a series of broken events

This month hasn't been a good one for my gadgets... first my computer earphones short circuited and took out a few ranges of my hearing with it, then my cellphone head-set gets snagged by the car door and rips in two, and as if that wasn't careless enough, i stepped on my thinkpad x60s and cracked the LCD screen. And just now, my camera suddenly stopped working. It sounds like the motor to the zoom lens is jammed on something.

Total amount of damages assuming i replace everything = (cue cheap dramatic midi music) ~$1600.00 CAD (now cue puzzlement). It turns out that to purchase a new laptop, one grade higher than what i is around $1200, while buying a LCD screen from Lenovo to replace my broken one is a whopping $1300 not including tax... Where is my mini screw driver...

kill an old habit

The first computer i laid my hands on was an 386 with a monster yellow-black screen, and the first and only thing i did on it was play TETRIS. I learned how Windows-based computers worked by figuring out how to boot an old PentiumI just right to run DOOM, Wing Commander, and countless other games my folks Easter-Egged in the hard-drive, just slightly too hardware intensive for the old tower. I learned while i played but i didn't stop playing after. Even when i finally gave up the last of my games, time spent on first-person shooters and RPGs were replaced by endless video-feeds, news-feeds, art blogs, science blogs, tech blogs... I tell myself i'm absorbing new information, keeping up with news of the day, and becoming more knowledgeable, but, luckily i suppose, i'm yet unconvinced that mere consumption is in anyway meaningful.

So how do you kill an old habit? High school and much of university has trained me to produce mediocre work in little time, and after near twenty years of gaming and pointless browsing in front of the computer i conditioned myself to near uncontrollably do just that and only that when i'm home. I feel like an addict, watching my life slowly being eaten away, all the while indulging in the cannibalism... I want out!

I want out, and this will be my attempt at producing instead of simply consuming. After you hit your twenties, it's all about trading one addiction for another.