I was good last night.

See, sometime in the two years since I built Petulant, bits and pieces of it have fallen into the "antique" category. I hadn't realized this until I started hearing a loud noise somewhat reminiscent of a speedboat a half mile off coming from my computer. After opening it up and poking around for a while (kids, no matter what *I* do, rooting around in an open and powered-up computer is dangerous. Remember this. Electricity deserves more respect than I give it) I discovered that the problem was that the CPU fan was dying.

This is, on the whole, a bad thing.

So, on Saturday morning, after cleaning for a while, i decided to go look for a new fan. It's a $15 part. Everyone should stock them. right?

Four computer stores and a Togo's sandwich later, I had no new fan. Nobody had them. "We don't carry...that." "We carry them, but we're all out." I came home with two new Ethernet cables and no fan.

Now, the fan had stopped making nasty noises while I was out. I discovered, when i got back, that this was because the fan was actually dead. Okay, computer goes off until I can get a new fan.

An aquaintence reccommended CompUSA, and another reccomended Re-PC, both of which are in Southcenter, a mall/big box store complex in Tukwila, south of Seattle. I figured, well, I could kill a bunch of birds with one stone, get my fan, go to Target, get a Costco card, and come home.

And for once in my life, everything went according to plan. CompUSA had my fan (YAY! Workstation at home good!), signing up for Costco was easy, I wandered around in Costco for a while but resisted buying anything, and I hit Target and Bed, Bath, and Beyond and picked up everything on my list--and nothing that wasn't on my list. I got a new laundry basket and a bin that will be a hamper for towels (kitchen and non-kitchen) and sheets, the aforementioned fan, cat litter (I'm trying to switch my cats to the crystal stuff), ziploc bags, double-sided tape, and a shower organizer (as the little shelves that are in the corner of my shower were knocked loose by the earthquake and need to be removed).

I came home, mixed the new litter with the old, installed the new fan, and everything is happy at Annelon.

It's weird, that this is such an accomplishment . But money is failing to drain away from me at nearly the same rate that I make it these days, and I'm feeling much more well-adjusted about it in general. Used to be that when i'd go to the store for something, I'd forget what I came for and buy a bunch of things that I didn't need.

Chalk something else up to growing up and/or integration, I guess.

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