teh desktop
In October we finally got around to building a new computer and asked for Paul’s advice on what parts we should use.
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| From Teh Computer |
So there it is. Two monitors and a huge and slightly excessive case, we only used one slot… maybe we’ll add another one later. SSD!! That little box next to it is an external HDD, and the thing sticking out of the top is a thumbdrive.
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| From Teh Computer |
And there it is opened. The power supply at the bottom is a CORSAIR 650W. Its totally energy efficient. AND! was voted “Best Power Supply Manufacturer by Custom PC 2008.” Which probably means absolutely nothing.
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| From Teh Computer |
Alright, here we have the I5 CPU. Paul talked me into it, and I’m very happy he did. You aren’t really seeing the CPU though, thats the fan (derrrrrrr). A cheap little 20$ fan because the CPU was so new at the time there wasn’t a better one available. But still, its running cool and is very quiet.
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| From Teh Computer |
And there is the graphics card. Everyone at Tom’s Hardware recommended different ones, but Paul suggested this one and I think it was a good choice. Quiet, cool, and energy efficient. I’m not too worried about this desktop overheating like my poor little laptop(s) did.
So thats it, the last photo crashed picasa for some odd reason (shaking fist in the air). Included in the case is 8GB of DDR3 1333 memory, a 24x DVDR, and a 640GB HDD. Oh, and of course, the blue thing holding everything else up is the Motherboard, a GIGABYTE GA-P55 board that got pretty good reviews. Probably another Paul recommendation. When I built this thing, there weren’t too many Motherboards to choose from since the CPU was so new.
And when I say “I built this thing,” what I really mean is “Jeremy built this thing.”
FIN!
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Nanowrimo Update and scene
Nanowrimo is still going strong over here, though we’ve had some ups and downs. Lots of downs. Today was a down.
But today is also the day that we have both crossed the half way point. Woot woot.
Here is a nice little excerpt from Jeremy’s story:
(please keep in mind this is a first draft of the scene, we tried to have it make sense out of context…)
A scream came from the distance.
“We should probably investigate.” Dagon said.
Brecht threw up his hands, “Yeah, sure. Why not?”
<4 demons and a human, unfamiliar with the world (having just came from a different world), find a set of train tracks and decide to follow them towards the sound. They come to the following scene.>
The tracks of metal continued along the land and on the tracks appeared to be five individuals, each and every one bound and almost every one of them gagged. One individual however, was screaming at the top of her lungs for help, or aid, or assistance, or anything in particular that would help change the predicament that she appeared to be in. But what made the whole sight interesting was the fork in the tracks that led off into another direction, and down along this track there appeared to be yet another individual caught in the same throes as the first group, but he was all alone.
“Well this is the most fucked up thing I’ve ever seen,” proclaimed Dagon.
“Just be lucky you’re not an assassin, I see this kind of stuff all the time,” mocked Brecht.
“What do you think they did,” inquired Ifrit to the rest of the group.
“Maybe they are playing some kind of game,” replied the handmaiden to Ifrit’s question.
The princess just stood there, looking at her cohorts shock. “Seriously? You think they just happened to tie themselves up and gag themselves before throwing themselves on these tracks?” –“Help us, please. Help us.” – “And you think they are calling for help because it’s part of some elaborate game?”
Ifrit squinted his eyes at the princess, rolling her words over in his head. “Maybe, but highly unlikely.”
Daphne put her finger in her mouth and giggled.
“Hey, Hey you. Please help us,” cried the ungagged woman who was tied to the tracks.
A loud blast of steam came from somewhere in the distance behind them.
“What was that?” Asked Brecht.
“Possibly a monster,” said Dagon drawing his sword along with Brecht.
“Help us,” cried the woman on the tracks behind them in an even more urgent voice, tears streaming down the side of her head soaking the blindfold she was wearing.
“Shut her up,” demanded Dagon, “She’ll draw the beast.”
So Ifrit walked over to the woman, “Please be quiet, there is a beast after us.”
“Untie me please,” she pleaded.
Ifrit just looked at her, “Why?”
“PLEASE!” she yelled, before breaking into hysterics.
He took her by the shoulders and shook her, “You’re not listening to me. Why?”
Her cries were getting louder, and Dagon turned to give Ifrit a dirty look as the beast bellowed another mighty roar of steam, and far off in the distance a white plume of smoke rose in the air.
“Dragon,” whispered Dagon, before turning his attention towards Daphne. “Take the princess and flee. We’ll stop this beast.” But as he finished giving his order the beast appeared from behind the grassy knoll and looked nothing like a dragon. It looked more like a box, a black box with almost a steady stream of smoke coming out of it.
“Lets go,” Dagon said to Brecht and they slowly started to make their way towards the oncoming beast, leaving Daphne and the princess standing there in shock. The whole event was just too strange to comprehend. Another plea came from the bound woman.
