Tag Archives: computer upgrade

9619 – Monday

Hooray for Having the Day off! Thanks, Presidents!

Slept in for a bit, but not too long. Up at about 9am and then we frittered around until about 1 – played more indiana jones lego, and hung out. We decided to hit the 4pm showing of Coraline in 3-D – but before we left, Larry swung by – he needed me to reset the password on an old laptop he had. Found a great utility to do that – boot from CD, run a little line of code, and presto- reset. I’m keeping the CD in my library in case I’ll need it again – I have little doubt that it’s a one-shot item, given the number of computer users in my life.

Anyhow, we went to Annapolis to catch Coroline [corrected form Caraline!]- it was a great movie, very immersive, and the story was nicely spooky, but kid-ish. I wouldn’t have trouble taking my neice and nephew to go see it – they’re 11 and 6. BHK and I noshed on a big tub of corn and diet-soda, so we weren’t too hungry for dinner after the flick. We headed home, waved to the ATW man (skiing at the moment) and got comfy on the couch.

A couple of last-minute chores to do – folding laundry and such, and we watched the season finale of Dr. Who… not bad. I liked seeing the army of companions / spinoff folks all working together.

Dinner was tasty remainder of the matzo ball Soup and pair of quorn patties with munster cheese for dinner. After the Who, we caught up with an episode or two of Ugly Betty.

It’s a "school night", so off to bed early for me! until later, dear journal.

1 year ago – grab a bagel and go, Baltimore Trip to B&O museum w/inlaws – pic link, lolcats bible, annapolis

2 years ago – Amy visit, mac & cheese, fluxx and movie

3 years ago – eye close poll, work bail, boosh, canal discovery, compusa check?, gg

4 years ago – Jill Gone, BK & GO, JLU, Newt’s treat, mel-fade begins

5 years ago – Scotto on the enchanted path, bigfoot conference, Florida photos, Newt on his back

6 years ago – mickey gas mask, donkey kong jr, google bought blogger, mere-vallie, Scotto shop-palm, palm pic of the SG building, odd news

7 years ago – bloody mary mythos, feel poll, newt ill, rainy day, movie poll, fu-style, alphebetica cyberia

8 years ago – Haiku arena, weird al’s wishlistGeotarget

9597 – Wednesday

Had to get up extra early this morning, to be sure I could make it in to work on time. Snow has melted to form extra-scary and slick ice on the roads and sidewalks outside.

The replacement Clie I got back in march died – bidding for a new one on ebay. I’ll have to make a point to recover my old data – shouldn’t be a problem, since I last backed it up a day or two ago. The only hassle will be re-installing my 3rd party stuff. Astronomer, isilo reader, and tealpaint are really the only items I’ll want back right away. If those bids don’t go through, I may look into a Nokia N810 or possibly a Asus EEE for the same cost as a Birthday Prezzie to myself.

Not a great day today, but tomorrow will be better. Off to a rough start, and a really rough time at work about 4pm. BHK collected more estimates on the Love Cube’s repair, and remains doubtful that insurance will pay the bill. Chris is looking into options on her side of things.

BHK made calzones – her first attempt, and they were delicious. (Mine had broccoli, veggie meatballs, and assorted cheeses in there). Technically, I guess they were stromboli, as she put a little sauce inside the dough, but not a huge amount. I still had some on the side to dip into.

We watched the first half of the Heartbreak Kid, and now we’re calling it a night.

Until later, dear journal.

1 year ago – BHK pizza, doodles, health-coughing/dentist, hulkout list, lego turns 50 Geotarget

2 years ago – pancakes, men in black, plumbing, chinese food, Janet in Bangladesh, B’day coming

3 years ago – bro vs caller ID, picard vs chunk, countdown meme, flitwick

4 years ago – caregiving mel, applelard announces birth, renoir song, photo of scotto landmarks, newt pic I love, Bosch toys

5 years ago – David Palmer of Jethro Tull converts to Dee Palmer, dabadaba, blob solution

6 years ago – Jell-O death masks, LJ layouts, random photos, Elagabulus

7 years ago – Took a day off With Danny (some non-gothic graveyard pictures), PattonBomb Talk, Giant photo of Newt in Evil Overlord Mode, bad spoonerism humor. First photo of Tinkle pig

8 years ago – Virus hoaxes, Rooting for the Ravens. Little dancing manGeotarget

9577 – Sunday

Learned a little bit about Rescue Ink – tough guys helping out animals.

