End of the Year Update

2007 - The Year of Change

Well, I hope everyone (as if anyone reads this) had a great Christmas, and hello New Year! [personally, I don't think anyone reads my blog, and frankly, I don't give a crap because I'm just getting my thoughts out without talking to myself...which seems to be a bad habit]

Anyway, I was at work tonite (meat department) and I leaned over to pick up a tray of raw boneless center cut pork chops when my Zune fell out and pasted itself to them. Nasty. Then, for some reason, I decided it was a good idea to pull it up by the headphones cord and therefore it dropped on the concrete floor...dang. But, it still works like a champ (or as good as every flawed Microsoft product would) Oh, and my paycheck sucked.

By the way, I went to sleep with my Puka shell necklace on, and woke up with it off. No trace of it anywhere. (Me looking around from the comfort of my computer desk) I checked everywhere.

I had a few gift cards...one to Circuit City and 2 to Best Buy. Ugh, two competing companies of which only Best Buy is worth entering. So, I used BB online to buy The Bourne Ultimatum Special Ed. and 5 Dual-Layer DVD+R's. The other, I bought my love somethings that she'll definitely appreciate. :)

On another note...I was very active on Yahoo Answers last nite....asking and answering stupid questions. Seems like whenever I open my mouth over there, either I get best answer and people want to be my buddy or they shove my opion back down my throat and tell me to lay off the alcohol or whatever makes me that way. I don't drink, or smoke/drugs...just want to get that outta the way.

I called 1-800-4MY-XBOX and held on for about 10 minutes, then this dude took my info, registered my 'Box and is sending a box for me to put my 'Box in to return it. R.R.O.D. infected my 360 a month ago, and now I'm finally going to get it fixed. (but first, I have to buy that warranty sticker off ebay...cuz I severed mine. oops)

Finally, some quotes:

"I may not always be right, but I'm never wrong." - my co-worker who is entitled to his wrong opinion.

"Don't worry, it's only a cough." - My famous last words as I die from walking pneumonia this week.

Breaching 1 Million

FlashGet, this tiny downloading manager has breached one million kb (1gig) and is counting. It just won't stop rising. But, it's downloading so fast, yet the RAM keeps rising continuously. Not really sure what happens when you run out of RAM, but I have 4gigs and I don't wanna find out.

Infection.

Last month, my Xbox 360 was showing the symptoms of the irreversible infection infamously known as the Red Ring of Death. It has been dead for quite some time now.

As if the red lights weren't enough, Microsoft's developers had the balls to make the disease more appropriately named, "The Red 3/4 Ring of Death". Microsoft, that's another story. These guys....audacious jerks.

Essential Tools

Excellent Microphone

My Makeshift WiFi Satellite

Geiger Counter
(for the end of the world, when nuclear fallout is common and Leukemia runs rampant, I'll be prepared)

Old Machines

Logitech Old School vs. Razer Death Adder
When using the middle button, it's like flipping off the computer.
Mine was worn-out.

Atari 2600 Games
That 007 is worth 20 bucks.

..And the 'ol Cybiko Inter-tainment System
I used this like a portable chat system with other Cybiko users in 7th grade during lunch time. It was also my first MP3 player, back when Napster was sweet and MP3 was new tech. Grits - We All Fall Down, that was the first song I listened to. It was totally sweet back then, now it's in the trash.

Crysis Ending...YGBKM

When I was playing this level in Crysis yesterday...it seemed really hard and made me think,"This level is so hard, you'd think the game was about to end." And then it did.

But here's the deal, you're character gets in the VTOL (harrier) and evacs but, then says something like going back to the island to "finish the fight".

Hello??!! The aliens were still swarming around! We didn't beat 'em yet!!!

And then it ends. I couldn't accept that.

You Gotta Be Kiddin' Me.

My rumor is that it didn't end, and there will be a sequel.

Stability?

If having a different problem everytime I start it up is considered stable, then yes.

Ye Eldest Skoole

Grandma ran over it.

Ye Olde Skoole

"Throw the switch, Igor!"

Yes, Turbo. Like, you have no idea just how fast this friggin thing is when you push the Turbo button. 2 Digits baby!
Turbo on this comp added 10MHz of raw unorthodox word processing power!...(which gave it a top speed of like 20Mhz!!)

ps. what reason would you have to turn off the turbo feature? did it use like 1mWh more?

Possessed.

I went and put it to sleep last nite...around 1:30am. Half and hour later, I'm layin in bed, the only light blinking is the one on the screen button...close my eyes, just about to fall asleep....

Then, I hear this loud beep and the lights all come on and nearly scared the crap outta me.

Ugh.

Quad-Core.

Is it really all that great? 4 graphs up there....one for each processor. wooptie-friggin-doo.
Btw, my video card has been tweakin and occasionally crashing my system giving me the blue screen. GRAW 2 was workin' great last nite. Until this morning when I updated the video drivers and now it gets jumpy...and eventually crashes. I think this comp was cursed from "birth". The company still hasn't replied to my hatemail. hmm...another day, another problem.

