kids like playing pool
Monthly Archive for November, 2005
That shot of Death_Machine in my last entry does not do him justice. He is one bad-ass mutha… and he truly is some sort of zombie/frankenstein thing… rising from the dead, stealing parts from other dead machines, reanimation, eating brains, fearing fire… the works. I like giving my computers human characters and attributes. It helps keep me from tossing them out of windows when they piss me off. What’s amazing is how well that machine runs. Honestly, I don’t “use” it on a daily basis, so it would probably feel a little slow to me now, after using this machine for so long. But it gives me no problems. It happily plays all my TV and now all of my audio and probably all of my other video until I figure out the issue this one has with all that stuff. I’ll take some better pictures soon, he deserves it.
( the full story of the Death Machine that was once a Cat Geyser )
Now I finally had all my pieces and I threw it all together and it worked! I was so proud. And it frickin’ ripped! It was the fastest machine I had ever used. I named him CatGeyser, after a funny snippet about “Wooster Mass” from the book State by State With the State: An Uninformed, Poorly Researched Guide to the United States (I was living in Worcester at the time) and then promptly installed my email client, web browser and chat clients… what a waste. I did use it to watch a lot of DVDs, which was fun. And I did start using it edit my photos, when I got a digital camera. Sooner or later I broke down and bought a few video games, too. But, alas, no computer runs forever (except those wicked old Digital machines) and it started to have the usual list of bugs that a computer has. Hard drive failures, CD burners that refuse to burn anymore, operating system reinstalls and upgrades… and then one day, something really went wrong and the CPU fans (yes, it was a dual-processor system) were no longer spinning. The chips were fried (at least one of them) and the board wasn’t getting power to all of it’s connectors. It was dead…
so I bought a new motherboard which was already mounted in a case and moved all the rest of the hardware over to the new home… abandoning that giant case, that wonderfully fast motherboard and a lot of case fans (for a system about as fast with almost as many fans and a window so I could see in the case… ooooh).
A couple years later, I was working after-school day care with middle-schoolers, and they wanted me to run some clubs, so I suggested a “computer club.” We got a whole bunch of old broken and dead computers donated to us and we went to town, ripping them apart and testing the various pieces of hardware to see what was salvageable. I quickly realized that I’d need to bring in some hardware from home to make this all work. So I went to my parents’ house, where I dumped all the stuff I didn’t want to take from Worcester to Woonsocket… including a bunch of random computer hardware. Among the randomness was the huge tower, the dead motherboard, and the original motherboard, with the missing nub. I did a little research, and found that heatsink/fans were available from CompUSA which attached to all the nubs, and not just the middle ones. I picked up a couple of those and brought all the pieces to the next meeting of the “computer club.” I announced that we had a “big” project on the table to go with all the little ones. We made some progress with one of the old chips and the new fan and some crappy old hard drive and video card… actually got it to POST and install an OS, but not really run. The club ended, and the machine went back into hibernation for a while.
Then, a new roommate wanted a computer, so I took on the beast again… getting two new chips and a better hard drive and a semi-decent video card. It worked like a charm, so I put it in his room and he had a computer. I gave it to him with an old Sun monitor that needed software to make it display correctly, and apparently it got pushed against the wall a few too many times, because the connector on the back of that monitor is really messed up now… and he must’ve gone through 3 or 4 keyboards and mice. While he was using it, he stenciled DEATH MACHINE on one of the side panels.
When he moved out and I decided to make it into the TV in my room, so I bought a Radeon All In Wonder, installed it and renamed it to Death Machine… Drew moved out at the same time, and he had adopted Blinky, the computer that had received much of CatGeyer’s old hardware after the initial death of CatGeyser. I made a barter deal
with Drew : I would upgrade Blinky to all black drives (to match the case) if he bought me a monitor for Death Machine. So Blinky’s hardware came back to the tower it started in… and then I threw in another hard drive and the Thermaltake Cigarette lighter & Beverage tray.
That is the full story and lifespan of that diehard machine across the room from me.
In real geek news, Mozilla 1.5 is out!!!!!!!!!!!!! You really need to get it. I’m still anxiously awaiting Thunderbird 1.5… shouldn’t be too long now.
| listening to: Bossanova Artist: Pixies |
|
Here is the machine acting as my TV and stereo, along with the firewire drive that will probably stay attached to it now that Nibbler (my main machine) won’t play audio without freaking out.
Mom keeps offering me financial help, but I don’t feel right taking it. The one thing that seems alluring is her offer to help replace my car. The problem is that my car isn’t that bad. Sure, I could probably find a better one… or one like mine in better shape. Then I started thinking about the fact that the thing I keep forgetting to add into my budget is gas… maybe I could find a nice hybrid or [easy-to-convert to bio-]diesel vehicle to help me save some money in that department. I still want to keep a vehicle of wagon-or-bigger size. I’m not sure exactly why. I used to want a vehicle that could carry a lot of people… but I don’t drive people around much anymore. And then I wanted a vehicle that could carry all my gear… but I don’t even play anymore. The selection of hybrids in that size isn’t huge, but VW makes some diesel wagons that would save me some money… or a lot of money, if converted to bio-diesel. I wonder how much of a hassle that would be, and if it would make repairs difficult. I’d probably be better off going hybrid and just dealing with the fact that they don’t make a hybrid wagon… yet.
