Yup, you guessed it. My computer is broken. It started out at the end of July, I was using my computer one day, doing my usual dance in my chair to Jason Derulo’s “In My Head” when my sound started to sound rather funky. And I thought – Great, did I seriously just blow out my sound card? Is it tired of Jason Derulo? (Now that I said that, I’ve turned it on while I finish this post haha)

So I think I’m gonna be smart and I reboot my computer and it just… never came back. *Groan* Fantastic. So I turn around and eye up my husband’s ancient, brand-less computer hooked up to the ghetto 1990′s Gateway bubble monitor thing and I felt my eye twitch slightly. My heart sank. I had to have computer access – think of all of the customers I talk to in a day and all of the people who come to Jolly Farm with questions. That’s extremely important to me. Not even to mention that beyond Jolly Farm, I work from home and it’s how I pay the bills – specifically by doing graphic work for some established RL clients.

I took my computer to my best RL friend who knows about computers (ironically, I don’t… I’m more of a artsy software and web guru and know squat about computers physically) who tells me it’s nothing major… I just have corrupted ram. Okay, so I fork out $53 and I buy 2 new sticks of ram on August 1st… which I don’t receive until August 7th (because the closest computer store to my house is an hour away and it was cheaper to just wait and have it shipped in for 99 cents than to spend $20 on gas in addition to the price of ram).

I get the ram in the mail and I was SO EXCITED! Then I couldn’t install the ram myself because I’m actually legally blind in one eye in real life and have a very poor sense of depth perception at best and couldn’t line the ram up in the slots (it’s okay to laugh here.. I am). So as you can see, I was having it quite rough at this point and had to rely on my husband figuring out how to install the ram (he has no idea how thankful I am that he did that for me). And taa-daa! The ram worked and my computer was running as good as ever! I did find out two of the slots were blown out on the motherboard but hey, I had the other two to rely on and I figured it would last me a few months while I worked on affording a new computer.

Fast forward literally 4 days. I’m on Skype with Xavion, chatting away when he started to sound funny. Great… here we go again. I stupidly ended up rebooting again. The computer did manage to boot back up, but it was only a matter of minutes before I blew out the last 2 ram slots on my motherboard. I swear, I heard taps playing lightly in the distance.

So here I am, using this computer – armed with a 30 day trial of Paint Shop Pro 13 (lost my PSP12 disk when I moved here) and a lot of Tylenol for the headaches received from trying to use this monitor in desperate need of professional calibration. It’s not going well… at all. I did manage to make the Slafford Sanctuary logo with it but hell if I have any clue how dark the logo is or what color it actually is. You might think it looks great and well, maybe it is. But I have no idea if it’s up to my usual standards.

My monitor won’t hook up to this computer. It’s a Dell monitor and therefor, fits Dell computers. I’ve heard that there is a pretty cheap adapter and I will probably look into buying one. My husband thinks I should just buy a new motherboard but… the computer is over 4 years old. Who’s to say that it’s just the motherboard? And if I fork over what will probably be close to $100 for a new motherboard, how long with that last? What will break next that I’ll need to replace? I can’t see playing musical computer parts not to mention having to drive an hour away to my best friend’s house so he can play computer doctor.

And that’s where Sookie’s Computer Fund comes in. I’m looking to buy a brand new computer in the next 2 months. It’s not even just a want for me – it’s an absolute necessity. I have to be able to work and I know I can’t offer my clients the standards they are accustomed while using this computer. I need my own tools – access to my own files, my monitor, my programs.

I’m leaving my PayPal donation button up on this site with the hope that someone cares enough to help out – someone who knows what it’s like to lose your computer with practically your life’s work on it. I don’t own an external drive so everything is locked away on my computer’s hard drive. But anyways… Please don’t feel obligated to donate anything and please don’t perceive this as me begging. I honestly hope no one finds it in poor taste – it’s just a sort of “if you would like to help out so I can afford a new computer, I’d really appreciate it” type thing.