Hello loyal readers, it’s me, your mighty ruler. I hope you are all well or at least well enough to continue serving the Crown.

I’ve got a problem.

My laptop died. It was my faithful friend for 4 years but hardware errors did it in. It cracked along the hinges and  with time the cracks caused the hinges to break off and the screen to fail. I can’t take it in to be fixed as no one wants to do hardware repairs on plastic frames and the place where I bought it was Circuit City. In short, it’s royally fucked.

I do have some money in my savings, though my savings has diminished a bit with having to renew my registration, pay for repairs on our house after the lightning strike,  replace things fried in the lightning strike, etc etc etc Shenanigans Veritas Fidelis.

Now I need to replace my laptop as I need a portable computer. My first thought was a netbook but the screen is too small. People have noticed the incredibly thick laser goggles I wear on my face that are otherwise called MY GLASSES. I need a decent sized screen so I can increase the size of print. I can read 12 point alright, but sometimes I really need 14 point when it’s late at night and I’m tired. I don’t want a desktop replacement sized screen however because that’s just really freaking big.

So a basic laptop is what I’m looking at. I want something with good memory and a large hard drive, but I don’t need something that’s a top of the line gaming laptop. I need a laptop for work so it needs to be able to have Word, a pdf reader, a web browser, and possibly a chat client open at the same time without slowing down. This is especially true for the pdf reader as I’m sick of having to wait for pages to load as I read pdfs. I do have a bunch that I read for fun but all too often I’m doing research or helping proofread something and need to be able to read it with some ease.

Has anyone heard of Asus before? I have never heard of it, but they seem to have the best prices for what I’m looking at. Asus appears to be a Taiwanese company that’s known for rugged computers but I’m not sure I want to pay for a company I’m not familiar with. I’ve also heard rumors that the fans inside the laptops tend to fail and this can melt the graphics card, but I read this in a comment on the internet. Does anyone have any credible evidence on this? I don’t want to diss the brand based on someone’s bad experience.

Right now, this laptop seems to be what I want. It’s either this one or it’s $700 Sony one that’s available at Best Buy as well.

A friend recommended www.ibuypower.com but they seem to be geared mainly towards gaming laptops. I don’t need something that strong or that expensive.

Finally, I really need something for the long term. I can’t afford replacing my core technology that often and I like to use things until they absolutely die (like my last laptop!) I would like it to be reliable and something that I can repair easily. I’m not one to take my laptop in to the store when the first little malfunction occurs as I’m a little skilled at debugging and fixing issues. It would be nice though if I had the option to take the laptop in for repairs.

Enough about that, lets talk about the most important issue on the Internet last week. The issue wasn’t whether one country can own a date (suck it Canada, we do!) or if the growing strife between Republicans and Democrats will disenfranchise yet another generation of Americans and only deepen civil strife within our nation. No, I’m afraid the biggest disaster facing the Internet last week was whether one woman deserved to wear pants.

 Wonder Woman is getting some new clothes and a new storyline with them. For her 600th issue, DC is launching Wonder Woman in a new storyline that I will even admit is pretty bold. Spoilers below, though I guess you’ll need to read them anyways to understand my argument.

Wonder Woman is going through a radical change. The Greek Gods are withdrawing their support of Themoscyra, their home island. By withdrawing their support this allows some unknown opponent to alter their timeline and erase them from history, scattering a few lone survivors across the planet and changing their identities. Wonder Woman will have to struggle to find her place in a world that doesn’t remember her for what she was and she must tackle the mystery of who did this to her people.

Is it the bold storyline that’s causing people to get upset? I admit, it’s not my cup of tea but it might be cool. I think it sounds like an alternate history for the character that’s better suited for Elseworlds but I’m not really a Wonder Woman fan. I’ll give the new story a shot. But people aren’t just upset by the storyline. They’re angry over the fact she has PANTS.

Wonder Woman has had the same iconic costume since her inception, with only a few notable changes to it. The biggest change to her costume was in the 70s when she was depowered and made into a super spy, but her powers and costume were later returned to her. In her signature one piece leotard, she is Linda Carter’s most well known role.

I get how it’s a signature look to her. Superman has the blue costume with the red underpants on the outside. Batman has the cape and cowl. The Tick is dressed as a big blue whatchamacallit. So naturally when people think of Wonder Woman’s new clothes they get upset because something is different.

I’ve read comics for a long time so I remember when everyone changed costumes. Batman was replaced with a crime fighting psycopath in power armor, Superman’s powers were changed and he had a blue suit to contain his new electric form, and Green Lantern had a suit of metal armor with huge shoulder pads.  Wonder Woman is just going through a natural evolution of the character and as you can tell, I like it.

It just seems more natural to me. I didn’t mind the character’s old outfit, but the new one makes more sense on so many levels. Not only does it cover more of her body, but she seems more modern. She’s still the same Amazon warrior of myth but now her clothes better reflect her time. People who claim she is somehow losing her sexuality by covering up more are just wrong or weird.

My only real complaint is the jacket. I remember the late 80s and 90s where Captain America, the Black Knight, Animal Man, and others had jackets. They could sit around and look cool in their spiffy new jackets which they never bothered store shit in the 20 pockets they had. As you can tell those jackets never lasted, and I’m not sure the jacket with shoulder pads will last on her. 

And that’s it for me rambling.  G’night all!