Wow. I just had a plate of thanksgiving leftovers. I don’t know if it’s possible for turkey and stuffing to be even better after a couple days in the fridge and then some microwave reheating, but it was the tastiest thing ever. I just realized that I forgot to bring home any leftover desserts from Mom’s.
Oh yeah, and I fixed the eMail notifications for this site, I think. If you got an eMail notifying you of this update, than you know it works now. There’s been a bunch of updates since it mysteriously stopped working, including the new FAQ, so go catch up!
| listening to: Wowee Zowee Artist: Pavement |
|
Wormtown.org was suspended last night due to server load issues. Supposedly, article.php and search.php were way up on the top processes list and slowing down other sites on the server. I find it hard to believe that a site with so few visitors could ever have load issues, but I guess I could believe that I messed up the code so it causes some extra load. I know the code on WTDO is not all clean, but a comparison of those two files show no changes from the stock files, straight from geeklog. Nobody else seems to be having similar issues, I almost think this is a ploy to get me to upgrade to the better plan. I don’t have money for that, especially not going into the winter… I might’ve been tricked into it in the middle of the fall or spring, when the money is better.
And my computer is also still having annoying processor load issues. Still seems to be sound related. I can’t completely uninstall the drivers and software from Creative, which is annoying, but I’ve convinced myself that it’s not a conflict, since the devices did work well together for so long. It’s really sad, sitting at the computer with no music… which I end up having to do every time I want to actually get something done. I’m now using Death_Machine for all my music and I’ve connected the firewire drive directly to it for faster read times and less network activity. It’s not ideal, but it will do until I can figure this out. I simply can’t sit around and play on the computer without music… and TV gets boring fast.
| listening to: The Proximity Effect Artist: Nada Surf |
|
When in Dudley, time is irrelevant. It simply does not move correctly. You notice it only after hours have passed, but somehow it seems like twice as many hours should have passed since the last time you checked the time… and you find yourself checking the time far less often. I had absolutely no concept of what time it was from about 11am until about 8pm. It’s not that there weren’t clocks all around me, right in front of me, even. I just had no desire to find out what time it was. There is no sense of urgency here. It is dampened by some unknown force.
I have no idea when I’m working… I forgot to write it down. oops. I guess I’ll call? I’m glad I get a few hours on the rock wall here and there through the winter. At the very least, it keeps my hands in practice for belaying at the ropes course in the spring. I really miss the team-building during the winter… though, I am sort of looking forward to all the down-time, even if it does cripple me, financially.
Our first holiday without Dad has passed. It was weird. There was a lot of stuff that I almost felt obligated to do/be in Dad’s absence, especially when we hosted Mom’s side of the family here. I tried not to dwell on it too much. Mom did a good job and we had a good night and great dinner. Visiting with Dad’s side was interesting, too. Definitely felt different.
| listening to: Souljacker [Bonus Disc] Artist: Eels |
|
this weird CPU usage/lagging thing is really starting piss me off. All I really know is that it only happens when I’m playing something with audio and reinstalling the audio drivers seems to speed up the login process. I guess the next step is to completely remove the drivers and reinstall from scratch… one piece at a time, testing between each install. And if necessary, set up a separate hardware profile to install them separately. It seems crazy… especially since the drivers for the internal and external audio devices lived harmoniously for so long. Technically, if I can get things working with just the internal, I’d be happy, because the only thing the external gives me is surround sound and some inputs. The inputs I have on Death_Machine, and the surround, too… though I probably would want to use this machine for gaming over that one… but I’m not a gamer, so who cares?
After my last victory[/hack] with the plugins on this site, I decided that a nice little list of all the things I’ve added and tweaked would be cool… which is when I found the “plugins used plugin.” What a great idea. So I made this page which lists all the active plugins. I’m using almost all of them. Not really using the Tags at all, but maybe in a couple months, or when they’re good and out of style, I’ll check out what a Tag cloud for this site looks like.
In exciting family news, tomorrow morning is the big vehicle-swap. We drive the old beater to the Nissan dealership and drive home in the nice shiny minivan. I’ll be sure to take some pictures… even if they’re only with my phone. Grandpa is actually purchasing the vehicle, and it will be used primarily for moving him around, but it’s still very exciting to be getting a reliable and fairly new vehicle in the family. It’s been 10 years since we got anything close to new. Dad was an awesome used car shopper, but he was also willing to deal with keeping an older car in shape more than Mom really has time to be. We’re doing that fairly early, so I’m sleeping in the lonely little bed downstairs in Dudley again. And it’s about time to head there.
![[info]](http://stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
ponkie has decided that an appropriate prize for being the closest guess on the penny jar dollar amount would be [another] mix CD. I will get to work on that immediately. Feel free to make suggestions.
| listening to: The Weight Is a Gift Artist: Nada Surf |
|