This morning we headed over to the first day of the Annapolis Winter farmer’s market – not a lot of vendors yet, but I’m guessing it’ll grow.  We picked up some turnips, soap, coffee for cheap and a localvore mag for free of note was the spiffy alpaca stuff.

On the way home, we swung by 3rd eye comics and I caught up on my ambush bug – also got the Munchkin Quest boardgame & an Obama comic for BHK.

Visited Best Buy to peek at the eee netbooks, and the acer one – maybe a goodie for us later on this year (not purchasing at BB, though – online has better deals). $200 for a laptop with internet isn’t too shabby.

After that we came home – watched die monster die (boris karloff flick loosely based on "the colour out of space"), the soup, mr meaty, and corpse bride, sanctuary… tried to soak up as much rest as we could, but I still ending up pooped, so I took apart train set under the Christmas Tree, and now we’re tucking in to bed.

Goodnight, dear journal.

1 year ago – baby polar bear, different route to work, friday 5, gizmodo tv-b-gone

2 years ago – newt and pye pics / video, off to marion

3 years ago – hijinks, top 10 questions, hieroglyphic names, system still out for repair, doodling

4 years ago – turtle thought, dinero, illumination, tv torrents, vampire hunting with a stand up bass, metasearch, mucho folks fired for keeping online journals, iraqi abuse cheerleaders, server location, flying_blind introduces me to the term blague which is a perfect alternate to blog.

5 years ago – drama flakes, bad taste, Dentsu, Tintin, Sandalwood and walkabout

6 years ago – LotR, Nipple scarves, vax-d, UBER-PEA!, Newt piccies

7 years ago – Colostomy bag thief, D&D stats, monkey god baby

8 years ago – looking to the future, all the words Geotarget

entry 9499 – New Things

Let’s see – what’s new?

Well, Shaun W came over for supper with BHK and me – veggie/stuffed cabbage, mac & cheese, and a ton of snacks.

Played –

Monty Python Fluxx – Cute game, I like it! Shaun Won.

Early American Chrononauts – A classic – BHK won.

The a-MAZE-ing labyrinth – BHK won, yet again.

Me, I got a good dinner and some fun chitty-chat time with folks. I’m good 🙂

Oh yeah, and Obama swept the presidential election! Good on you, Big O! He’s got a lot of work ahead of him – I hope he’s up to the task!

We may make game night a semi-regular occurrence, but I can’t do the past 11pm thing on a “school night”. Staying up late for the election was a special circumstance, and I’m glad I did.

Additional – looks like it’s time for a new power supply for D1000y ( http://help-site.com/Hardware/Computers/Desktops/HP/Pavilion_d1000/Pavilion_d1000y/ ) . While I was dressing for work this morning, BHK called me over to have a whiff – the poor guy smells like burning christmas tree lights. I rather hope it’s just the PSU – and nothing else major. Until a fix or replace, surfing from pyecam lappie, I guess!

9391 – Friday

08/08/08 08:08:08… PM

Nice day at work today – we took a field trip to the Port of Baltimore and a CSX location.

Some piccies – click to embiggen, as always, dear journal.

0808081417.jpg. 0808081406a.jpg. 0808081406.jpg. 0808081405.jpg. 0808081131.jpg. 0808081115.jpg

Nifty container lifts, a burned out building that was used in Enemy of the State, and some giant bumpers.

Got home, and… had some dinner! BHK made an awesome dinner of pizza and salad yum-noms!

Additionally, the video card installed, quick as a wink, while the pizza was being put to the last heating phase.

The 8800 GT is at *least* 4x faster than my old ati x1600 , and I haven’t had any of the hot pixel problems so far now. The old ati x1600 still plays games pretty well. Maybe I’ll put it in my server just to have a backup game device.



“A lady noticed her computer was running slower after she had brought her computer in to be repaired. She took the computer to a second repair shop where they found that one of the problems was that her webcam would turn on whenever it detected her around and was taking photos and uploading it to a website. The repair technician that installed the software has done this to at least 10 women and has photos of at least one undressing.”



