So since I visited Texas to see my sister's family with her two adorable kids, I've been pretty absent from the forums. While I was in Texas about the 23rd I got sick there too. I was better before I left, but made for an interesting holiday. Actually, I've been pretty absent before then too, not commenting as much, hardly paying attention, lots of stuff has been going on. Mostly I've been highly distracted and doing various other things besides entertaining the lovely people here. Then I got back from Texas to California which I have a love hate relationship with and got a case of acute bronchitis. That kept me in bed for about four days. Mostly sleeping, and only a few days ago did I finally manage to get out of bed and stay out for longer than an hour at a time. Still been pretty weak, but at least I wasn't constantly sleeping.

Today has been the best I've felt and the first time I've had the energy to make a forum post. So let's recount some of the things that have happened.

On the 26th of December, with my Christmas money plus some of my own money, I finally ordered a new laptop (I'll only say this once, yes, I realize desktops are cheaper, but my lifestyle requires a laptop, so thank you for your opinion in advance, but I had to get a laptop.) The good news was I got a great deal through Toshiba (not my preferred brand, but I was on a strict budget,) and I am finally casting off the laptop that I was fortunate enough to be loaned when my old one died this last summer. Boy am I glad to do so, as it had an Intel HD Graphics card and I basically couldn't play much of anything except low demanding games that didn't require dedicated VRAM. That was a painful experience the last couple months, because if I had more than 23 tabs open, the poor computer would grind to a halt and I was suffering majorly.

The good news is I got my new laptop on the sixteenth, and I can now play such lovely games such as Strider or anything that actually requires a real GPU. And while I don't have the latest greatest mobile GPU, it's blazingly fast to me. I haven't bought a new laptop in over six and a half years, so this one makes me very happy. The bonus of course on top of it is that I moved up to a 17 inch screen as well.

Now because I spent a good deal of money on the laptop, it might be awhile before I can really make 19+ GAs like I used to. I need to slow down a bit because I splurged. While it was a well deserved splurge, I still feel the hole in my wallet from the purchase.

Some other notable things have occurred since I last made a post:

• I hit level eight and I'm half way to nine.
• I hit fourteen hundred games in my library.
• I've sent over a eleven-hundred gifts on SG.

However, I do feel bad. My lack of attention to the forums has made me miss the opportunity to nominate people for events that I myself was nominated for. For the nominations I want to thank everyone who gave me a plus one on various threads and put my name in for consideration. I'll try to be more observant in the future.

Other sad things I've seen lately, include people taking breaks from SG... or in the case of one person, leaving permanently. These things make me wish I had spent more time getting to know those people. Even so, I've met a lot of new people regardless. I wish all those who are taking breaks, whether permanent or temporary good luck in their endeavors.

I also feel bad because I haven't tried to drain the community of tears lately. I have two ideas running around in my head, and I'm waiting for them to solidify into a nice cohesive form before creating and publishing my new tear jar collectors. The last puzzle train I was involved in was in November, when Gag, Budgie, Aurorable and myself created the train of madness. So, as an apology for being so scarce, have a GA (or two?)

Assemble your ticket: t-o-P-0-m

You have till Wednesday at four pm Pacific Standard Time to find the other one... I swear it's not that hard and I probably won't even get any tears

TL;DR

Sorry, back. Things happened. New Computer. Thanks. Have a GA.