RIP Spiffy

[so-out-of-ideas.livejournal.com]

Well, after almost six years of faithful service, my beloved computer, Spiffy has gone to the Great Computer Store In The Sky. Spiffy lived a long and productive life. He helped me complete all of my major fanfiction projects to-date, including the massive AU stories. He also assisted in the completion of one original novel; saw the development of several others, not the least of which is the story that I have begun to think of as my lifework. He helped me to become a better graphic artist and facilitated my exploration of fanvidding. Through all of this he endured a gruelling schedule and was often required to fetch-decode-execute-store data at a pace which pushed his poor processor to the limit. As his two final acts of service to me, he held off dying until most of the work I had done during his last week was safely backed up on my external drive, AND he waited until I had received Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors, Babylon 5, and its short-lived sequel series, Crusade, before he went to his place of eternal rest.

As a result, I have been able to spend the last three weeks re-igniting my love affair with the work of J. Michael Straczynski. While I will not go so far as to call Babylon 5 the best scifi show to ever grace the small screen, it is by far and without question the single greatest narrative achievement in any television genre to date. The development of its characters--from the principle players on down to those in minor roles--over the five year arc of the show is simply beyond comparison, and it leaves me feeling like a rank amateur as a writer of ensembles on an epic scale.

And so, Spiffy, even in his dying moments, helped to spur me forward and show me how much I can still aspire to be as a storyteller. Therefore, I find it a fitting tribute--both to Spiffy's memory and to JMS' talent and vision--that I should introduce to you all and ask you to welcome my new computer, Garibaldi.

Like his namesake on B5, Garibaldi has a lot of rough road ahead of him. He runs Win7, which while not that complicated, is a fair sight different from XP, the operating system that I have been used to using for the past 8-9 years. He and I are probably going to rub each other the wrong way. There will be a lot of screaming and Corellian-style negotiation before we settle into a routine. (All right, yes, I'm mixing metaphors...) Once the routine is established, I'm going to be working really hard to catch up with all the stuff I got behind in while I didn't have access to my story notes and such. So, anybody who is waiting for graphics, or to whom I mentioned an upcoming glimpse at The Kenobi Way, Land and Sky, or the possibility of a Leverage fic, feel free to blame Garibaldi when I tell you that it won't be happening for a while. With a name like Garibaldi he's sure to be able to handle it graciously. *snerk*