cool, and not cool

jonah goldberg is cool beans. and a good writer to boot.

UPS, on the other hand, is teh suXXor. something about shipping my graphics card from seattle, and then across the state to spokane, and then back to the middle of the state where i live--adding an extra day to the journey--just doesn't strike me as very bright.

--update--
john bolton is also pretty cool.

oh well

i had been planning to avoid ever mentioning cindy sheehan, but this was too good to pass up:

media whores, unite!

we can only hope

that bush finally pulls his head out of the sand and takes a good, hard look at our southern border.

Bush Promises Border Enforcement.

h/t say anything

those crazy dreams

not as bad as the last one, though. in fact, not really bad at all. just really weird. it was one of those dreams where you're at a location that you know really well... only it's not actually that place. if that makes any sense. anyways, i was at whitworth, only it wasn't really whitworth. the layout was way off. i don't remember much of it. i walked into the beej, changed clothes, and then walked out into the snow in bare feet and across to dixon, which was somehow right next door. and then i went into a science class that was beign taught by dale soden (who, as history/poli sci and science majors can probably tell you, does not actually teach science); there were several other recent grads there. didn't make a whole lot of sense. oh well. i'm gonna miss whitworth this fall. for those of you still there though, i'm planning on making it back to visit as often as i can.

i had a dream

unfortunately, it wasn't very pleasant. i don't remember what it was about, but it inolved me frothing at the mouth. that, along with my bowels hating on me, made for a fairly unpleasant night and a very long monday at work.

on a slightly brighter note, my processor is due to arrive tomorrow, and my graphics card should be here by thursday at the latest. since i'm keeping my old hard drive for now, that means only 2 or 3 more days till i get to put the new compy together.

here's the graphics card i decided on. still looking for a good SATA hard drive, preferably 250+ gigs.

good times

how's this as a new logo for the democrats?

perspective

while listening to npr news this afternoon at work, i heard yet another person lamenting the fact that the iraqis had not met their deadline. it is, of course, unfortunate, as it gives the left-leaning media and the imported terrorists in iraq more fodder for the propaganda machine. but keep in mind that these people have not even had 3 years of saddam-free rule yet. it took us 11 years after declaring independence to get our constitution figured out, and another 2 before it was put into effect.

it continues

and today, some of those computer pieces should be arriving. i also get paid today, which means i can order the rest. so i am a happy camper right now.

yesterday, i finished The Count of Monte Cristo... it was an excellent book. I finished it in 11 days, at an average pace of 124 pages a day. next, i'm headed back to david eddings to finish "the mallorean" series... from there, who knows?

it begins

today, i start purchasing pieces for my new computer.

oy

what a waste of a day. i was planning on spending a relaxing day at home, sleeping in, reading, playing computer, maybe spending some time with the one friend i have left here. but then about 9:00, mom decided it would be a good idea to drive over to seattle and visit relatives. nevermind the fact that since we left our house at 10:00, and their house at 5:30, we spent 6+ hours driving so that we could see them for about 4 and a half. and by the end of the trip (actually, it was probably closer to the beginning), as usual, we were all tired of being stuck in the car with each other, and things went downhill from there.

so basically i ended up with a one-day weekend, and it's back to work tomorrow. not cool.

head cheese

i'm not entirely sure how the topic came up, but last night i started complaining to a friend about head cheese. it was while we were looking up information for her parents about canning apricots, which, to the best of my knowledge, has little or nothing to do with head cheese. anyways, for those of you unaware of the process, head cheese is basically processed pig head. literally. a pig head gets boiled, and then everything that's not bone gets scraped together into a sort of loaf. this loaf, instead of being fed back to other pigs--who will eat just about anything--is instead deposited in deli cases, where some really screwed up people will pay for it, and then eat it. it is incredibly vile stuff, and if left to sit for awhile, could easily be classified as a biological weapon. i had to slice three pounds of that stuff for some psycho back in my deli days... i almost gagged just from the smell.

if for some odd reason you feel like looking for it, it'll be the stuff that looks like a meat version of particle board.

on a complete side note, i'm looking for ideas for a good project for this fall, when all my friends are back in skool and i'm stuck at home working. last summer i made a fairly large RISK board, which was, in my opinion, incredibly awesome. so if you have any good ideas, feel free to let me in on them.

welcome to the family, as it were

my friend rachel just started a blog. she has basically no idea what she's doing at this point, but she has several computer-savvy friends to point her in the right direction.

hahahaha! n00b!

mat lauer got pwn3d. hard.

h/t say anything

the sad part is, this means that we're paying

bastard rats.

alright!

robert vasquez is my new hero.

h/t wizbang

final setup?

Ok, so now I have a fairly better idea of what my computer is going to look like. It'll still be awhile before I start buying, and I'm going to want to see some people when I visit Whitworth (probably in October) before I make the final decisions. So anyways... here's the list. It's fairly mixed and matched, so I don't even know if half of the stuff is the right size/pin number/socket/whatever for the other half. I'll worry about that when I get there.

