Retiring The Beast

I've been using the same computer for work and play for a little over 4 years now. It's been quite the trooper. I've only had to format it and reinstall the OS a couple times due to "Blue Screen of Death" errors, probably due to the occasional virus that slipped through the cracks. I'm usually pretty good at avoiding them between Malwarebytes and my own knowledge of what not to click on during the course of a web session.

Up to this point, I've been pretty protective of The Beast. I don't really let too many other people use it, with the exception of my wife when she needs to, and I've let my eldest stepdaughter on it a couple of times to play some of the more graphic-intensive games. You see, I got this box from the Dell Outlet for a shade over $500 (without a monitor or keyboard or anything) back in the day. It's a Quad Core Q6600 with 2.4Ghz per core, packing 3 gigs of RAM and a 256MB NVIDIA graphics card. Suffice to say, it's the most powerful computer in the house by a long shot.

These days, the kids want to play more and better games, and I really didn't need such a powerhouse machine to do my office work, so I've gone ahead and done the noble thing. Tomorrow I'm replacing the Game Room computer (which isn't very good for games at all) with my beloved Beast and hooking a Dual Core with 3 gigs of RAM and no graphics card up here in the office. It's really more than enough for what I do on a daily basis, and maybe a clear slate will help me focus on work, rather than offer me the delightful temptations of distraction that The Beast does. After all, it does play games so well. :)

So then, so long to a good friend. You won't be far away, but it'll never really be the same without you. I'm happy enough knowing you're finally going to get to put your chops to the real test: Tween Gamers...