Who's a spoilt brat then?

On Thursday of last week my wife Jackie received the following email

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Hi Jacki
Ref Yoyotech Competition PC Winner

Your PC will be shipped out on Monday 27-07-09 via City Link, and will be with you on Tuesday 28-07-09

If you do need to adjust the delivery day please inform us before Monday 2pm

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Regards

Kul Singh
Antech Direct Ltd T/A Yoyotech
30 Windmill Street
London
W1T 2JL

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She was just about to delete it as spam when she thought on to ask me to check it out for her. I rang the company and after the usual why are you ringing and who are you etc I was told that she had indeed won a computer and it would be delivered on Tuesday. I asked what is the spec of the machine expecting an Office machine or middle of the road family computer. What she is getting is this computer which is an ultra fast, ultra powerful games machine full of all the latest bells and whistles.

I began to think about how to shoehorn this beast of a machine into Jackie's corner of the lounge where she happily does several hundred Internet competitions a day. This is where I was turned from a puzzled husband into a spoilt brat because Jackie told me she didn't want it "What would I do with all that power?" and that it was mine if wanted it.

Now, bearing in mind that the number of times I have played a computer game can be counted on one hand, I had to work out if this powerful machine could be converted into a very powerful workstation instead of a games platform. The simple answer is that at this moment in time I don't know. I do use some very memory hungry programs (Adobe InDesign for example) and MS Office is notorious for hogging memory. But on the other hand these days I have to be able to handle book sized Word files as that is the way book manuscripts arrive from the author for typesetting.

The graphics card that is in this machine is a very powerful one but will it run a three screen system? Again I don't know till I try it as the Matrox website doesn't cover this graphic card. Quite a few graphics cards are not compatible with the Triple Head to Go hardware or drivers so it may not be as simple as plugging it in and linking up to my three screen system. Oh well, I have just finished typesetting a book so after the machine arrives tomorrow, I suspect I will be in for a few happy hours researching just how to configure this machine for best performance as a Desk Top Publishing, Web Designing and MS Office applications machine. It will be a bit like using an F1 racing car to pop down to the Co-op but you never know I might just take up flight Simms and learn to fly.

It is only when something like this happens that you take stock and realise just how much you can take your partner for granted without realising what is happening. Like most men, I can easily become wrapped up in what I am doing and lose sight of the big picture. Jackie just puts up with me staring at a computer screen for hours on end and still the house is spotless, the meals always arrive on time and I am never short of clean clothes - see what I mean - I am a totally spoilt brat especially when I get a wonderful present like this computer.