New job!

Go ME!

Actually, Its my old job.. doing the same work for different people making more money. YAY!

I start when I get back form Virginia.

To say my stress level has decreased dramatically is an understatement.

Now maybe I can pay some of these annoying bills.. hey.. maybe even build that new damn PC!

THE MIGHTY GEEK WINS!

A autistic genius? a right rotten bastard? Well its tHE MIghtY GeeK. I would like to say that he is without a doubt.. a person!

Today he is a WINNER!

Rumor is he is the love child of Bruce Campbell and Dr. Ruth but no, he is actually a test tube baby from ARK-1021. His loving parents, old scab and rancid burger meat are so pleased.

"We're so pleased." They quipped.

In, 1866, after impregnating millions of rabid chickens with his docile seed, he took up underwater origami, where he became the leading expert in astro-navigation.

After discovering that nuclear fission could be maintained with naval lint and chewing gum, he went on to be the first human to be granted a pardon from the angry mollusks coilition.

The Mighty Geek resides in a shoebox, where he humps extra copies of Harry Potter books.

Black Friday Xbox goodness

Black Friday always brings good deals at Best Buy. Little yellow bins of overstocked goodness. Yum.

I should have grabbed Blade Runner's Director's cut for $5, but rumor is another deluxe version is in the works.

The only thing I did pick up was the Grand Theft Auto 2 pack for $20. I'll give it a go when Im done with Sudeki.

Other choices I passed on: Star Wars Starfighter, Full Spectrum Warrior, some goofy racing game. All $10 a pop

More suprising, I found Tenhu and Breakdown in the clearance pile at Target as well.. $10 a pop.

Remember kids, what ever you dont like can be traded up towards something you wanna try later. :P

More Cheap Xbox Goodness

Well.. my rebate coupon (of sorts) came in for my Fable & Hintbook combo.. Well.. yeah I paid full price for it.. but I had a job for it back then.

So, after a quick lunch, off to EB again.. Hmm? Sudeki in the used bin for $18? Coupon is good for $15? SOLD!

Noone comes here...

..so I decided to drop some nice words for search engines to pick up on.. NAKED BRITANY PICS, HALO, HALO 2, Half Life, Half-Life 2, Half Life 2, Half-Life, LARGE BREASTS REVIEWED, FREE DVDS, GIRLS WHO SWALLOW, LIVE ANIMAL SHOWS, NUDE NUDE NUDE, FREE SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS TOYS, ENLARGE YOUR PENIS, RUSSIAN MAIL ORDER BRIDES, FREE BEER, FREE CONDOMS.

Take that, google. :)

HALO 2 goodness (Cheap Xboxing)

As I was writing the Hockey post, I reminded myself of picking up Halo 2 last week.

$10 deposit down for Game and hint book.. Hint book had a heavy discount when you get it on the same reciept as the game, So I thought.. why not?

Double value on trade-ins towards Halo 2. I had about 10 games/DVDs.

Balance: $13

So I paid about $23 total.

So keep an eye out for trade-in deals and unload your old DVDs and games. They add up! Plus you'll have less crap in your house!

HOCKEY RULES (cheap Xboxing again)

As there is no hockey this year, I have to find alternate hockey entertainment.

First off, there IS minor league hockey in Atlanta. Its a schlep for where I am, but its hockey and the team is quite good. We went on Halloween.. they even broke the glass for us. :)

More importantly and just as fun, is hockey on the Xbox. I have EA 2003 and it gets old pretty fast.

A few months ago, Coke ran a promo for ESPN's whatever anniversary, drink 10 cokes, svae up some bottlecap codes and get $10 off a ESPN branded game. Good deal as the games are $20 to begin with.

That, plus reviews are pointing out that ESPN games are comparable (and in our case, ESPN Hockey got a better review) to the EA line made this purchase a no-brainer. Next year, there wil be some serious EA/ESPN battles.. MADDEN watch out!

So a few cokes, some code entering on the PC and some mail waiting time later, I get my coupon. The coupon has activation dates for each game so as to make a buffer between the releases. Kind makes sense. You dont what the whole world coming in to use they're coupons when NFL comes out.

So yesterday , the coupon was good for, you guessed it, ESPN hockey 2005. Heres the best part: I brought in 3 anime DVDs with me to trade in as well. Total cost: $0

GO ME! Let my Hockey fix begin!

So much for the new PC

$1500 in car upkeep.

Ow. If I havent picked up your Xmas present by now, dont expect one.

Well.. new belts & brakes... the 120K checkup. Ill tell you.. it makes the car drive so much better. Done at the Honda dealership (it was the first major work on the car.. I want it done right.. and guaranteed).

"$1500? Thats a down payment on a new car!" You cry.

"Ahh.. young parasite," I reply, "and with what job would I have to make car payments?"

Like my cousin Barb says, "Youre done. Your car is good for another 120K and you dont have lousy car payments."

So with that, PC shopping is on indefinite hold. Again.

Happy Halo Day!