“Please let me go.”
“Where would you want to go?” Ifrit asked in a calm voice.
Her words began to pour out of her mouth but they were strung together in a long blubbering, indecipherable mess.
Ifrit just shook his head, “I’m sorry, I can’t understand you? Maybe if you tired enunciating? You know, it might help if you stopped crying.”
She gave another giant wail and broke into more hysterics.
“Fine,” he grunted, grabbing the gag that had slipped down to her neck and put it over her mouth as more sobs escaped, and then a gagging silence ensued. “Humans, I swear.”
As the strange creature approached Dagon he began to taunt the beast, “Thou shall taste dark iron foul beast, and you shall know who your master is.”
Brecht just rolled his eyes and prepared for the initial onslaught, but instead the beast let out a mighty roar and simply passed them both as if they weren’t even there. They let down their weapons and just stared at the contraption as it passed.
“It’s not a very intelligent creature,” murmured Brecht, “All it does is follow those metal tracks.”
Ifrit walked over to the princess with his bound, gagged, and crying captive held limply from his right hand, “What do you think that thing does?” He was pointing at the rather large control lever that attached to the tracks.
The princess ran over to it, and started playing with it. “It appears to change which direction the beast will go, and presumably what the beast will eat,” she shrugged.
Ifrit looked down at meek thing in his hand, “This doesn’t look very appetizing.”
“What should we do? Let the monster eat those four,” he said pointing to the bodies he hadn’t removed from the track, “or that one?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” asked Daphne.
“How so,” asked Ifrit and the princess.
“The monster should eat the four instead of the one.”
The princess shook her head, “You’re both wrong. We have to save the four and feed it the one.” And she subsequently changed the track so that the beast would gobble up the solitary prisoner.
“No princess,” Daphne said politely, “See we have to feed it the four, because this is obviously a twisted psychological experiment, and that one,” Daphne pointed to the solitary prisoner, “is probably worth all four of them combined.” And with that she quickly switched the track back towards the four people.
The train blew its steam horn, it was almost upon them. They had seconds to choose.
The princess just shook her head again, “I dunno. I can’t just let all four of them just die like that,” and with a quick flip, she switched the tracks back to the solitary prisoner.
Daphne looked at all the tied up prisoners still on the tracks, “This was their destiny. We can’t just step in and change fate.” She changed it back to the four people.
The princess took a long last look, she had to make up her mind, let the four die or the one, and just as the train was about to come to the switch track, she panicked and threw the switch.
The train instantly jumped the track and continued to barrel forward, crushing the four victims as the tail of the train continued with enough momentum to jump the switch and crushed the victim that had been safely on the other track. Suddenly thousands of horrible screams came from the belly of the beast as the tail whipped up and landed on itself crushing all the segments that had already come to a grinding stop.
But the carnage continued to unfold as segment after segment of the long winding beast crushed the previous segment, each segment bringing about its own separate squeal of horror as it is instantly silenced by the next segment. Ifirt, Daphne and Alex just stood on and watched in absolute horror.
A slight tap came upon Ifrit’s shoulder and he released a freighted shriek, that sounded more like little girl than overgrown demon and he jumped, releasing his captive who landed with a hard thud on the ground. It was Dagon.
“What… The.. Hell..”
Daphne took a quick look around, “We should probably get out of here.”
Alex and Dagon nodded and started to follow the tracks from the direction it had come. Brecht was following closely behind them.
Ifrit took a quick second to look at the victim that he had saved from the wreckage and untied her to see if she was ok. When she dazedly opened her eyes, he gave her an encouraging smile and then patted her on the head. “Everything’s going to be okay,” he said before taking off to catch up with the others.
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Nanowrimo
Yes, we are doing Nanowrimo again this year.
This is my 3rd year, and Jeremy’s second.
My first year I got around 30k words written for a story – which I promptly put down and ran away from when I reread it and saw how horrible it is.
My second year I got around 17k words before just getting bored and wandering off. Tsk tsk. That was also Jeremy’s first year and he wrote close to 50k words if not more than 50k words.
So far this year I’m at 22,172 words and Jeremy is at 17,865.
I’m pretty happy with those numbers, and the stories aren’t turning out too bad either. At least, I think they aren’t bad. Jeremy though said what I wrote last night stunk worse than a steaming pile of dog poo.
He’s so mean.
sorry, its just… deer!
We walked outside tonight and there were three deer in our front yard.
One took off, and the other two stood there staring us down.
When we came back, they were in the yard next door, all three stood their ground and stared at us. These three deer seem to live in this neighborhood. I wonder where they go during the day, we only see them at night.
Deer
Last night we saw that deer again. The same buck we think. We were walking down the street and he burst out of the yard right in front of us and ran down the street. He’s a little taller than Jeremy.
