So, as some but not all of you know, I got a new job (with one IPS Meteostar), which I'm happy about, not just because it's a job and I like money, but because it's a good job, more suited to me than any of the other jobs I interviewed for -- it's not contract, it's a stable company, it's got great bennies, good vacation, it's only a 15 minute commute on a bad day (and in Denver instead of Tokyo -- I was willing to go back but not incredibly enthusiastic about it), and I'll probably get to travel around the world some. Plus, it involves cool tech and cool maps and I like the people there I met. What else could you ask for?

In other news, now that I have a job, I bought Ai-chan a car, mainly because if she's going to be able to do stuff while I'm at work -- say, have her own job -- she kinda needs one. Although, really, it's more accurate to say I took on a loan for Ai-chan, and she chipped in for the down payment. We do have a rather strange financial arrangement for a married couple in some ways, in that so far we've kept separate books and kept separate financial responsibilities as circumstances have required, but it's as much a budgeting fiction as anything, and the details aren't really appropriate for a public post anyway.

I do really like the car, though. While it was ultimately her choice (although I did have some veto power -- pink cars were right out, frex, since I'll be driving it sometimes), it's the same choice I would have made, so we're both pretty happy with it.

And, finally, I got a new computer to replace the current Windows/game box I have that's struggling mightily to deal with the 30" monitor I moved onto it (speaking of which, maybe it's about time to try and find a home for the 19" monitor it replaced). I was going to buy a Dell, but Dell pissed me off by increasing the price $200 on basically the same computer I was looking at earlier in the week. So, I'm just going to build my own, and get both a significantly better and a significantly cheaper computer than the Dell I was considering:

Intel quad-core 3.06GHz i7-950 CPU
12GB DDR3-1333 memory (3x4GB, triple channel)
1.25GB GDDR5 GeForce GTX 470 (Fermi) graphics card
1TB 7200RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s hard drive
Generic CD/DVD burner
Antec "Nine Hundred" mid-tower ATX case
SeaSonic S12II 520W power supply
USB 802.11b/g/n wireless (for convenience)
Gigabit ethernet and USB3.0 on the motherboard, which may or may not ever get used.

It's not a God box, but it's solid. I could have gotten faster memory, but it would have dropped me to 6GB (3x2GB) for more money, since the 4GB modules were all DDR3-1333. Also, the 3TB hard drives were much cheaper per GB, but as I don't have any plans to store much of anything on this box (I probably would have been fine with a smaller SSD, even), 1TB was safe. Also, I didn't go overboard on the power supply -- if I was planning on trying to overclock it or putting a lot more hardware in there, maybe, but I'm not and I'm not -- 520W should be enough, although it doesn't leave a lot of overhead for expansion. I kinda doubt I'm going to do a lot of upgrading to this box, though, I don't see how it will ever really need any, at least not for the reasonable life of the machine.

ETA: Okay. Got a 64GB SATA III SSD drive, too.