In anticipation for picking up Halo 2 tonight, I decided to have a quick run through SP Halo to prepare myself.

And let me tell you.. It was bad.. The controls arent much different from other console FPS's why did it feel so.. clunky? Looking around with the right stick seemed like a chore.

How did I finish the game the first time? That was 18 months ago.

???

PC Building, part two

The first part of my new PC came to me by pure luck. Bunny pointed out that Office Depot had 200Gig HDs for $99.. so off we went.. and there they were..

Maxtor 200GB, 7200 rpm. 8MB cache.. it was Ultra ATA 133, but for $99 I didnt really care.. 200 GB seems like a ungoldly amount.

I considered getting 2, then 3 (in case I wanted to hack the Xbox a bit, but then thought against it. One would be enough. Hard drive search is done... and I wasnt even trying..

PC BUILDING, part One

The wonderful archive of a computer upgrading experience.

Hey there. Ever wonder about upgrading your own PC? I do all the time. Ive hacked and cannibalized my HP (running a 800 Celeron) to the highest possible point and still cry out for more power.

I bought my HP with a 600 Celeron back in 2000 to replace my aging AMD 233.

It was a mid-ranged PC at the time and I was as pleased as punch. I gave the 233 to my Mom so she could do some emailing, web browsing and whatnot and we went on our merry way.

I swapped out the 600 for an 800, added a 30Gig HD (a 15 gig came with it), and bumped the Memory to 128. I also added a cheap PCI (This board has no AGP slot) Gforce 420MX to play QUAKE 3 on something better than the onboard video (The Voodoo3 is still in the 233, and not officially supported for XP).

I also added a standard 10/100 network card when I got DSL. I have a Zip 250 USB to transfer files to my Laptop (a totally different nightmare).

I added more memory to boost it to 384 MB. I’ve added a CDR and then replaced the CD with a DVD and finally the CD-R with a DVD-R.

At this point I said enough.. I have a bunch of nice hardware and capabilities, but its just a bad nightmare gone wrong.. A picture of this monster is HERE.

The case obviously isnt big enough and pullties arent the standard HD mounting choice. The case remains open to ensure nothing overheats in the tiny space provided.

Its been a workhorse for a long time but I can no longer do everything I want with any efficiency.

So I started off with a list of what I wanted to do..

1. Play more games. Let’s face it, I don’t really want to play Doom3 of Half life 2 on the Xbox. I like user-made mods and add-ons. You cant get that in a console. I love my Xbox but Lord forbid I want to play more PC-only games coming in the future. The last game I got for PC was Warlords Battlecry 3. I was lucky that ran on the 800.
2. Art/job stuff. All graphics and web-related goodness. Yes, I got Adobe CS stuff to run, but it takes forever to load. As a struggling artist, I love to play in Photoshop and Dreamweaver. I also want to learn Flash and maybe some CSS. Top of the line programs demand top-of the line hardware. Efficiency is key here.
3. DVD ripping. It currently takes 3-24 hours to rip a DVD on the 800 (burning is under an hour), plus the constant wear on the system. I have lots of Video tapes slowly decaying. I’d like to rip and burn them one day.
4. MUSIC. My friend wants to get back into the band thing and is trying to pull me into the semi-professional musician status again. I also have old tapes that fall in the same threat as my VHS collection, and they will need to be put on to a more stable format. I have some neat multitracking software lying around, it works great on the 800, but I might need some oomph later on.

I know that any upgrade at this point will be a great boost to my overall PC experiences. But as Im still looking for work, I need to be as cost effective as I can.

So begins my search for cheap bits to build my Next Computer…

New toy

I've put it off for ages, but I finally picked up a digital camera.

Im glad I got it.. up to 10x zoom.. 3.2 million pixels...

coincidence that I popped a shiteload of pix with it for ebay auctions? no.

Ebay will help pay for this bad boy... huzzah!

DOOM!

Doom3 is out! YAY!

I need $60 to play it! BOOO!

I need a 1.5 Ghz minimum to play it.. BOOO!

Wait a month or two for the Xbox version.. feh!!

Siigh.

MORE ZOMBIES!!! YAY!

The Fourth Dead movie is set to start filming this fall:
LAND OF THE DEAD
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0418819/


On top of that, American McGee, (Doom, Quake, Alice, Oz and Grimm) has rights to do the video game..
http://www.americanmcgee.com/blosxom.cgi/home/073104.html

Being the mutant zombie overlord that I am I had to share this news..

*SPOOOGE*

Now you must pardon me while I get a sanitary moist towelette.

Unemployment sucks

I hate not working.

Mind you, I've had few jobs that I like, but I hate not working. A paycheck is a wonderful thing. It helps fend off those pesky bills, you have a place to live and ensures food goes in your stomach.

Im not sure why I dont get called for interviews but Im tired of being around the house with minimal air conditioning.

Maybe I'll go take some classes at the local state college.

In the meantime, nothing to do but sit and wait.

Feh