I don’t have the time to do much blogging recently. I don’t have much time to do anything, really, ever since I got my new PC from Dell about a week ago.

I was in the market for a new PC. Something with a bigger screen, more memory, more hard disk space, a better graphics card and more power. I chose to get the new PC from Dell due to multiple factors: I get to choose the components that go into the machine; they are cheaper (if you compare a Dell machine with other brands’ similarly spec-ed machines); and I get a 3% discount from my company on top of the cheaper price. The only downside was that I have to order the machine online and wait for it to be assembled in Dell’s factory and shipped to my address.

Anyway, instead of relying on the company discount, I was lucky enough to have timed my purchase on the weekend that Dell decided to give out massive discounts. For the machine I wanted to buy, the discount was 15%! That’s certainly a lot better than 3%, right? But before committing the purchase, I gave my specification request another look to see if I forgot to add anything.

That’s when it hit me. If I add something to the machine that will make it go over $100, I get to have 25% off instead of just 15%! So, I added an external 160Gb hard disk to my request and recalculated the final price of the machine. It was so unbelievably cheap for what I was getting. I was so happy.

I expected the machine to arrive after three days max, but it didn’t. The reason? The Dell representative I talked to told me that the delay was due to an out-of-stock part of the machine. They already ordered for the missing part and once they have it, they will promptly send me the machine. Out of curiosity, I asked which part was missing. She said it was the external hard disk! Great. I had to wait several days more for my new PC in exchange for getting it cheap.

A few days later, I finally got the new PC. I was happy again. I couldn’t wait to take it home and start customising it according to my needs and desires. This meant installing a lot of apps I had installed in my old laptop. The problem was that not all of the apps I had in the old laptop that had Windows XP on it was compatible with Windows Vista Ultimate, which is the OS of my new PC. I only found out about the incompatibility of some of the applications after I had already installed them. So, installing, uninstalling and looking for a viable replacement app took way too much time.

Now, I think I have most of the things I wanted installed on my Windows Vista machine. Maybe now, I can finally continue playing my relatively-newly purchased game, Call of Duty 4. Maybe now, I can finally get to enjoy my new PC. Maybe now, I can finally rest and relax again.