1 year ago – waiting for 8/8/8, goads have lived in house next door for 23+ years, north beach, emily coming pic, HOT out, coward/cowherd origins, Oshi with icehouse

2 years ago – priceline beats expedia, register to vote, Chinese Ghost Festival, exfoliate/defoliate, hangin’ round the ceiling, walkabout/geocache plans

3 years ago – meetings, school restarts, club shuffle, thank you – sim-sim-salabim, danny the street, vidcam hacks, google total, unf. kids books, How bona to vada your eek!, teacher, miami storm pic

4 years ago – Bro health care, lj post issues, losing some gentleness, scotto-flaws& nice things, vintage newspaper strips, no jack black as GL, funw/google searches, older archives, deep sea images, phone safe,keylogger, slowed chipmunks, JL cartoon, character makeups, europreart

5 years ago – Teen Titans, Antidepressants, narghile, steve burns, ebonics, red kryptonite poll, bro health

6 years ago – ZIM!, fun fact, fumbuckery, added newt pic to bio, after he shocked me, site reboot that didn’t come to fruition

7 years ago – some thoughts about gamers/negative side, including a dragon-con flashback (that caused some upset in the role-players community), who in a crowd?, Upside-down, RPG poll, caterwaul, Name Generator, dinos in your region, Wally Caught stealing, begins the end of the WDB era at IMT.

8 years ago – grumpy, in general and regarding TV Geotarget

9388 – wednesday

Newton sunning upstairs on Pyecam – he loves going up there from about the time I leave the house to midday, when the sun has passed, and the heat-beam has shifted.

newtonpyecam


More images from this morning’s Newtcam – BHK moved it closer to the ledge. clicks embiggen.

pink toes. newtbootypyecam. Fw: Lulled to sleep. Fw: Lulled to sleep.
noot2pyecam. newtleeppyecam. newtleeppyecam2. newtonpyecam2.



Tooth is definitely damaged – filling and tooth itself have pulled apart, and the tooth portion is loose. we’ll see what happens tomorrow. Pain is ok – still only at medium headache level.



BHK and I have really gotten into following the blogs of a few WUSA9’s folks – Kim Martucci and Angie Goff, specifically. They’re trapped in a horrible blogging software called pluck, but once past that, it’s really fun to see folks that are brand new at the whole on-line journal thing… and puts a more interactive and social face on folks you normally only get to see in a one-way medium of TV. I’ve mentioned both Kim and Angie before once or twice, and they both seem to be swell people.


ok, last timeline for the upgrade until they get here, or unless they’re late.

1 item – delivery estimate: August 13, 2008 – August 19, 2008 – 2 gigs of RAM
1 item – delivery estimate: August 8, 2008 – NVIDEA 8000gt Video card.



Retronomatopeya … Flickr set of sound and movement effects from comics



1 year ago – Pickles get made!, Sunflower, Raquel Welch as space gal, light table for treehouse, zendo, hello kitty cops,

2 years ago – Monks in a circle, ken nordine, contact lens thought, 9-volt batteries, dragonball live action in spanish, shades vary electric bill,

3 years ago – Mona moves on from work, Lisa is a good name on lj, NASA pics, walkies phone post

4 years ago – Thinking Wolfsonian, CEJ, Skeletor, bro, bandwidth crooks, awesome search phrase, cat poop coffee, silly ad, Where do they make balloons… (hey, synchronicity)

5 years ago – miniature oranges, orisinal games, tv in my head, first/last meme, newt on a windowsill, daler mehndi

6 years ago – Newt Wakies, Croc bite brings beer, scotto-man, overtired, funions

7 years ago – vcr tape, gaming, militate, warren, scientific independence for researchers, Frontier Psychiatrist, evil SUV

8 years ago – many folks join my Friendy-list (probably due to addition of interests) , grover, graves museum Geotarget

9387 – Tuesday

Middleman, Monk and a combo of ratatouille, noodles and tofu patties for supper. Both BHK and were bushed tonight. Where has all of our energy gone?!

