Blog......Schmlog.....!

There is not much to talk about. Work. Home. That's about it. I did get a few goodies and some quiet time with the wife, so that was nice. But other than that, it was just drab boredom at its worst.

Inn....din...anna...Jo..Unzzzz....uhhhhhhh....
Kris and I went to see the new Indy flick on the 8th. We both enjoyed the movie, it was very nice. But getting stuck in the theatre for 15-20 commercials before the movie tried our patience and seemed to do the same to our fellow movie-goers. I made a few off-the-wall comments during this horrible experience that rose a few chuckles and giggles from the other patrons.

There was an air of disappointment that Sean Connery (Sir) did not return from retirement to star in this movie. And they tried to address his absence well. I suppose a bit part would not be worthy of Connery's abilities. This is what they get for waiting almost twenty years to make another sequel.

The movie was extremely entertaining and I eagerly await its release to DVD. I would sum the movie up as being an ode to a few of Spielberg's past films. And it came off well. It was good to see other veteran actors and actresses in this movie, especially Karen Allen!

Indy summed up her absence in the other movies quite well with the line.. "those other women just weren't you..." True.

New Games...yeah..
I picked up two gems from Gamestar for the Gamecube. I can honestly say these two games are the worst games I have ever played. I also ordered a game for my PC.

Bad Boys Miami Takedown - I bought because I thought it might be a decent with Lawrence and Smith lending voice talents. No. I don't think they even used anyone associated with the film. The game looked bad for even a N64 game. To be completely honest, it was horrible. The controls are horrible, the graphics are horrible, the camera angles are horrible. I almost took it back to the store, but decided to give it a try on the hopes there would be some kind of redeeming qualities to it. Nope.

Desert Storm..something or other - This game also sucked. Bad controls, bad graphics, bad gameplay. The story behind the first level was very interesting - based on the first Gulf War. But everything about the game screams - "I was ported from an older generation console..."

These two games might go back to the store, even if I don't get a store credit, they are awful.

Unreal Tournament 2004 - Yeah. I finally bought a copy, having gotten a New in box copy for $12 shipped. If i can manage to find another copy of UT GOTY Ed, I would have a complete set. UT3 seems to be doing poorly out there, so once I get my new system online, I will have to pick up a copy.

Airsoft
I've put a halt to development of my airsoft page. I've considered putting a halt to airsofting for a while to save up some money to obtain my MCDST certification. I can actually use the certification to improve my job skills for my planned move next year.

I seemed to have missed out on the Father's Day game. I wasn't really sure if I was going to go or not. I didn't really miss going out. I've been in somewhat of a foul mood lately and shooting people just didn't sound like much fun to me.

Computers
I built a nice little file server for a friend of mine. I had gone to a neighbor's yard sale and found a box of unopened computer parts. The guy wanted $30 for it. I knew the guy was an AMD fan, but apparently he'd ordered stuff to build his kids both a computer and then never finished them. There were two Gigabyte boards and two procs - 1.4GHz and 1.7GHZ.

My buddy got me a brand new 1TB drive to stick in it and I used an old mini tower case he brought me with a cheap power supply. Windows 2000 and the 1.7GH proc. The board supports 3GB of RAM, but there was only 1GB stick and two 512 sticks in there. I did have to flash the BIOS to accept the larger SATA drive - No CD drive! I think the total cost on the system was $300, with the 1TB drive at about $280.

Nice File Server. He does relentless Movie and MP3 downloads and is an active Ipod user, so I suppose 1TB will do him for now. Be scoffed at my 500GB drive when I got it, and then again at my second. He said he was impressed with how quickly I had it up and running. He'd given me the parts on Thursday and I gave it to him on Friday.

Nice.

My own computer is beginning to shape up as well. I am leaning towards a 775 3.2GH Dual Core - $100, 3 GB of RAM, a 512Mb Graphics Card and then will be moving both of my 5ooGB drives into it. Apart from that, the system's main requirement will be to smoothly run XP Pro. So be it.

Monthly Wrap-up

Its been a busy last couple of weeks and I really haven't had much in the way of time to spend on the blog. I will try to fill ya in on details.

