My Wednesday and Thursday this week have basically vanished into air (literally), and my body clock is currently in some whacked-out timezone that is neither UK nor Australian, so I’m feeling pretty disoriented. But nothing beats the feeling of being back, of hanging out in my living room with my laptop with my siblings watching telly. Daddy took me out laptop shopping today followed by a trip to the Sydney Botanic Gardens to take advantage of the awesome warm weather, and we had lunch at Masuya, a family favourite Japanese restuarant in town; I also finally managed to satisfy my perpetual xiaolongbao craving with a trip to a new Shanghainese restaurant near our home, and we made plans to hit the beach tomorrow for some good fresh fish and chips, and pancakes later in the day (why yes, I have planned my days around food)!

Speaking of new laptops, I basically presented my dad with my very few specific requirements (must be able to play Dragon Age and NWN2, must have good sound, must have Win 7, doesn’t need to be that light/portable as I mostly just leave it at home anyway, must not be ugly), and he picked out this drop-dead sexy beauty for me:

Toshiba Qosmio X500

This, my friends, has to be the Mustang of laptops or something. It’s clearly built to be a gaming rig, hence its massive size and high-end specs, and I’m just hoping that my back won’t break lugging it back to Singapore and London, but dang it’s pretty. They’ve apparently been flying off the shelves so fast that they don’t even put it out on display in shops because then they’d just perpetually have no stock. We had to ask for it specifically. Thank goodness for the internets.

My dad’s l33t bargaining skills also resulted in us getting a copy of Dragon Age, a new pair of headphones, and a Logitech GX9 mouse thrown into the deal – for less than the RRP of the laptop. w00t! :D