I feel for Morgan Freeman, re: his car accident…. and surprised I haven’t heard and “driving miss daisy” jokes yet.

Pye napping on cam – stretching out his big ol’ fluffy paw!

sleepypyecam



Bread… made up to look like far too realistic body parts. Don’t look if you’re at all squeamish.



Ohh.. I thought my video card shipped, but really – “Status: Electronic Shipping Info Received

The U.S. Postal Service was electronically notified by the shipper on August 3, 2008 to expect your package for mailing. This does not indicate receipt by the USPS or the actual mailing date. Delivery status information will be provided if / when available. Information, if available, is updated every evening. Please check again later.”

So… I can expect it later this week or next. RAM is going out tomorrow.




What the heck …. The Association of the Sovereign Order of the Temple of Christ (better known as the Knights Templar) have just launched a legal action against the Pope: among other things they want him to recognize the seizure of assets worth an estimated €100Bn, and restore the good name of the order. (More here.)

See… the whole National Treasure, Indiana Jones, Da Vinci code is coming back to bite folks on the tush now.



1 year ago – Newt leg-up pic, hanging out, dream wizards – got cosmic wimpout and polarity, lighthouse tofu, mormon temple, pickle-time!

2 years ago – bow beats atlatl, newt trip out, 11:11, California pizza kitchen, interview meme, cpap ick, electroe pic

3 years ago – bro picked up, last Danny day, blue-ringed octopus, konfabulator, tags, high speed cat photos, bus-sleeper, taser vs rennies

4 years ago – malam bails, lyric, BttF / Mr Fusion, busy, dream, neti pot, bro’s court visit, avocado memories

5 years ago – isketch, dan’s last summer day, ebay phishing, earth as art, kitty swf games, vampire game, dirty bathroom poll

6 years ago – pleasant dreams, headache passes, Bailey the puppy, puppet play!

7 years ago – code, up late, F/X porn, coloring book, jack-in-the-box

8 years ago – house to myself, foodies Geotarget

9385 – Sunday

Off to a slow-pokey start today – I think we got out the door at something like noonish. BHK and I went on a little journey to St. Michael’s, primarily to hit the maritime museum we missed last visit.

The place is a good bit of land to walk over… thankfully, much of it is inside and nicely air-conditioned. I liked the sense of humor that a lot fo the exhibits had… some fairly off-color quotes about sailors and fishemen. I wasn’t totally wowed by the place – one visit was good, but I don’t think that I have any great need to return.

The Solomon’s Island Museum is a lot smaller, but they have River Otters (Two- Bubbles and Squeak) on site, which is very tough to compete with.

In fact, I think that BHK and I had more fun seeing the occasional wild squirrel, duck or jackrabbit than the exhibits.

Headed home, once we were appropriately sun-baked. Sundown on the bridge. We stopped at Holly’s Restaurant for a little nibble that turned into a massive pile of food. I’d say the big win there was the cream of crab soup… french fries were a little soggy, and were the weak link.

Pictures from the trip – at flickr – for st. peter’s church and bunnies and duckies and cute little squirrels eating pine cones and sunsets and bhk trapped in a sailboat thingie and my head being pinched by a crab claw and the ATW man looking all scary.
look under here for lots of thumbnail photos to enlarge!

9384 – Saturday

Got my shots – minor reaction, but nothing tragic.

Met up with the in-laws, and headed to selby sub shoppe – pizza for all, I got a black bean burger and fries. Tasty as all get out!

We planned on heading to Annapolis after to go see Wall-E, but instead we stopped at Toys-R-Us, and picked up Marvel Heroscape and Good Ol’ Scrabble.

Heroscape is cute.. sort of like heroclix or D&D miniatures. The fun thing is that it’s cross-genre, so you can have cowboys shooting at zombies, fighting robots, ninjas, superheroes and cavemen all on the same board. (and if you like, you can make custom cards for units very easily – so you can have spongebob fighting a paperclip, if you want.) Basic rules are quick and easy… advanced rules look more fun, and maybe another moment or two to learn.

BHK and I opted to head back home after getting our loot – there was a storm brewing… even tornado warning, and we wanted to be curled up at home anyhow.

0802081841.jpg

We swung by the ATW man – done up as a prospector – I’ll try to get better photos of him later.

