As someone who has started and stopped many novels, I completely relate to Elizabeth Gilbert’s excellent talk at the most recent TED conference.

If you haven’t seen this talk yet, you really should check it out.

So yeah, I totally called the fact that I wouldn’t be very good about keeping my blog updated. =).

Instead of doing a massive ‘catch-up’ post, I’m just going to talk about recent happenings and renew my effort to post with more regularity.

I recently got a new computer. I’ve needed a new laptop for a while, and we also needed to upgrade my wife’s desktop. We decided the best decision was to just get a laptop for me that could replace my current desktop, which Sarah could then inherit. After a lot of thought and debate, we ended up going with a Sager Notebook. It came on Friday of last week, and so far I am insanely impressed with the quality of the machine. I’m very happy with it, to say the least. I ordered it through Xoticpc, and their customer service and shipping times were both excellent.

This is the machine I purchased, and here are the specs:

- Display: 17" WUXGA "Matte Type"
- Arctic Silver: Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound
- Processor: ~Intel® T8100 45nm "Penryn" Core
- Video Card: nVidia GeForce 9800M GTS 512MB
- Ram: ~ 4,096MB DDR2 667 PC2 5300
- Intel® Robson Turbo Memory: 4GB Intel® Robson Turbo Memory
- Optical Drive: ~ 2X Blue-Ray Read/8X DVDRW Super Multi
- Primary Hard Drive: ~ 320GB 7200RPM
- Memory Card Reader: Internal 7-in-1 Card Reader
- Bluetooth: Internal Bluetooth + EDR
- Wireless Network: Built-in Intel® PRO/Wireless 530
- Camera: Built in 1.3Megapixel Camera
- Sound Card: Sound Blaster Compatible 3D Audio
- Battery: Smart Li-ion Battery (8-Cell)
- Fingerprint Reader: Integrated Fingerprint Reader
- Operating System: ~Windows Vista Home Premium 64-Bit

Needless to say, it runs pretty much every game and program I’ve thrown at it so far like a screen saver.

In other news, I haven’t been to a card store in a couple of months, but I have played in more Magic tournaments in the last few weeks than I did all last year. Yes, that’s right, I’ve ‘converted’ to Magic Online.

For a very long time, I thought MTGO was a complete rip-off. Why would I pay retail prices for cards I would never actually receive? As I’ve gotten older, though, and as my gaming time has become more and more limited, I’ve grown to see the real value in having the ability to play Magic whenever I want. Additionally, a multitude of formats are supported by Magic Online – I can play far more different types of games that I ever could in the “Type 2 or Go Home” environment prevalent in most card shops.

I plan to start posting tournament reports here on a semi-regular basis, but we’ll see how that pans out. I might go back through some of the sealed deck and drafts I’ve done in the last month and recap some of those first to see how they turn out.

That’s what’s new. My prediction is that I will probably post again within the next week or so, because I am trying out this new Windows Live Writer software, and that is likely to keep me interested. We’ll see.