/burninated

O, the glorious spectacle that was my new rig o' doom! the blue haze emanating from its sleek, black exterior, the intricate cabling job that i toiled over for three hours, the raw awesomeness of its choice components. minas morgul was lit up for the first time last night at 0030 hours . . . and at the introduction of power [after a lot of praying and crossing of myself] into its silicone innards, i was greeted by fireworkds. no flashes, mind you, just a loud *SNAP* followed by a hell of a lot of blinking red lights on its mobo and the front led's.

it's not like i wasn't careful:: i spent ten hours straight checking and rechecking every header, jumper, and molex connector. the mobo was a bit warped [almost imperceptible upon unpacking], an ailment which only worsened during the lengthy install. intel - your stock heatsink is a piece of shit. for the love of god and all that is holy, if you're going to make something monstrously huge and heavy, at least design it to achieve comparable monstrous performance. also - retention clips are the WORST. IDEA. EVAR. meh.

so the damned thing 'splodied. needless to say, i was not happy. actually, self-hating emo kid that i am deep down inside, i violently cussed the piece of shit out and proceeded to sleep on the couch. seriously, even mentally picturing a chipset or PCB made me feel ill all day. yarrrrrr.

not much drama, elsewise. i'm pissed that i'm still unable to play thief III, though. eh well.

/narutos

madness!!! [with a wee bit o' garlic]

today i::

further wondered if my mentor is going mad or if i'm just too damned cynical. just because i have the most abstract, ridiculous dreams doesn't discount everyone else's. God can reveal deep truths about the nature of our existence to our subconscience, right? :\ i guess my dreams are just way too humanistic. i am the creator/savior/destroyer in them - reality begins and ends with me. sure, i believe that God communicates to us in our sleep [that state in which we're closest to truly waking] - i've experienced it myself. a particularly nasty storm has made its way into several of my dreams, always the night before a particularly nasty [and unforseen] occurence in real life. always the same conflict, always the same massive funnel cloud. except for the time when velociraptors stormed my school and a baby t-rex ate my math teacher. that was sweet.

realized that i am stupidly impulsive. seriously, man - walking from the parking lot in BFE to work isn't ANY kind of statement. it's dumb. friggin get back in your car and find a better spot [that piece of well-tended lawn near the shrink's looked pretty choice]. please try to remember that the bus doesn't MAKE ROUNDS ON THE WEEKEND. /doh

learned an important lesson - uttering the words "filters" after requesting a pack of regular luckies is expected at the walgreens on 20th. otherwise, you end up with unfiltered toastedness which, while tasty, is quite filterless. /coughs

was asked to read the most hideous love poem never published. a colleague/classmate of mine wished to flex his grammatic muscle and composed a series of couplets to his estranged girlfriend. wow. i like the kid, so i did my best to keep any pained expressions off my face when he asked what i thought. note to everyone:: never ask an english student what they think of your writing unless you have a considerable amount of time to listen, a desire to be criticized [in my case, severely], and really, really thick skin. as i would be forced to work in close proximity to him for the rest of the night, i decided to go easy. very easy.
"well, it's . . ."
"very sappy, isn't it?"
"YES. the meter is fairly irregular and . . . "
"man, i had the perfect meter in my last poem. it's at home."
"uh-huh. i'm not a huge fan of sentimentality in love poems."
/blank stare "did you see the part where i went all yoda-style?"
/sighs "yeah." /grimaces
/smiles "i thought that was pretty cool."
"are you giving this to her?"
"yes."
"i'm sure she'll love it."

/cringes

had the best. brauts. EVAR. griff, i salute your discernment in the realm of all things sausage. num. mercilessly slaughtering everyone [with the exception of nathanael's precious few lucky wins] in halo was great, too.

didn't get enough sleep. again.