Tonight we saw three does. Babies or youngsters – they were a little shorter than me. They crossed a rather major road and then trotted down the sidewalk.
Walks at night are kind of fun.
the dangers of living in a small town
Bend is this interesting mix of outdoorsy and residential / commercial. We live at the base of a “mountain,” though more like a hill, where there are old, tall pine trees and homes built around them. The smell outside is almost always of mesquite, and about a mile away is a very built up down town area.
We decided to walk to that downtown area tonight to get some decent Mexican food at El Corporal West. About half of that walk is through residential area, and half of it is through a park where geese demand tolls for their rolls (very bad RobinHood: Men in Tights reference).
Anyway, at around 10pm we were wandering through the residential area – where there are no street lights btw – and suddenly I spotted something strange in the middle of the road. It was pitch black, but there was obviously something there.
Jeremy, blind as he is, saw nothing. So we kept walking, closer and closer. It wasn’t moving. I got somewhat excited, while Jeremy was telling me I was obviously showing signs of my impending mental breakdown.
(Quick note – Jeremy is now claiming he saw it before I did, but let me tell you, dear reader, that he lies.)
I grabbed Jeremy and began whispering “Its a deer! Its a deer!”
Meanwhile, the deer was just staring at us, a silhouette in the dark. And then disdainfully, when it realized we were stopped and gawking, it began ambling across the street, about maybe… 10 feet in front of us.
When it turned, we realized it was a buck. With antlers about a foot high. Jeremy proceeded to have a panic attack, quickly walking to the other side of the street, hissing at me to get away from it because he knows this guy who knows this guy who totally got like 128 stitches because a deer charged him for no reason what-so-ever.
Of course, it came out later that the guy had tried to pet the deer. No matter.
The point is, we saw a deer.
Then we each went our separate ways.
The end.
Case in point
Regarding Solaris – I went to imdb.com and read some of the comments of people salivating all over themselves to explain the deeper meaning of this movie to the rest of the peasants.
People were convinced that the long, long car scene was an analogy for the loneliness of man and the long time it would take to get to the space station.
However according to the “trivia” section, the long car scene was just to justify the expensive trip to Japan the filming crew took.
And I hope you enjoyed this useless piece of information.
Solaris – with spoilers
The other night we watched Solaris. Well, we tried to at least. About an hour into it Jeremy got up and decided he’d rather build my computer.
We rented this movie from Netflix because it was supposed to be a cult classic. Filmed in 1972, its about a guy sent to a space station to see if the government should continue funding it.
We didn’t realize it was a Russian film until it was way, way too late.
So basically, the movie starts out at some dude’s home. Then some other dudes come over and they talk about some stuff, and watch a film. At this point, you’re completely clueless about whats going on.
Then one dude gets offended and leaves.
And then you watch a car on a freeway for half an hour.
Then zzz zzzzzzzzzzzzz zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
And we turned on the lights and Jeremy wandered off.
Once the main character finally gets to the space station, things do start to pick up. Or so you think. Then nothing happens.
The movie left me a little confused. At the end, when his girl is gone, from expulsion into space I imagine, the people on the space ship tell him to go home and he smiles. I thought this would be the end of the movie, because it cuts to the weird seaweed scene from the beginning of the movie. But no, the actual ending is of the main character on an island in the middle of the ocean on the alien planet the space station is monitoring. Weird. How did he get there? Was he always there? Did the planet pull all the images from his head, including the image of himself and just create a little world in the middle of nowhere? Does it have consciousness? Will he become human the more he exists, or does he need a human to learn from?
Am I confusing you? Good. Now you know how I feel.
I realize the movie was supposed to be very poetic and suspenseful, and it does it fairly well for a 70s film, but it was mostly just painful to watch.
I can see the philosophy 101 students loving this film.
Mostly, it reminded the both of us of our high school english classes, with the teacher lecturing us about the yellow rose signifying the great withering friendship of the century when in reality if you asked the author, he’d probably just tell you it was a yellow rose.
On another note, I’m kinda tired.
And by “kinda” I mean really.
a night of zombies
This weekend we went to the local theater: Evil Dead, The Musical. Usually, I don’t like musicals, and plays rarely catch my attention. But imagining this scene in song really got my mojo going:
This is one of our favorite songs from the play:
Even though the play we saw was a small town local production, it was extremely well done. Its playing all around the country and I really recommend you go see it.
i told you but you wouldn’t believe me!
When I said the weather here was freaky, you said, “oh, its just spring. Its totally normal.”
Pffft!!!. yesterday, bend looked like this:
Today, Bend looks like this:
Its only October 4th!!!
The puppies like it though.
(On, another note – my computer is dying and editing this post is abig pain in the ass. I can’t see what I’m writing. >.<)
