I got a surprise birthday present: a new laptop.

Per my naming convention, it’s LSW8.

There’s still a lot to get used to. Windows 8 is odd, and I’ve already had it with the touch pad. Thankfully, I had a mouse I could plug in (but it has a wonky left button, and apparently, the touch pad isn’t disabling without a fight. I also need a proper media player. Apparently, both Windows Media Player and Winamp are dead. I guess I could install iTunes? I don’t know. I haven’t even had this thing 12 hours.

Long story short, a lot has changed in the world of Microsoft since I last had a PC back in like November 2013, so I’m a little lost

I mean, I used to have a lot of programs on my desktop, and I did I lot of things that didn’t require a browser that I either had to do in the Chrome browser or not at all.

The best thing is that I have Word again so I can get back into finalizing Brown River Blues. Being away from that text for the nearly two years has been rough. But at least it gave me time to ruminate on some points and look at it with a fresh eye.

Here’s hoping EIGHT lasts longer than the previous seven.

The battery is amazing so far, so that’s a start.