A Christmas Present

UPDATE:  Thank you.  A tremendous outpouring of Christmas spirit makes me feel like I'm in a holiday special.  I have enough money now to get a quad-core, 8-gig ram, 1 terabyte computer, which is within $50 of your donations.  More isn't necessary; if anyone wants to add a little, for reasons, I won't stop them, as a little more and a little more will always get me towards a better and better computer.  But I'm not greedy.  No one needs to contribute going forward, as I have enough to get when I wanted.  A merry, merry Christmas.  You have made my holiday very special!


I hesitate to step forward here, but there are days when I feel I must do something.  This, for the benefit of the Gentle Reader, is the total private space in which my partner Tamara and I live:

Complete with cat.

We have full access to the combined living room and kitchen, but most days this is occupied by two to six persons who are playing video games or watching reality programming on the giant screen TV that dominates the room.  We're all friendly, but it just isn't possible to get any work done.  As I write this now, I can hear the shelling of World of Warships; I have to put in earbuds to escape from it.

Here is a closer picture of the 2007 microsoft vista computer that I do all my design and writing work on:

If you look carefully, you can see a copy of The Princess Bride
hiding behind the screen.  Not intentional.  I recently quoted it on
the blog.

Note the missing keys, and the steadily ground-away chrome on the computer's bottom right hand side. That is not a smudge.  The surfacing has literally been worn away by my right wrist as I write and write and write.

I used this computer more or less continuously from 2007 until 2013, when it was replaced by a Toshiba. Unfortunately, 17 months ago, I dropped a glass of lemonade into the keyboard of the Toshiba and so I have been on this thing, again, since that time.

Here is my point.  If you would like to buy me a Christmas present, please help me replace this piece of shit.  It has no battery and if I remove the power cord to plug it in somewhere else, it takes 20 minutes for the computer to first warm up before it will turn on.  I would like to have a lap top that I can use in a library or a different public place, far away from the constant video game use, where Tamara and I are not cheek-and-jowl, where I can think in silence for hours and hours, where I can concentrate on writing, where I can conceivably finish my book.

It's this that seems to be the problem.  Every time I get close to thinking I have the money together to replace this, something comes up; I need a cavity filled or my daughter's mortgage is in danger of not being paid, or Tamara has to have her eyeglasses upgraded and replaced.  I'd like to get about 350 together, for a decent Chromebook, but it is just a bridge too fucking far.

So, if you can help, please donate.  The donate button for paypal is on the sidebar.  Then maybe I can get enough money together so that I can buy a computer in February or March.  So I can escape from this small room.  It's not the street, it's much appreciated, but it defies a place of comfort for me to work alone.

Please buy me a Christmas present this year.