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featherynscaleLast week was the Week of Being Stupid About Money. I had to have a drumming track for Sunday's ritual (Shamanic Dumpster Diving), and discovered that I could get something pretty kick-ass from PayPlay, allegedly in a quick and painless manner. All I had to do was drop some money in my account and get the track. (Yes, I am aware that one can download absolutely anything for free somewhere on the internet. No, I'm not morally opposed to data piracy. Sometimes, though, when you need a particular thing on a very short timeline, it's easier to just pay for it.) So I drop $20 through paypal to this site. Paypal chokes on it and tells me the transaction didn't happen. I think I screwed up something in the process, so I go back and do it again. Same deal. Paypal chokes, no transaction happened. I give up in disgust, and drop $20 on the site specifically. Money goes through, I can buy the song I need, and have credit for other stuff. I get other stuff. I am happy.
However, when I went back to update my ledger, I discover that both $20 payments through paypal have indeed been debited from my account. I go to paypal to dispute the transaction. It is 'pending', so I can't dispute it. I sigh. By Monday, both $20 payments hit PayPlay, and I have vast amounts of credit on the site, but am $40 poorer than I expected to be.
Also, my mother sent me a check for $100. I put the check in my pocket. Later, when I was thinking of going to the bank, surprise, the check was gone. I look all over for it, nothing. Crap. I call Mom to thank her for the money, but tell her that I lost it. Ha! She says she'll just send it to me by Paypal. I think, Ha!. That was two days ago. Last night,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
triadruid found the check. My Paypal account shows nothing. Does this mean that she sent the money and it hasn't gone through, so I shouldn't cash the check? Or does it mean that she hasn't sent the money, and I should cash the check? Better call.
In other news, I'm totally envious ofkittenpants' iPod. I have, up until this point, avoided interaction with large-capacity mp3 players, so have also avoided temptation. Alas. And they're not terribly expensive, either. I could have an 80-gig iPod for $249. Ludicrous. I don't even have 80 gig of storage on my entire PC. I mean, it's time to upgrade that, too, but still...
However, when I went back to update my ledger, I discover that both $20 payments through paypal have indeed been debited from my account. I go to paypal to dispute the transaction. It is 'pending', so I can't dispute it. I sigh. By Monday, both $20 payments hit PayPlay, and I have vast amounts of credit on the site, but am $40 poorer than I expected to be.
Also, my mother sent me a check for $100. I put the check in my pocket. Later, when I was thinking of going to the bank, surprise, the check was gone. I look all over for it, nothing. Crap. I call Mom to thank her for the money, but tell her that I lost it. Ha! She says she'll just send it to me by Paypal. I think, Ha!. That was two days ago. Last night,
triadruid found the check. My Paypal account shows nothing. Does this mean that she sent the money and it hasn't gone through, so I shouldn't cash the check? Or does it mean that she hasn't sent the money, and I should cash the check? Better call. In other news, I'm totally envious of
kittenpants' iPod. I have, up until this point, avoided interaction with large-capacity mp3 players, so have also avoided temptation. Alas. And they're not terribly expensive, either. I could have an 80-gig iPod for $249. Ludicrous. I don't even have 80 gig of storage on my entire PC. I mean, it's time to upgrade that, too, but still...
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no subject
Date: 2007-10-25 04:59 pm (UTC)Also and, does PayPlay provide DRM-cripped music or straight mp3s? If the latter, I suspect I could help you pare down that surplus in time for my birthday. :)
Furthermore
Date: 2007-10-25 05:00 pm (UTC)Things balance out. Or so I hear. :D
no subject
Date: 2007-10-25 05:11 pm (UTC)Also, you are correct about the upgrade issue. I'm sorting out how much I want that to cost me, as well. :)
Upgrade
Date: 2007-10-25 05:18 pm (UTC)Re: Upgrade
Date: 2007-10-25 05:29 pm (UTC)Re: Upgrade
Date: 2007-10-25 05:33 pm (UTC)By way of comparison, the last two (big) upgrades I have done have involved only CPU/board/memory and have run me $600-700.
Re: Upgrade
Date: 2007-10-25 10:36 pm (UTC)If you're upgrading after a few years, you probably will need a new power supply regardless of wattage. I upgraded in the spring, and found that my old PSU didn't have the right set of connectors.
I can't think of much that would obsolete your optical drives, unless you upgraded to a mobo without IDE connectors. One of mine originally came attached to a Gateway box about eight years ago, and it works just fine in the current shiny Frankenbox.
Re: Upgrade
Date: 2007-10-25 10:41 pm (UTC)And lo, IDE does seem to be a thing of the past. I mean, there's probably some mechanism for using the old drives, but eh. Storage is cheap like water at the moment, so why not trade in 60 gig total for 250-500 gig in one drive? (I'm looking at the 250 end of the scale, since I'm in no danger of filling my 60 any time soon...)
Re: Upgrade
Date: 2007-10-25 10:47 pm (UTC)Re: Upgrade
Date: 2007-10-25 10:50 pm (UTC)Re: Upgrade
Date: 2007-10-26 02:50 am (UTC)My motherboard is a DFI "LanParty nf4" series. Newegg doesn't list it the model anymore, but it's basically an older version of this. It looks like these still come with IDE (aka PATA) adapters as well as SATA. Mine even has a floppy controller, but the new ones don't anymore.
The processor is an Athlon 64 3000+. Video card is a GeForce 7300. I have 2 GB of RAM installed, but just noticed that Windows is reporting only 1 GB visible-- I have to check what the problem is there.
It'll never be a demon at raytracing, but it does just fine at running 3D games like Half-Life 2 and Bioshock, and that's the most load I ever put on it.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-26 03:45 pm (UTC)Re: Upgrade
Date: 2007-10-26 04:02 pm (UTC)And I'm probably even less demanding of hardware than you are. We have so little time for things like video games... the game I'm currently playing came out in 2002, and that's our "new game". So probably, I could get a vintage but unused vid card and plug it into the system I have and go a few more years on it... That would be a lot cheaper, but not nearly as much fun. :)
no subject
Date: 2007-10-26 04:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-26 04:14 pm (UTC)Re: Upgrade
Date: 2007-10-26 04:24 pm (UTC)When I powered on my machine this morning, I was greeted by the horrifying squeal of metal on metal. Investigation reveals that a bearing has seized in my GPU cooling fan.
Unplugging the fan makes the noise stop, but then the card overheats and the machine crashes. So now I get to play games with pliers and brackets and hilariously-oversized replacement fan parts.
Re: Upgrade
Date: 2007-10-26 04:31 pm (UTC)I do recall seeing someone complaining on newegg about bearings in GPU fans, but can't recall which card they were bitching about.
Good luck with the work.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-26 05:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-26 05:15 pm (UTC)The thing we ended up using was a lot more complicated than the usual shamanic beat -- it had that simple driving rhythm in it as a base, but then built some other stuff onto it. It was really good, actually, and I think worth the whole debacle.
Re: Upgrade
Date: 2007-10-26 05:53 pm (UTC)Also, you can get enclosures (and adapters as well) to put your old IDE drive in and connect to USB. I just bought one this week to put my 250GB disk in. I don't want to put any more big disks inside computers since it's a pain to take them apart to get at the data.