Distraction ? Therapy

I've reactivated the Warcraft ...

I dunno. I'd convinced myself that I wasn't going to go back in and the only thing that's really changed that is the price of the expansion going down. It is still one of the best games out there though, from a pure gameplay point of view. There's an immense amount of content in there.

One sad thing is that they've dumbed it down so much and sped up the progression so much that individual characters are almost forced to skip parts of the content because they race past its relevance so quickly. When that happens, the character gets minimal experience and there's no challenge. You can have multiple characters, so that's not as big an issue as it could be.

Yep. Back in Warcraft. It's partly medicinal, for my skin problem (honest - it just happens to work out that way). A lot of the cause for my skin issues is self inflicted. Idle hands can't resist scratching and making it worse. Warcraft gets me in a tightly focused mode where I can zone out and zone in to the game. So instead of my fingers attacking my arms and leg, they're tapping the keys.

There's a couple of other changes I've made too to manage the condition and it's having a good positive effect. It's a hell of a lot better than it was a few weeks ago.

It's still a long way from healed but it's getting there. My legs are definitely less angry with me although it's not all done yet. It's something I'm going to need to continually work on. I'm also hoping it doesn't come back now that I've finished the latest round of drugs.

It has had an impact though. I think it's fairly well trashed this laptop. The keyboard is getting less and less responsive. The next machine is going to be a Macbook Air for a number of reasons :

Windows laptops come with Windows 8 (ok, I could get one from Novatech or PCSpecialist with Windows 7 but that's hassle) and Windows 8 is an abomination
All Microsoft software lately seems to be an abomination actually, it's only through mass protest that the Xbox One had all its u-turns on spec. I think someone told Microsoft that if they'd followed through on the original plan, the market share would have been something like 10 to 1 in favour of the Playstation 4.
Windows laptops don't have acceptable specs. They're either last generation processors (or older!) and it cost £600 to get a 17" with a decent screen. The prices of Windows laptops have steadily gone up, making them less economic to acquire.

Ok - that's the anti-Microsoft ... I've also eliminated Linux as a choice because it doesn't allow support (it can be done but I'd expect problems) for iTunes and the hardware support would be patchy at best. I'd get a Macbook Air 13.3" with a 256GB hard disc and it has a number of advantages :

The keyboard and trackpad felt lush when I tried tapping out a sentence on one. I suffer from wrist problems too, so when it's harder to type, it literally hurts.
The Macbook Air has the latest generation Intel cpu, which is a serious amount of power.
It has a solid state device drive - it's tough to say why these are good but you would notice the difference
Proper hardware support - ok it may be locked down but it has a development team looking out for the bugs, the alternative is Linux which can only be described as anarchic with its development
Unix based so (allegedly - I don't believe the claim here) no virus or malware trouble
Proper legacy operating system support - Microsoft don't want you to have this, Apple make it easy

Am I going to buy one now ? I have to admit, since I noticed an evening delivery option it's got a lot more tempting. That means I could abuse the flexi a little, get home from work early and in time for the delivery. Daytime deliveries are far more awkward to manage.

However. The golden rule of buying anything is - don't rush into it. I could get a refurb Macbook for 15% off but I get the feeling there may be more offers around the corner ...

We shall see ! It'll definitely feel weird transferring over from Windows to Mac but to be honest, Microsoft only have themselves to blame for an inevitable loss in market share as people like me migrate to other platforms (Mac, PS4, Linux) due to the Microsoft offerings being hostile to the people who are forced to buy them through a lack of competition.