milkypink [dot] net

So! As you may remember, I am still out one fully functional laptop computer. Ai is a nice stopgap, but she’s really for travel and is less than spectacular for heavy video viewing.
Enter Sony’s CW series – the latest refresh to their C line that caught my attention way back with the ability to have a pink (!) laptop. In the end, I chose the white giant that was Shirayukihime (a customized FZ series) due to various factors and although she died, I’m still, for some reason, considering another Sony laptop. No hope for me, really.
The specs and pricing look good; my current preferred spec set is as follows:

• Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor T9600 (2.80GHz) (6MB L2 Cache! ♥)
• Genuine Microsoft® Windows® 7 Professional 64bit (choosing this for XP compat ability & also for Fresh Start)
• Poppy Pink (like I would chose any other color, really. if the pink is hideous I might go the white route but I’m hoping it’s okay XD)
• 320GB Hard Disk Drive (5400rpm) (I could go the 500GB route, but to be honest I’d rather have a large external drive than a huge internal one, so)
• 4GB (2GBx2) DDR3-SDRAM-1066 (not overkilling here, I can add more RAM later to suit my needs)
• NVIDIA® GeForce® GT230M GPU (512MB VRAM) (pretty powerful vid card, which means Sims ♥)
• CD/DVD playback/burning (not going with the BluRay drive because, not sure I would use it.)
• Fresh Start (a.k.a. no Sony bloatware, free trials, etc. gunk-free lappy? yes plz!)
• Standard Capacity Battery (VGP-BPS13) (I’m debating whether to go the extended life batt on this, only $50 more for 6hrs vs 4hrs, so. hmm.)

I’m tempted to wait a bit to see if Sony offers any deals with the holiday season coming up, as well as keep an eye out for potential issues with this model – orders just opened yesterday, so no one’s got theirs yet, I think. For that purpose, I stalk the forums at notebookreview.com – they were very helpful with information about the FZ series, and there was even a walkthrough explanation for how to disassemble (which was handy when I wanted to clean out the dust).

In other digi.tech news, I think I’ve pretty firmly decided that until the iPod touch has a camera (which I suspect will happen post-x-mas) I’m not upgrading. I suppose, unless, my current iPod bites the dust, but it’s a pretty sturdy piece of tech, so that looks unlikely :D

And finally, in the most exciting news, Barnes & Noble has released their own ebook reader, called Nook. It’s quite similar to the Kindle, but with some important differences:

• two screens, but, not the way you are thinking. on top, an e-ink screen. on bottom, a capacitive color touchscreen ♥♥ which is spectacular.
• microSD card slot, which means you could have a potentially infinite number of books/files
• pdf support! ahhh… so nice…
• supposedly will use ePub format? which is not too bad (better than Amazon’s format, anyway, DRM still included presumably)
• lending books to friends this, I am SO excited about. I mean, okay, I don’t lend out books a whole lot, but just, the acknowledgment of that’s what people do with books is ♥
• easy switching between Nook, PC, iPod Touch, etc. etc. (the PC addition is important, Kindle’s only got iPod Touch/iPhone)
• wireless provided by AT&T, which, I don’t really care too much about what company does this, but it’s worth noting

Basically? I’m currently stupidly excited about this tech for no easily explainable reason. But I will hold back! and wait for the device to actually SHIP and get used by some early adopters (a.k.a guinea piggies) before seriously approaching the purchasing process. I mean, it’s not even shipping until Nov 30th, so. Naturally, if it’s awesome supply will be short for holidays but I think I will live. I’m thinking it would be most useful for things like my Japan 2010 trip, so there’s enough time between then and, say, July for supply to meet demand. XD

I enjoy stories that raise a lot of questions.
Provided, most, if not all of these questions get answered.
There is little that irritates me more about a plot/storyline than people not tying up loose ends. I suppose there’s something to be said for leaving certain things open-ended, but as far as creative works go I’d really prefer they weren’t.
I realize that in life, in reality, things are rarely so clear-cut that you can see all angles of what’s happened, and why, and maybe the why doesn’t always need to be explained but the what definitely does. People can make up their own theories as to why someone would act the way they did, but it’s important to at least know WHAT they did, in the end.
I am currently following the (amazing!) sound novel うみねこのなく頃に which has, by this point, a large number of currently unsolved mysteries and unanswered questions. With only three episodes left, at best, fans are starting to worry about comments the author has made about the answers being revealed in a somewhat less-than-clear fashion. Much rage and panic has ensued on at least one forum I frequent, and I feel pretty much as they do – if Ryuukishi does not wrap things up in the end, and merely suggests that “well, if you had caught on to the clues and thought properly about it you should know the answer by now” I will be quite upset. Whether or not he knows the answer to all of those questions, I will feel that he does not, and that he has just taken us on ride with no specific itinerary in mind.
That won’t invalidate the journey we’ve taken up until that point – as one poster said, the ride itself is what is important – but he did challenge us to think, he asked for our trust, at the beginning, and to wander off without resolving things betrays that trust.
As far as things go right now, I believe Umineko will end in a manner that answers at least the big questions laid out before us. Beyond that… I don’t know. There always seem to be unanswered aspects to such stories, and I believe Higurashi left some things a little unclear, but nothing so serious as to disrupt the entire fanbase.

In my own works, I am borderline obsessed with explaining everything, to the point where it becomes somewhat unwieldy, and possibly not practical to include in the storyline itself. I’m of the mind that in order to write properly, you must understand everything about the universe you are creating, if not at the start, then certainly by about halfway through the story. The more you know, the more real it becomes, and the more likely readers are able to immerse themselves in it and thoroughly enjoy the experience. Leaving too much up to the imagination of the reader can be dangerous and often leads to plothole-like jumps of logic that are never explained. Stories that make a habit of poking fun at themselves might find these humorous, but that sort of thing can only be taken so far.

In other, unrelated news, I am pretty sure TVTropes exists only to eat my brain. So much Overused Capitalization and Naming of Things Which Probably Don’t Need To Be Named, And Certainly Not Like That…. (which, incidentally, are things I kind of love, and which is EXACTLY why I cannot spend any more time there.)

Made some small changes here and there, such as removing microblogging stuff as I’ve had another fit of “zomg people can (and do!) read this!” so. last.fm is still there though! You can always stalk me through music :D
Added some linkies because I realised I didn’t have any… which is a little weird.
Things have been generally uneventful, aside from recently playing fantasy-planning for my 2010 trip to Japan. Which I have been fantasy-planning since December of last year. Ee-yep. Been a long time, and still a long time yet. But got to plan, finances and all that.
May or may not be doing the license thing again, after parallel parking about a million times, that is. I’m not taking that test again unless I’m 99% sure I can do it in any car. (that last 1% is general anxiety, but nothing to be done about that)
And then? Who knowwws!
Er, but it will probably involve buying a car and having some semblance of freedom in this (so-called) Land of the Free.
I have 358/2 days (new KH game!), but my wrist/hand has been very twitchy so I couldn’t play for long. Looks decent, though~
And thaaaaaaaaat’s about it!