Shakespeare gives Macbeth a famous quote "It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." This month I'm really feeling that quote. When I left Japan almost two months ago, I was really hoping that I would not be coming back for any significant length of time. My hopes were not realized, alas, and here I am back in the same pattern of working on games in the morning that almost no one plays, then teaching English in the afternoon and early evening.
On top of that dreary outcome, there's my desktop. I had started to rebuild it before I left, but managed to smash several pins on the motherboard. Luckily, I got a refund and when I returned I bought the same type of motherboard and had the staff install the CPU. When I finished rebuilding it, I was still getting some really odd boot errors, so I did some searching and found an English-speaking PC service company that would send technicians to your house. After spending an hour, the tech was able to narrow it down to either a faulty motherboard, or incompatibility between the motherboard and the RAM. For this I paid $130.
Thinking to kill two birds with one stone, I took the PC apart in order to return the motherboard and buy a different brand of RAM. I somehow managed to smash more pins while I was trying to install the CPU slot cover (which is supposed to protect those pins). I hadn't purchased the month return policy this time, and the tech at the store tried to repair the pins as best he could (this cost about $50), but even with new memory, I couldn't get it up and running.
So.
I'm quitting making my own PC for all time. When I buy a desktop in the future, I'm going to leave it to professionals. I've wasted so much time and money on this, and I've started getting those sores in my mouth that I only get when I'm really stressed, that I just can't do this any more. I sold my last batch of PC parts yesterday, getting about 1/2 or 1/3 price for all of them, because that's how it goes. It's better than nothing.
My laptop works fine, and I can even play some games on it. The main thing is that I can continue my game development on the laptop. I'm continuing my job hunt as well, but more and more I'm thinking that I will remain as an independent/hobbyist. I'm 36 years old, and I'm very stubborn. I don't particularly like taking orders, or working on the types of games that most studios seem to be making: slot machine games for mobile, cheap movie franchise tie-ins, mobile games with depth, etc. Why would I want to spend my time working on a type of game that I wouldn't even play for free??? I'll keep going on my own, and fuck the rest.
