.  I'm really sad to do this, as I really wanted to invest in my employer, but it looks like I'm going to go with another brand."

They didn't give two fucks.

So then I started looking around the interwebs for good gaming laptops (since that's the primary purpose of this thing: being able to game while I travel).  Research led me to Sager.

Sager is a company out of California that builds custom laptops.  Straight-up that appears to be all that they do.  I think they used to be called Clevo.  And really, they take these laptops from this company called Malibal and rebrand them.  Oh well, Malibal was charging more for the same hardware.  After building out identical laptops on Sager's and Malibal's websites, Sager came out the winner.

Remember how I said I got the thing for about $1600?  Yeah, one discount.  $100 holiday promo.  That's it.  One fucking discount, and I was within $100 of the Alienware laptop.  Without an employee discount, I got the same damn laptop for only $100 more.  AND I GOT MY MATTE DISPLAY on top of it.  Fuck glossy displays ...

I called Sager first to make sure they could get this lappy to me before December 21st.  This is how the conversation went (as far as I can remember):

Me:  "Hi, yes, my name is Jeanna, and I'm looking to by a NP9170 laptop from your company.  I just have one question."
Frank (that's the sales guy's name, fo realz):  "Sure, I should be able to help."
Me:  "Can you get one to me before December 21st?"
Frank:  "Um ... are you sure you need it before then?"
Me:  "Oh yes, definitely."
Frank:  "You know, the world isn't going to end ..."
Me:  *silent for a second* "What are ... you ..."  *lightbulb*  "OH HAHAHA!  No I don't think the world is going to end on December 21st.  I'm driving six hours to my hometown that day and want my new laptop in time to take it with me so I can game a bit while there."
Frank:  "HAHA laughy laughy I know just pulling your leg, good one though, no?!"
Me:  "HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA"
Frnak:  "HAHAHAHA!"

Okay it didn't go quite like that but he seriously asked me if I was aware the world really won't end on Dec. 21st.  And we did laugh about it.

Anyway, I got my lappy, and it's great.  I only have a couple gripes, and I'll get those out of the way first.

1.) With the way the keyboard is laid out and the placement of the mouse pad, the palm of my right hand, just beneath my thumb, touches the mouse pad.  I've had to disable the touch-to-click on it.  That's okay though because I rarely plan on even using the touch pad.  I have my Razer Naga Epic hooked up to the lappy right now.

2.)  Again with the way the keyboard is laid out, specifically the fact that the Fn key is on the right side of the space bar and not the left, the space bar is not ... where I'd like it to be.  Basically, it's too far to the left.  I use my right thumb to space.  All the time.  Sometimes at the end of a sentence I'll give the space bar and especially sharp two punches with my right index finger.  But this is rare.  I typically use my right thumb.  My right thumb, however, falls far on the right end of the space bar and I don't get the sharp click out of the bar that I'd like to get.  Tactile response far to the right edge of the space bar is non-existent.  It feels mushy and unresponsive.  But it works.  And I'm slowly getting used to it.  I think I'll eventually not even realize it's offset after a few hours of use (which I'm already rounding on like five hours because I brought it with me to work today).

3.)  The charging cable is short and the god damn converter is A BRICK.  I'm serious, it is the size of an actual brick you would use to build a brick house.

That is my hand, holding the damn brick.

What the ever living fuck, Sager?  Who wants to carry that shit around in their god damn laptop bag or backpack?!  Nobody!  And look at the length of this fucking cable from the converter to the laptop.

I don' think it's even 4 feet long.

Jesus H. Tap Dancin' Christ, I can't even put the laptop on a normal desk, with the charging cable connected, and have the brick touch the floor.  It doesn't even come close.  It just fucking dangles.  To to mention the fact that the port to charge the battery IS IN THE MIDDLE OF THE REAR OF THE COMPUTER.  Not the side.  The rear.  In the middle.  So ANY length I could save by putting my laptop right up to the side of a table is gone.

4.)  This last complaint is more a complaint about the 7970M's shit-tastic stock drivers, but I think that's a symptom only Sager/Clevo people are dealing with.  Right after I cracked the laptop open and started it up for the first time, I immediately installed Diablo III and Borderlands 2.  Neither of which played well.  In fact, they were both unplayable.  Like 5fps unplayable.

I was aware of the driver problems, even before I bought the 7970M.  I knew they were shit.  But I'd seen hotfixes all over the gorram place, and throughout the day today, found beta 12.11 drivers and this seems to have fixed the problem, at least in D3.  I haven't tested Borderlands 2 yet, nor have I run 3dmark vantage.

Aside from those 4 complaints, the laptop is baller.  The screen is so crisp, and the colors are excellent.  It plays video well, I like the upgraded network card I got for free, and the keys on the keyboard feel great.  I'm already loving having a number pad again.  

Yes, the domain name at my place of work is "Beer".

The great thing about it is that, even though I played Diablo for about 3 hours earlier, the top of the laptop didn't get hot.  At all.  Hell, even the bottom or back didn't get very hot.  It was super nice not to have a furnace on my lap suffocating my vagina.

Anyway, rambling off.  Time to go write.  Or shoot people in the head in Borderlands.  I don't know which I want to do at the moment.