Watched some tube, lounged, and the in-laws came over – we half watched Micheal Clayton while we played scrabble – Chris dominated.. and she was half asleep. I’d hate to think of what sort of opponant she’s make at full mental charge. Chris scored 258 to my 247 and BHK’s 162 – and Chris laid all of her letters down first turn… accounting for 63 of those points! I was feeling a little sour-grapey, but not too much… our dictionary is a bit on the lightweight side… time to get something unabridged. The plus size was that it caused me to rethink words I’d use in a pinch… like “QI“, but instead, items that are in more everyday language.

The folks went home, but BHK was still up for a wordgame, so we went with another – BHK dominated me at upwords – beat me by more than 40 points.

My brain is melted a bit.. until later, dear journal!



Upgrading the computer in the newtcam room at home – ordered 2 GB more ram for my system (Crucial 2GB Kit (2 x 1GB) DDR2 PC2-4200 UNBUFFERED NON-ECC 240-PIN DIMM, to be specific) -ups my desktop box to a proper 4 gig for less han $50, and a new video card – (EVGA e-GeForce 8800 GT 512 MB DDR3 Superclocked Edition PCI-Express Graphics Card (512-P3-N802-AR) – got it for less than half what it usally costs – $300 card for $160, less anothera $20 rebate for a total of $140

Super saver shipping means possibly slower send times, but the price was right, and I don’t need it super soon.. I can wait a week or two.



SWAT team kills 2 dogs in raid on Md. mayor’s home

BERWYN HEIGHTS, Md. — A SWAT team raided the home of a Washington, D.C.-area mayor, killing his two black Labrador retrievers and seizing an unopened package of marijuana delivered there.


Prince George’s County Police said Berwyn Heights Mayor Cheye Calvo brought a 32-pound package of marijuana into his home that had been delivered by officers posing as delivery men. The Tuesday evening raid was conducted by county police narcotics officers and a sheriff’s office SWAT Team.


The package was addressed to Calvo’s wife, Trinity Tomsic. His mother-in-law had asked the supposed delivery men to leave the package outside. Calvo has not been charged, though police said he, his wife and his mother-in-law are “persons of interest” in an ongoing investigation.


“We never opened the box. We have nothing to do with this box,” Calvo said.


Sheriff’s office spokesman Sgt. Mario Ellis says deputies “apparently felt threatened” when they shot the dogs.


Calvo said officers entered about 7:30 p.m., first shooting 7-year-old Payton. They then pursued 4-year-old Chase, who ran away and was shot by police from behind, he said.


Calvo said he doesn’t have any idea how the package ended up at his house. He called the raid “the most traumatic experience” of his life.


Calvo, who called his town “Mayberry inside the Capital Beltway,” gets a small stipend as mayor and works at the SEED Foundation, a nonprofit that runs public boarding schools for at-risk students. His wife works as a state finance officer.


“These were two beautiful black Labradors who were well-known in the community. We walked them twice a day; little kids knew their names and would come up to them and pet them,” he said.


So… the police brought drugs to the house, and then raided him… but then didn’t arrest or press any charges? They *did* however kill his two dogs.



1 year ago – ATW man stolen, Petey Greene / “Talk to me”, Vassal, pictures while waiting for the bus, new nuclear reactor in calvert county

2 years ago – paperclips, cross-dressing crooks, reading Pride and Prejudice, I predict a riot, good talking to folks, writely (now google docs)

3 years ago – sick of summer heat, paper robots!, spiffy car, where do they make balloons?, animal crackers, ADP nearly nailed, bugs bunny, heart shaped land, baron von bludd

4 years ago – sleepy, meeting, a year at current gig, 5 senses, scarecrow, codecs, game-dancing, oh danny bot, land of many colors, rain and running newtie-pic

5 years ago – bidet poll, food, vamp game, first gig paid poorly, games on the website

6 years ago – talked to rob (we never got together), baron von bludd, strange black blobs

7 years ago – rainy, Owen Ng, broken drug war link, Thunderstorm, code red, lord humongous

8 years ago – Finished HP2, started hp3, foodies, moved to the 12-8 shift at IMT Geotarget