Priced out parts for a new PC, less than a new laptop for 12GB DDR3 2GHz RAM, i7 930 quad 2.8GHz CPU, a pair of 2Tb 6Gb/s SATA drives, overclockable ASUS motherboard, power supply & case. I'll take the DVD drives, video and capture cards and main drive** from the current PC. Will have to re-install Windows, but that shouldn't kill much stuff. Reason for the change is the Intel motherboard is end-of-lifed, and they are not updating the drivers for Windows 7.
** come to think of it, I have plenty of spare SATA drives I could plop in there, install Windows 7, and have both machines up and running and transfer files across via the router. That sounds like a better plan.
An other busy day at work, learned a new, fairly complex test tool and thought I was doing it wrong until this afternoon's bug scrub, where three of the lead test engineers all said they saw the same foobars I had seen, and punted the test cases to them. One of the fun things about testing complex systems is sometimes there's a bug, and sometimes you just don't know how to use the tools.
Last night I went to see The Altos: Like the Sopranos, only Lower at the Bus Barn theater. Two of my long time theater friends are in it, but it's truly Small World™ that they are on stage together. I met J when we were in two shows in Menlo Park in 1992-1993. I met H when she was in a production of The Mikado and dating one of my buddies who was also in that show. I had met him doing a show in Hayward in 1982, and then in Menlo Park in '83. Can't remember what year I met H, but it's been a while, probably 15 years. J and H are both excellent actors, way off the wall, and it was fun seeing them on the same stage. The show is not quite there yet, I'd suggest waiting till next week. More info can be had here:clicky.
Lots of chores to do tomorrow. boring stuff like breaking down a 4-foot-tall pile of boxes from stuff I'd bought online during the past 5 months, changing the litterboxes, hauling all that and the household garbage out to the dumpster, going to REI to get a replacement for my insulin travel case which is about 20 years old and starting to come apart, Chinese herb store for [_______ _____], some other stuff on the white board downstairs which I've forgotten and am too lazy to go look, and meeting a friend for coffee and a chat.