Mayo...May-ay-ay-ooooo....
There was not much drink 'o rum in this month. We began having warmer weather which kick the lawn into somewhat of an overdrive. Kris decided to give Jacob the opportunity to do the lawn mowing to make a little cash. Originally, Jake was going to go door-to-door and mow lawns for cash. The idea was that it would keep him out of the house, busy, and away from his sister.

As usual, Jacob decided that he shouldn't have to do anything, but that he should still be paid for nothing at all. He weaseled out of mowing the lawn, leaving it a mess for almost a month. When his mom finally had enough and told him to mow with our antiquated (Vintage 1970) lawnmower, he immediately claimed it was out of gas and he couldn't do anything. But, he managed to mow one line across the backyard to make it look truly pathetic.

Nice.

Sunday, Jake and I went out to finish up the yard. I mowed and raked, and he through a hissy fit and complained the whole time about how horrible it was that he was being made to do yard work. Little bastard.

Airsoft-o-rama
I went to the Memorial Day Airsoft game. It was pretty nasty out with bugs, sweaty temperatures, and more bugs. Later that evening we were treated to a hellacious storm complete with hail, high winds, and more hail. It was lovely.

I am down to one AEG - G36k, two GBBs - WE 1911 3.8 and a KSC USP .45 (in pieces), and yada yada. I am awaiting Jason's good graces on reassembling the KSC. If its finished, I may order two additional magazines for it. The gun appears to be in good order - at least all of the parts were there. May big fingers made reassembly almost impossible. Plus, after a few hours, I just didn't want to dink around with it and risk losing parts.

I don't know if I want to attend the Freefall game this summer. I do have a few items to buy if I am, but I just don't overly feel like airsofting this summer. Maybe its burn out or just not really being interested these days. It happens.

Computer work on the morrow....
I bought a copy of Dungeon Siege off Amazon for a measly $10. The game works beautifully on the thinkpad and ever more so on the desktop. But competing with Kris for time on the computer can be rough. Its easier just to plunk down witht he Thinkpad and play int he kitchen away from TV and kid noise.

I ran across some random parts I want to toss into the computer. These will be the final upgrades until I (1) build a new desktop or (2) buy a new laptop. Right now, I'm somewhat leery of building another desktop computer.

3.2 Gig P4 - I found this on eBay for $35 shipped. This would completely max out the specs for this board. It would also give me that much mroe "uuumph" over the current 2.6 gig proc. i could then transition the other procs down - Jake would get the 2.6gig, and Annie's computer would get the 2.4, replacing the sluggish celeron she has now.

120Gig HDD - I found a SATA for $45 shipped, again on eBay. This would replace my now failing 20gig drive. Yeah, I know the 500GB was supposed to do that, but its getting much better use as network storage. I also have a second 500GB identical thats sitting int he case, disconnected. It is a secondary backup with a complete backup of my OS. Yeah, very nice. Add that to my external 160 gB drive and we have just shy of 1.5 TB in storage.

Another Gig of RAM - My system is currently running 1.5GB of RAM. I can max it out at 2GB. I'm not all that happy with this board. 2GB of RAM seems like almost nothing. I am running XP Pro, so even 1 gig of RAM is nice, but 2 Gigs is nicer.

The nice thing about running a DDR2 machine is that you can max RAM for less than half of what you would spend on a DDR machine. Another option would be for me to buy a newer 478 socket DDR2 board. It would give me options such as PCI-e and a max of 3GB of RAM, but I wouldn't be able to put a dual core proc in there. In actuality, I am awaiting the Quad Core's drop in price. Once I can get one for less than $150, I am going to build a brand new machine.

Otherwise, I am still looking at simply buying another laptop, such as a Compaq or HP with ATI or nvidia GFX. As long as the card is 128 - 256MB, I would be interested. And the system would need at least 3GB or RAM.

if I had a good $2000 at my disposal, i would likely ditch all of the desktops and everyone would get a laptop. That would drastically reduce problems in the network and logistics side of running it. But I'm not a business and don't have that kind of money floating around. :D