/sleeps

/putered!

i have done it. the online vendor gods have been appeased and new computery goodness shall soon be miiiiine! mwahahahaha . . ha . . hum. yes, so feel free to skip a bit if wading knee-deep in incredible dorkness isn't your thing.

the goods possessed::
Lian Li 6077 midtower - black anodized aluminum chassis capable of producing ungodly amounts of drool. the modular front bays sold me on the beaut:: currently is housing an equally delicious tagan 450w psu, a matrix orbital lcd, vantec fan controller, and five thermaltake 80mm's [three of which are blue led and all of which can move a ridiculous 70+cfm]. i've been damned impressed with the vendor i went through for this order - they charge a slight premium on most of their merch, but their sleeving jobs [standard on any item with wires . . . which is damned near everything] are quite simply what's for awesome. only the temperature probes and front port usb/firewire headers are bare, making this case's guts extremely ogle-worthy. check out performance-pcs.com or be waifed by the sheer aerodynamic fury that is my computerless computer case. or something.

the goods enroute . . . i hope::
Mitsubishi 19" DiamondPro CRT. i hate dell, but i must admit they use some damned good monitors in their builds. 90hz @ 1600 x 1200 ain't too shabby. techonweb.com, however, gets a ghetto rating from me. order placed, money taken . . . no word on shipment. for that matter, no notification that the order ever went through. the fact that the order status functionality on their website works as well as my uncomputer instilled no further confidence within me. meh. the promises i recieved of tracking numbers and imminent shipping in an email yesterday are as of yet unfulfilled. i'm not holding my breath . . .

the goods just ordered [/giddies]::
Abit IC7 MaxII mobo
P4 3.0CGhz 800mhz FSB and dead sexy, to boot
1Gb OCZ DDR 500 gold
Sapphire Radeon 9800 pro 128mb
Soundblaster Audigy 2
NEC 8x DVD+/-RW
Lite-on 52x CDRW/DVD combo drive
200Gb Western Digital 7200 RPM SATA HDD w/ 8mb buffer
80Gb " " " "
klipsch promedia 2.1 speakers
Zalman NSomething-or-other Al-7000P[or something] CPU cooler

/giddies

/sleeps

/paneled

yesterday::

the atm ate my debit card. i suppose that's a good thing and all, seeing as i drove off with the plastic still in the dumb beast's greedy mouth. -50 moron points. i'm compelled to award myself +5 for discovering its absence a whole ninety seconds after the fact, though.

i continued my neverending battle with school's business office. +10 for making them stay late to fill out my paperwork and pick up a new waiver and an extra +15 for actually standing at the counter until one of the secretaries felt bad enough to wait on me.

+100 awesome points to my dad for duct taping the redbud tree back together after saturday's heinous wind-action.

-20 points for believing troy was actually going to meet my expectations. -30 for actually possessing any expectations for a hollywood summer flick. +2000 awesome points for the hector v. ajax and hector v. achilles duels. troy had the worst. score. EVAR, effectively ruining my appreciation of the few saving graces that miraculously found their way into the film. a brief review:: excellent fight choreography [with a few cheesed exceptions], passable CGI, spotty acting, mediocre to godawful cinematography, and craptacular screenwriting + directing. in a word, your-typical-summer-epic-blockbuster. first vocalization as the credits rolled:: "that was a western bastardization of . . . western culture. THAT'S a first." don't go see this film if you're a guy - orlando bloom is far prettier than whoever the hell played helen [although she does have a rather fine ass] and viewing pitt's nude form six or seven times will inevitably cause your self esteem to plummet to dangerously low levels. meh.

+25 points for trying to help griff install flooring at his new place. -50 for not having even a basic knowledge of powertools and +50 for being damned good at killing bugs [and rocks].

tomorrow's the day:: new computage parts will be mine! soon, i will take over the world [sorry sha - i'll leave you rhode island]. work:: 1430 to 0100. should be stupid awesome. i'll let you know if i get through the night without getting blood on my hands or, even worse, fired. hope for the best.