Radiant Comics

I am trying something new. Writing on my iPod touch. My laptop is my usual choice for writing but, unfortunately, that has died on me. Bad video RAM is the culprit. Now I’m stuck without my usual writing tool of choice.

My desktop computer is not set up for writing. I have it at standing height and the keyboard is too high to comfotably type at. Sure I do it but it is far from ideal. Great for making art but bad for making literature. As a matter of fact I only started writing regularly once I bought my laptop.That was back in the beginning of 2005 and I’ve been writing steadily ever since. Before that I wrote sporadically. Whenever I needed to, say for an e-mail or comic book script, I could write but I never wrote on impulse. Nor was it a regular habit. The laptop made writing much less of a physical chore and therfore much easier. I have to say it has been a great success in terms of my creativity.

So now I’m stuck with a bit of a problem. What do I do about writing? It’s not my livelyhood like computer graphics are. If my desktop went down I would immediatly have to get a new one no matter the cost. But my laptop was mainly for writing, which nets me no profit, or surfing the web (also no profits). I just bought a new car last October and I will be paying that off for years to come so my budget is stretched as it is. That’s life.

I was planning on buying a new laptop next year but that doesn’t help me now. Now my choices are: send mine out to have it fixed which is a minimum $400, buy the part and try to fix it myself which is a $300 minimun, scour Ebay for the same model used which looks to be about a $250 minimum, get a brand new one for $1500, or go without until next year. That’s why I’m writing this on the iPod touch. I’m trying the “Go without” route. It’s a little tough.

Since I work on a Apple computer another choice would be to make a cheap “Hackintosh” laptop. That is where I would get a cheap $300-$500 Windows laptop and put Apple’s OS X on it myself. That sounds like an interesting idea but as I looked into it I saw one problem. Most of the cheap netbook laptops are about the same or even less powerful than my five year old Powerbook. That came as a bit of a surprise to me.

Besides the fact that no one likes to have to make a surprise large purchase there is an extra pain in the neck element to my laptop woes. This year, come springtime, I was already planning on buying a new camera. Not a “Must have” purchase but one I was planning on. Now I have to figure out if it would be better to get a new laptop first. It’s a tough call.

Before I buy something pricey I like to ask myself my standard question, “What can I do with this that I couldn’t do before?”. With the laptop I can’t really do anything new but it will restore the status quo. Not very exciting but I liked the status quo.

With the camera I hoped to be able to take better street photos. I’ve always been a fan of taking street photos but have finally figured out how to make something out of them. I want to explore the ideas I have a little further and a new camera (the one I shoot with now is from 2005) would help me do that. But reality is that I only get to shoot street photos down in Manhattan six or so times a year. Not really a mainline of mine though I do take snap shots far more often than that. And I do work on the street photos after I take them. I may only shoot them six times a year but I work on them more often than that.

Another thing that I never noticed before about my laptop is that it gives me a reason to sit down. Since I generally find it more comfortable to work standing up I rarely sit and work. Having a laptop to sit and write or surf the web on gave me a reason to sit down. And I do need to sit and rest every now and again. Today when I sat to rest I had nothing to do! That makes me sit less and I’ve been more tired at the end of the day. Habits are a strange thing.

This tiny screen on the iPod isn’t helping much. It’s fairly easy using the on screen keys but it’s harder seeing what I’ve already typed. Plus it’s hard to organize my thoughts since I’m only able to see the last three lines without scrolling. I don’t know how long I can keep up writing on this thing. I’ll have to edit this on my desktop anyway. Anyway, I think I’m leaning towards getting a used laptop on Ebay. Same model as my old one that way I’ll have parts in case it breaks.