2 Bit Hacker

Woke up this morning feeling sick to my stomach, and even vomiting a little, so I called into work and went back to bed. After sleeping some more and watching some Star Trek, I started feeling better, so I dressed and went into SimPro. Not a terribly exciting day by any stretch of the definition.

Also, last night, I found out my PS2 doesn’t like playing the Outlaw Star discs that Andrea gave me. They seem to be fine in my computer though, so I’m guessing it’s a PS2 driver issue. Maybe she’ll let me borrow the update CD that came with here DVD remote.

Not much else going on really. Seems like we should be LAN gaming this Saturday, which should be fun. Haven’t heard from Andrea since Christmas night, so I’m a little worried about her. I guess she must be closing tonight, since she isn’t answering her cell phone.

Another Christmas come and gone, and now I have a lot of cool new stuff. I guess I’ll run down the list of loot in approximate chronological order. First, my mom and Ralph gave me money to but a new TV with a couple weeks ago. I plan to do that this week. Last week, Jason and Stacey gave me a GameShark for PS2. On Sunday, my dad and Mary, my step-mother, gave me a set of dishes, a gift card to Best Buy, and a cool kit of stuff for my car (flashlight, emergency water, shovel, stuff like that.) They also brought me a new bed and some pots, pans, towels and an entertainment center. Christmas morning I went over to my mom’s house for breakfast. She gave me a new shirt, and some random stocking stuff, and I got my presents from my grandparents in Ohio. They sent me a Far Side calendar, a Star Wars ornament, and a Panama Canal t-shirt. I hung out there for a bit, then wandered over to Andrea’s house in the afternoon.

Andrea gave me a set of Outlaw Star DVD’s, Tony Hawk Pro Skater 3 for PS2, Fight Club, Army of Darkness (spiffy director’s cut bootleg edition), the Final Fantasy: TSW Soundtrack, a cover for my cell phone, a CD of PalmOS games, a gift card for Barnes and Noble’s, another for Best Buy, and 3 tubes of dice. I’m probably forgetting something, I’m sure she’ll let me know what it is. Her parents got me the new Terry Pratchett novel, The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents, as well as Good Omens, one of his earlier books. They also got me two posters, a Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust poster, and a Mallrats poster. They’re nice posters, and I think I need to find a better way to hang them than just putting thumbtacks through them. Any ideas? Framing seems a bit overboard…

Anyway, I’m off to bed now. Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

Had an idea for a case mod for my new machine. In the drive plates, there’s a grid of square holes. I was thinking I could get some pieces of colored acrylic from a company that Dave R. works with, put those behind the holes, and put a light source behind that to make the front glow. I think it would look pretty slick. It’d also look cool to do that to the air intake in the front, but it would block too much airflow, I think. Maybe if I put a spacer between the acrylic and the front panel….. hmm…..

Could also be used for a window on the side panel, I think. That would look slick too. I’d also like to put some rheostats or something in to limit the fan speed (5 fans mean lots of noise.) Maybe I could do something with my Basic Stamp….

Christmas is nearly upon us! Run away!

I’m actually looking forward to it though. My dad is driving out from Michigan with a U-Haul full of fun stuff for the apartment. He’ll be here from Saturday to Christmas. Christmas day looks a little tricky though, Andrea and I are supposed to be at my parents house in the morning for breakfast (late morning) and then over to her parents for dinner (early afternoon.) Might have to see if schedules can be moved around a bit.

For the weekend after that, I think I’ll try and get a LAN party together. I hope absinthexl will be back in town, and jtn should be free too. Maybe invite Bweebo along, since I havn’t seen him in a while. Could be fun. Dave R. said I could put a CS server on one of the spare machines here, as long as I don’t open it to the general public.

oooh, and I got a free lunch today, Cirtronics (one of the other companies in the building) had a catered Christmas lunch, and SimPro was invited. Very tasty indeed. mmmmmm

Well, so far I am nearly 100% happy with my new computer. Over the weekend Matt and I played some CounterStrike and Unreal Tournament, both of which run amazingly well on my new system, as they should. I also played around with Red Faction, Return to Castle Wolfenstein (single player demo), and Medal of Honor, all of which look great. Ah, but I said nearly 100%, not 100%. “Why?” you may be asking. The answer is simply. I chose to install Windows XP on my new computer, and it’s having an odd issue with my USB ports. When I was using a USB mouse, CPU usage would jump to 70% when I moved the mouse. It seems to be a driver issue, since it was working fine in 98 SE (which I had installed briefly.) This will probably affect my USB CD-RW drive, which would be bad. I hope I can get it working right soon.

Finally, I have all the parts for my new computer. They are assembled, and it is running wonderfully! I am very happy indeed. Now I just need to decide on an operation system, and I’m all set. I figure I’ll put Windows 2000 or XP on for games, and FreeBSD 4.4-R on for everything else I do. The chassis is nifty and shiny, I’m happy with it. Once I get it all buttoned up, I think I’ll snap some pictures of it.

Well, after exchanging some emails with coolerguys.com, they don’t know why my parts didn’t arrive, but they’re going to ship me a new heatsink and tube of goo today via next-day air, so I should have the stuff tomorrow. I guess they’re not so bad after all, but still, a slip up like that is really annoying.