Internal Combustion.

SATURDAY

My laptop is still freakin' tweakin'. I'm scanning the monkey poo out of it. Doubt I'll find anything though. Not really sure how to get to System Restore without Explorer...dang.

I'm like my gaming computer. I got a Quad-Core processor (in the way that i can do a lot of things at once). I have ann X-Fi card installed (i love surround sound, and won't go w/o it!). But, I'm obviously running Windows because of all of the friggin mistakes I make.

I just bought GRAW 2 from my trusty GameStop, thanks Josh. It's probably the first game that works at high-res with max everything perfectly right outta the box. I am really surprised with this game. High FPS with these specs.

But, one question....Where in the world are the health pickups?! Why does this have to be such a "2 shots-and-you're-dead" Tom Clancy game?! Dang.

Running it at:
VIDEO
-1680 x 1050
-anti-aliasing
-16x Anisotropic filtering
-High texture quality
-high post effects
-high dynamic shadows
-high effects quality

AUDIO
-Extreme Quality
-SB X-Fi
-EAX 5.1 Surround

Tweakin'

My laptop just got sick. Windows Explorer won't run for more than about 5 seconds, something is shutting it down.

OhNoYouDon't

Each day has its own problems with this thing. Now, it just won't stop rebooting. It's obvious that iBuyPower did not do it's job. I guess this is the kind of quality to expect when rushing the order. sucks.

Success.

Finally, after much time working with this comp, I have finally resolved the following issues:

• USB Hub failure
• Crysis SLI incapable
• Sound card crackling/jittering
• HL2 installation failure
• COD2 installation failure

And have not resolved the long beep at power-on....which I now believe to be a test that it has failed in hardware. But, recently I have experienced a spontaneous dimming of my screen at certain moments when I bring up IE7.

But, I can now come to the conclusion that SLI technology is great when the programs are optimized for it. booyah.

The Hit List

• I realized that a brand new computer with Vista 64-bit can't beat a laptop with 8gigs of space left to waking up from standby.
• Can't find disc one for F.E.A.R.
• Half-Life 2 doesn't work on Vista x64
• USB doesn't work.
• Bluetooth doesn't work.
• Internet doesn't work.
• I am sitting here trying to download a USB patch that's 385Kbs and it's at 46%....but it's been there for over 2 minutes…yeah, it's downloading at 753 BYTES/second!
• Why me?

It's time to put her down.

I hope you find all of this exquisitely humorous.

The last thing it did was let out a long loud beep, and that's when I decided to silence this menace before it let out any more vulgarities.

Day 3 with the X Faktor Machine

Mein Kampf mit der Maschine!

This computer.....wow...I don't even know where to start. I think the following image explains my situation. These are desparate times, that call for desparate measures. Mouse, keyboard, external hard drives, smith & wesson.....they're all just tools for dealing with the computer...some, more friendly than others, but this is how we deal with problems in Jersey. snafu

~Solving the problem has never been this easy! Just point at the machine giving you trouble and pull the trigger!~

The Machine

Okay, so the Machine came in and had like a google of problems right out of the box. So much technology in this thing that Windows Vista just doesn't know what the heck to do with it, so it's unstable. It makes a loud chime when pushing the power button...loud and annoying enough that I want to find the internal speaker and disconnect it. Random drivers will fail at any given restart. For example, just 30min ago, all usb devices failed which a double restart could only fix. Fast computer, but I think I should've gone with Windows XP. Vista's pretty, but not very stable, as I am learning.

-Vista 64-Bit

-Quad-Core 2.4GHZ (9.6GHz total)

-4GB Mushkin DDR3 RAM (2gb x 2)

-SLI 512Mb 8600GTS

-ASUS 680i eVGA Motherboard

-250GB internal HDD

-2Terabyte WD "X Faktor Vault" external

-500GB WD "iNox" external

-1000Watt Power Supply

-Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Gamer card

-Samsung 226bw 22" Display (1680 X 1050)

-42" Vizio 1080p LCD TV (1920 x 1080)

-Logitech G15 Keyboard

-Razer Death Adder Mouse

-XBOX 360 Wireless Controller PC-compat.

-Zalman 5.1 Headphones (excellent silent alternative to the Sony 7.1)

New Components as of January 15th, 2009

-Sony STR-DG720 7.1 Surround w/optical

-Infinity PSW212 12" 400Watt RMS Subwoofer (700W peak)

-Also, I updated my 360 and it's now running a native 1680x1050 on the Samsung. :)

Update as of February 28th, 2009

-Got that 42" Vizio TV

-Got a Logitech diNovo wireless keyboard

-Got a Logitech MX Revolution wireless mouse.

-Got F.E.A.R. 2