MoBo: Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe -- $153.49 + $8.67 shipping = $162.16
CPU: AMD Athlon 3500+ -- $218.49 + $8.67 shipping = $227.16 (still not sure about this)
Case: Xion II Xon-103 Steel ATX Mid Tower -- $65.99 + $15.99 shipping = $81.98
PSU: ENERMAX EG465P-VE(FC) ATX 460W -- $52.99 = $6.99 shipping = $59.98
RAM: CORSAIR XMS 2GB (2 x 1GB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM Unbuffered DDR 400 (PC 3200) Dual Channel -- $276.00 + free shipping = $276.00
Graphics Card: ASUS Geforce 6800GT -- $269.00 + $3.50 shipping = $272.50 (not overly picky here, just want some flavor of the 6800GT)
Hard Drive: Western Digital Caviar SE 320GB Ultra ATA/100 7200RPM Hard Drive w/8MB Buffer -- $136.90 + free shipping = $136.90

Total cost of current setup, including shipping: $1216.68
Fairly spendy, but from my point of view it looks like a pretty sweet system. Again, please weigh in, because I know there are several people who know more about this than I do.

holy crap! and other stories

so i ordered "The Count of Monte Cristo" from the library the other day, and it came in today. all 1365 pages of it. should keep me occupied for awhile.

also, i'm starting to look at putting together a new computer. i'm pretty happy with what i've been albe to find at newegg so far, and i've run it past some of my CS buddies (thanks guys!), but if you have any suggestions, let me know. it will probably be another month or so at least before i start buying the parts.

Motherboard: ASUS P4C800-E Deluxe Socket 478 Intel 875P ATX Intel Motherboard
Processor: intel Pentium 4 3.2E Prescott 800MHz FSB 1MB L2 Cache Socket 478 Processor
RAM: CORSAIR XMS 2GB (2 x 1GB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM Unbuffered DDR 400 (PC 3200) Dual Channel Memory
Case: RAIDMAX Scorpio ATX-868WBP Black 0.8mm Japanese SECC Gaming Case Computer Case 420watts PS2 ATX12V Power Supply
Dave doesn't like standard PSU's, so here's the one i'm looking at now: ENERMAX EG425P-VE SFMA 2.0 ATX12V 420W Power Supply 95~135V or 180V~265V(Adjusted Automatically) UL (Level 3), cUL (Level 3), VDE, CB, NEMKO, SEMKO, DEMKO, FIMKO [i have no idea what about half of that means, but nate highly recommends enermax]

still looking for a good hard drive (120+ gigs) and video card (not sure whether to just get a 128 or splurge and go for 256), and eventually i'll want a dvd+/- rw drive to stick in it. i think i'm going to stick with the monitor i've got for now, and my speakers are still nice.

--update--
now that i think about it, i'll probably need a sound card too, eh? sound tends to make games a bit more enjoyable.

--update 2--
molson apparently prefers amd to intel for processors. it just seems odd to me that a 2.4 ghz processor would be better than a 3.2 ghz.

--update 3--
ok, so at molson's suggestion i have looked into an amd based system. i personally still prefer intel, so i'll probably end up mixing and matching from the two sets i'm looking at. or maybe getting something completely different.

MoBo
CPU
RAM
PSU
Graphics Card
Case
Hard Drive

Rough cost (before shipping): $1054.71. That's about half of what I paid for the Dell I've been using for the last three years, and this one looks a hell of a lot nicer. Especially when you consider the fact that my parents will be paying $300 of it. They wanted to buy me a new digital camera for graduation, but I convinced them that a new computer would be much more useful.

Again, feel free to weigh in.

--update 4--
ok... here are some more ideas:
CPU
MoBo

Discuss amongst yourselves.

i <3 jeff goldstein

but not in that kind of way.

The yin and yang of intimate interpersonal relationships post, 16" (from the protein wisdom conceptual series)

yin: “Do these jeans make me look heavy?”

yang: “The jeans? No. But all that extra fat on your ass is a whole different story.”

pw

--update--
how long before our politicians get a clue and start doing this?

he walks a lonely road

the only road that he has ever known. and he walks alone.

i wonder if he ever stopped to think that maybe if his music didn't suck so bad, he wouldn't be alone all the time.

hmmm...

now here's an interesting thought.

h/t powerline

perspective

here's a very interesting way to look at the war in iraq.

add it to the collection

so, as of sometime last night when the bidding ended, i am now the proud owner of an 1897 edition of Bram Stoker's "Dracula."

--update--
nevermind. i got an email from the seller that said "oops, it's actually from 1910," so i'm not buying it.

alright!

i just pre-ordered dungeon siege II today. hopefully it will work on my computer. if not... well, then i have an excuse to buy a new one. not a very good excuse maybe, but still an excuse.

pat! you need to post again

also, my diploma finally came in the other day. it looks nice. i'll try to have a picture of it up here someday soon.

book review, in part

Title: The Three Musketeers
Author: Alexandre Dumas

Excellent book. Dumas is a great story teller, and occasionally works his sense of humor into his writing. Well worth reading.

Current score: 11.3/11.2

i wish i had found this sooner

dean's screams

h/t michelle malkin

thank you

another good topic that i'm too lazy to write about.

phrase of the day

for better or worse, here is the phrase of the day: ego masturbation (scroll to the bottom of the post).

finally

bush uses his authority to give john bolton a recess appointment as our ambassador to the un. if only more things could work like that. not too many, of course... the senate is there for a reason. but more would be nice.