Can't sleep. Probably should have taken a full Zopiclone instead of a half, but I don't really like taking sleeping pills, or anything resembling a benzo.

Anyway, also ran out of ideas for my buddy's predicament regarding that either failed or locked SSD. Gonna set him up with a Crucial I have lying around so he can at least leave with both a working desktop and laptop.

And right now, I just remembered that having a GPU is no longer stopping me from installing this artifact from the HTPC-era: the HDA Xplosion 7.1 sound card. I don't have a surround setup, but I figure (assuming it even works in a modern OS) it might give me a cleaner output than the line out on this HP Compaq 6200 Pro SFF that I currently have going into my circa 1980 amplifier.

My current setup is to have the stereo cranked to 40%, which puts the upper ~75% of the living room PC's volume control in the realm of "shitty neighbour" (I live in a condo; an older one where all units are separated by concrete, but still). I find it sounds best this way. One might think the opposite would be better (PC vol up, stereo down), or at least I did, but this just sounds much clearer and fuller.

Anyway, shutting down. Remains to be seen if this even has a modern driver, so we'll burn the fidelity bridge when we get there.

Oh right... gonna need my side cutters... And maybe a nonconductive barrier because this slow is reaaaal close to the bottom/side of the case. Definitely going to short something.