July 2007 Archives

   I don't have a SCSI CD-ROM lying around. Nor do I have any other means to get things on the 'ole Performa 460. I think I'll have to hook up the floppy drive in the GamingPC. Mind you, floppy drives never seemed to work well in my PCs in the past. There was probably a different reason for that, though. This should work just fine.
   Other than getting the Performa online, the only other thing I needed to do was to upgrade the hard drive. I'm suprised that the original 80MB one is still chugging along, but I can't take any chances. Well, if it fails there really isn't any big loss as I have a complete image of it on my Mac. Still though, I would hate for it to crap out now. That would suck.

   You may have noticed my new "Note" type of entry. Well, anyhoo, you can tell them by the  that appears before them.
   Basically, these are just really short entries that serve more as... notes. Plus, I disable commenting on them since there probably isn't much to comment on.

   Work has been going slow lately. The machine that I was suppose to be the second shift operator of is being 'repaired', of sorts. That pretty much leaves me without anything to do.
   This really isn't a problem finance-wise as I have cleverly saved up sufficient savings to cover these 'non-working' days. It still rubs me the wrong way, though. I suppose that tomorrow I'm not coming back home early for nothing. I'll do something there for 8 hours. Something, but what.
   Well, at least all my bills for August are covered.

   Well, my loyal internet reader(s), I start on the second shift (2 to 10PM) at my workplace today.
   This shouldn't really be a problem as this just moves work to the last half of my 'waking' day. In fact, I quite enjoyed taking my time waking up this morning. Sitting around and making lazy in the morning is far better than in the afternoon. It was quite nice.
   Hmm. Not much else to add to this.

   The Radeon X1650 video that I ordered arrived today. I haven't yet played any games on it yet. The difference between it and the previous Radeon 9100 should be quite noticeable, though.
   It may be several weeks until I can get the 1GB DIMM that I need to round-out my GamingPC. All in good time.

   I went down to my parents this weekend for a little rest and relaxation. Plus, I just felt like getting out of my house for a bit.
   I've decided that while I was down here I should work on the problematic Powerbase a little. Well, not so much the computer as it was Seti@home. I've completely removed it from the system and reinstalled it in the hopes of getting somewhere. I can only hope.

   I coulnd't help it. I was bored and wished for some stuff to watch. Thus, I got back onto Netflix.
   My first DVD, which arrived yesterday, was volume 1 of .Hack/Roots. I have to say that so far it is quite entertaining. Mind you, that's about all I can say since I've only watched about two episodes so far. I do hope that is turns out to be 'good'.

   I've decided that getting my GamingPC up to more gaming standards is a priority over buying a new Mac. Right now it is bebopping around with only half a gig of memory and a 'ole Radeon 9100. The Radeon can handle the games as long as you lower the quality a little. What hurts, though, is when the games are forced to start paging the virtual memory on the hard drive. That hurts a whole lot.
   For starters, I'm going to upgrade the video card to a Radeon X1650 Pro. Its a good mid-range card that should be easily able to handle anything I throw its way. They usually run around in the 80 dollar range.
   Next, I'm going to plop a 1GB DIMM in there to really help out on the memory front. Since I have absolutely no plans to upgrade to Windows Vista Resource Hog Edition, 1.5GB of memory should be more than enough.
   Lastly, I'm going to upgrade the hard drive that my Windows installation sits on. It is an older 10GB hard drive that I had laying around at the time. Hard drives are cheap as the hells and shouldn't pose any financial problems for me.
   That's my plans for now. I do hope to eventually upgrade my Mac to something a little younger. The B&W G3 is more than willing to chug along for now, though.

   I've been wondering about upgrading the MovableType on this server to (now free) version 4. I need to see if it offers anything new that I could use. Otherwise, I don't really see any need to upgrade.
   We'll see. Oh yes, we'll see...

   I decided to have some peanut butter toast last night for my late-night snack. So, I go and get some bread 'a toastin' and I set the peanut butter on the countertop. I turn back after checking on something to see a bunch of ants scurrying out of MY peanut butter.
   The ants are usually just a minor annoyance in the front yard, but this moved to a whole different level of annoyance. Hells no, I said to myself. Thus, it was decided at the Council of Thomas to begin wiping out the ant menace once and for all.
   I thought about just using the pest control spray I have to further spray the upper cabinet areas. Sadly, someone is borrowing it at the moment. I then thought about using my vacuum cleaner to yank them right up. Once again, someone is borrowing my vacuum cleaner as well. My mind raced through what I could do or use to do it.
   I cleared out my cabinets of things as I prepared the initial assault. I leveled the can of WD-40 at the first group of ants and fired. BLAM!! The death rate of the ants was amazing and prompted me to fire at all of the ants now. BLAM, BLAM!! Within the span of a minute, the ant's expeditionary force was wiped out. There was no further movement. So, I went to bed for the night.
   I awoke the next morning to good news. The cabinets were still devoid of life. Good. It was time to move on to next phase of my attack on the ants. It was time to take the offensive. I once again took the can of WD-40 and ventured forth into the front yard. It was time to take care of the main supply lines of the ants.
   Just as the first time, the WD-40 proved to be highly toxic to the ants. The main supply lines and an outpost were completely wiped out (its only been an hour or so since I attacked them). There is nothing like the smell of WD-40 in the morning.
   I've temporarily paused my attack while I search out their main base. It will be ant Armageddon when I do, though.
   We shall never forget 7-3, the day of the Peanut Butter.