Singing word-like gibberish sounds loudly to the tune of "Ain't no sunshine" by the Lighthouse Family, while programming and excitedly waggling my head around in time to the beat, and then looking up at the completely-not-soundproofed window and catching the postman staring in with a perplexed look on his face.
Yet another reason to keep the curtains drawn.
So after much deliberation, I made my decision and went for a Dell XPS M1300. Thank you to everyone who helped me in the comments, but in the end it came down to a combination of size, features and price. The model I've ordered has everything I wanted, but for half the price I was originally expecting to pay; the other windows machines couldn't really compete.
The only other one that left was an Apple, but with the money I'll have left over from this I can buy myself a mac mini and still have enough to get a second screen. Or several Wii games and DVDs. Or several really nice meals. Or several really nice meals and several really painful sessions at the gym. Or any number of things.
However, I placed the order on Sunday 31st, and on Monday Dell gave me the expected delivery date. 25th of April.
Naturally, I assumed that this was a good-natured April fools prank on their part. You can imagine my surprise when I checked again today, and the date had not changed. I have e-mailed them to point out their mistake, but am still waiting for a reply.
Amusingly, since ordering my new laptop, my Vaio has stopped playing up, has not had the power flicker, and is holding its charge. Knew the damned thing was sentient when it decided to fail an hour before a deadline, but didn't realise it had evolved to the point it could sniff my network traffic. Scary.
Is it normal to have a nightmare about your computer getting infected with a drive-by browser exploit, and you being unable to stop it or find your OS CD to do a reinstall? Would you be as relieved as I was when you wake up and realise it was all just a dream?
While on the subject of nightmares, I should probably complete the story of the new laptop. We'll pick it up a week last Friday - yes, we're now talking over a week and a half ago; I've been stupidly busy with work, more work and in what little free time is left, an awesome new project. Unlike some of my other projects, I have an excellent name for it, a domain, a logo concept and half a website. The program is modular; I've completed the core, but all the interesting functionality is in the modules, so sadly the bulk of the work is still to do. Still, watch this space - it will be out soon.
Sorry, we were talking about nightmares, laptops, and last week's last Friday.
On Friday 4th, my laptop specs suddenly jumped from "We'll start doing something soon" to "We posted it yesterday!". Nice. I got a phone call from an automated system asking me for a delivery date; I couldn't do Monday, so told them Tuesday morning.
Tuesday came around, I watched the tracking page intently. It left the depot for delivery at 7:03am, and I waited. I waited and waited, and at about 4:45pm the tracking page updated with "11:03 - Address query". After participating in a very exciting game of pass-the-caller, I made it through to the depot in Gloucester (which certainly explains a lot). They told me that the driver hadn't been able to find the flat, so I gave them explicit delivery instructions - "Turn right and keep walking" - and it arrived the next day. I do wonder what would have happened if I hadn't rung though - I guess they'd have sent it back to Dell and I'd still be waiting for it today.
Which would have made the next part of my story even worse.
My laptop arrived, and it is broken. And no, I'm not referring to Vista (although that is dire).
To be precise, my speakers are broken. They emit a noise not dissimilar to a cat being strangled with a Geiger counter.
And that's pretty much where we are now. Dell say they'll send a technician round to fix it, but I have to be in for two full consecutive business days. That's kinda difficult this week, so it'll have to wait until next week. Let's hope I don't have one of those horror story repairs where they break everything else in the process.
Of course, even if it does go to plan, I'll still be left with the CRUNK noises that come from the hard disk, but they are apparently perfectly normal for the M1330, so not to worry. I'm tempted to fix that one by getting a new laptop HD and installing XP on it; but that would be one for another day when I have a little more time.
Today was a significant day for two reasons. Firstly the Dell engineer came out to fix my laptop, and secondly the game went on sale.
Lets talk about Dell first. The chap who came over was very nice, took my laptop to pieces - literally, unscrewed everything - replaced the speakers, and the motherboard while he was at it. Turned it back on, and everything's working perfectly - I can hear sound! Hurrah!
I'm actually very happy with the laptop now; sure, it runs Vista, but that's nothing a quick reinstall won't fix. Thanks to everyone who has taken the time to suggest laptops and to discuss my choices in the comments over the past few weeks, it's been appreciated.
Now, on to the pressing matter of a certain game released today. Several times over the past few weeks I have found myself on Play, clicking on the appropriate 360 bundle with my wallet in hand, but so far I have managed to fight it. Today, with the thought of thousands of people across the country simultaneously breaking into virtual cars, I found it very difficult to resist the urge to down tools and run to the nearest Game. I think it would be fair to say that I am quite keen to play GTA IV.
At first I thought it would be ridiculous to buy an entire console for one game - after all, I joked about getting a PS2 for each GTA 3 as they came out - but when I considered how many hours of my life GTA IV will consume, and what that means in terms of loss of earnings, the cost of an xbox really is fairly insignificant. Which has not made it any easier to resist.
There are two things that help though. Firstly, a lack of any free time - my commitments right now stretch as far as the eye can see. Secondly, the promise of a PC release - which is of course not guaranteed, and is a flawed argument anyway as I will no doubt need to buy a whole new computer to play it on. Nevertheless, my plan is to hold out for the October PC release rumours to be confirmed or denied, which will be perfect timing for an early Christmas present to myself. A cunning plan - if only I had some willpower.