Meet My Desk: Sixteen

In an effort to try to blog to a regular(ish) schedule, I decided the other day that Tuesdays are going to be “Meet My Desk” days.  Mostly because a bunch of things on my desk have had names and/or personalities assigned to them (you can’t not name technology) and partially because no one objected when I mentioned it on Twitter.

Really, Twitter people, you only have yourself to blame.

I tidied my desk the other day, I even have evidence of this! (Yes, this is tidy.)  There’s no ‘before’ shot because it was just buried under a vast stack of magazines, sketchbooks and assorted crap, but it’s all better now.  (Note: the paperwork in the background isn’t mine.  Mine’s all over a desk upstairs.)

Today, we’re meeting my trusty two-year-old laptop, Sixteen.

Well, I say trusty.  Sulky might be more accurate (sorry Sixteen).  It has been suggested that naming him after a paranoid, possibly insane character from a video game was a bad idea but aside from him having a strange personality and responding well to being stroked (this has been externally verified, sadly by my writing group who are easily as odd as me) he’s been pretty well behaved.

He has his own taste in music that doesn’t always match mine and he’s been known to insist on playing certain songs far more than is reasonable.  He went through a big Florence + The Machine obsession a few months ago and he’s quite keen on BT too.  Since my playlist is always set to random, he’s very talented at picking the right song for whatever I’m writing and has been known to guilt-trip me by bunching together songs that remind me of one certain character or another so I end up writing.

People have complained in the past that the cycling of his fan makes it sound like he’s breathing.  It is apparently, and I quote, “creepy”.

I have been known to talk to him, and there are people out there who are fairly sure that you can get a sensible answer from him by asking questions and seeing what song comes on next.  I’m not so sure, myself.  Also, it should be said I talk to everything, not just him.  I’m one of those irritating people who just mutters to themselves...

Mood swings aside, he’s been surprisingly reliable since I got him, he’s put up with being dragged everywhere (although he weighs enough that he’s stopped coming to Nottingham with me) and so far--touch wood--he’s behaved far more reasonably than my old laptop ever did.  I’ve become very fond of him!

It may have something to do with the fact that between work and hobbies I spend most of my day in front of him, of course...

Next time: another random personified thing! No, I haven't decided which yet. Consider it a surprise.