A Tough Time

As some of you know already, Dawn was admitted into the hospital late Monday night. Her kidney's don't work so good no more. I apologize for not calling everybody, I find it difficult to keep up with just our family.

She's doing better as of today. She has started dialysis treatments yesterday and will probably continue on till Saturday. After that it will be 3 times a week until a kidney transplant. I would like to thank George W. Bush for limiting stem cell research to hardly anything useful in the United States. But that's an aside for a later time...

She's kind of in good spirits. If anybody would like to send a message to her via email, I'd be happy to print them out for her. She'd be happy to hear from you all. Feel free to send her c/o invadersil at gmail dot com. I will be sure to get all messages to her.

I love her very much...and right now, I miss her just as much. Anyway...more later I guess...

Math it up!

Do you like math? Find school had totally killed whatever thrill math brought you? Do you want to feel like your best nerd friend who can recited 3000 digits of pi? Well, now you can! With this amazing link!

It slices! It dices! It gives you why schools suck at math!

Ok, the informercial is over. Seriously though, trek over to that link to see one man's opinion on how math should be learned. Here's one thing that made me go "duh!!":

...You could figure it out because you know that division is just repeated subtraction.

WTF?! It is!!! Thanks to the web, I'm getting wiser in my old age. ^_^

Kennewick Man...

...has made the front page of CNN.com! Hurry quickly before they move it off! Here's the link to the full story just in case you missed.

Wil Wright

*sigh* Wil Wright...Spore...*drool*...see the demo via Google Video.

You will buy this game. If your computer is too wussy to play it, you will buy a new gaming machine. You will play this game.

Memory Wipe

So, shortly after my last post, I went a poking around in my mobo manual to see what I could find out about my memory. There was nothing concrete about it really. There was a paragraph describing SDRAM and there was a number for voltage, 2.5 volts. So, being curious, I popped open the old BIOS to see what my voltage was set at. It was auto setting to 2.7. I thought that was odd it would autoset to 2.7. After some trial and let sees action, I decided to bite the bullet and manually set the voltage to 2.5, knowing full well that things could come a crashing down upon my head.

I changed the setting to 2.5, saved it, and rebooted. I sat there, half-expecting fire and brimstone spewing from my computer case. Fortunately, the familiar boot up screen came up, with it's ever so long RAM checking spiel going. I normally skip the whole checking part but I was paranoid and let it run to completion. Diablo himself did not roar to life, dragging me to pits of fiery inferno, disco even. Windows XP booted normally. I was frankly surprised that it worked.

Anyway, since then, I have not experienced any locking and I've been trying my damnest to get it to. The first thing I tried was run a demo of Star Wars: Empire at War which had some intense processing going on. Next, I had winamp streaming music, iTunes playing music, and two instances of youtube.com playing videos all at the same time. All of the multimedia instances would normally have locked at some point running by themselves. Having them all going at the same time should have caused a BSOD and reboot. Much to my happiness, it has not. So, now I ask myself, is my RAM damaged from running at 2.7 volts ever since it sat foot in my case? The obvious fact that I am typing this from my keyboard still connected to the same case I have had for two upgrades is saying that there is no damage. Time shall tell. Though it would be nice to have 1 Gig of RAM. During this whole thing, I noticed that I use up quite a bit of RAM just by using Firefox and other dinky apps.

For the time being, my RAM issue has been fixed, so says Poop Dog! The Gangsta Spectre of Defeat! Err...nevermind. I've had this particular set up for about two years as well. To bad I never got more annoyed with this issue before.

A time for Remembrance

Actually it's more like a time for new memory...RAM to be precise. Stupid computer locked twice tonight. Both times watching Fullmetal Alchemist on youtube.com I'm pretty sure it's my RAM. It could be a heat issue as well. While looking at RAM tonight, I discovered that some RAM comes with heat spreaders. I have never seen these before and I'm sure mine do not have them. Generally my machine will lock up randomly, even when I'm not using it. Most of the time, it's when I'm listening to music or watching videos of stuff. Considering that my machine is fine after a reboot, heat probably isn't the issue. I had issue with Win98 dieing all the time and the same with WinXP. I've had the same pieces of RAM for several years. I've gotten a new hard drive as well so that probably isn't it either. The Mobo might be at issue as well. Though again, my machine is hunky dory after a reboot. I'm really leaning towards the RAM.

So, I'm looking at buying some RAM. I'll probably bump it up to around 1GB this time around. Try to pump out a little more performance before I take it out to pasture.

In other news, I had an interview with a web app company in downtown Seattle on the 25th floor of this tall building. It had at least 30 floors. The elevator was super quick! Going down, if it had gone any faster, it probably would have felt like you were weightless. Anyway, the position sounds good as there's room for lots of growth which would be really nice. ^_^

In other-other news, Radcon was fun. Boring during the day though. I didn't even play Munchkin at all. *cries* I also got slightly sick. Sore throat for the last couple of days. I'm waiting for it to go into my nose.

Well, everybody Wang Chung tonight!

*vomits*

So, debate over ID and Evolution at Radcon. News at 11.

WTF?! Last year they get a table and records our doings suspiciously. Now they get floor time? I truly want to vomit.

Releasing the anger safely

*sigh* I had soo much hope for Seattle. But they shot themselves in the foot. Fumbles, interceptions, and most damning of all, fouls. Three drives were cut short because of fouls. Three drives that were scoring opportunities. I stopped watching with about 8 mins left in the fourth. If they win, haha on me for not watching the whole thing. I won't feel bad about it though. I can only watch things self-destruct so long before I red-out due to anger.

So yeah, what good came out of this? Seattle got to the Super Bowl for the first time in their 30 year history. Congrats are in order for that I suppose. But the way they played today, it was a different shade they showed during the regular season. Oh well. What am I going to do about it? Wait another years I guess. It did take Denver 3 or 4 trips to the big game before they won. The Colts haven't been there recently and they play well every season only to choke in the playoffs. So yeah, kudos to Seattle for at least making it to the end. Maybe next year, huh?

Seattle Sucks?

Man, Steeler fans are really jerks. Someone keeps on looking up "Seattle Seahawks Sucks" and finding my blog. Yes, I wrote that two years ago but on the exact same subject. Someone found my blog looking for those terms. So, I really don't know about you all. Anyway, the Hawks play on Sunday in the Super Bowl! :) Watch....for the kids!

A stormy time

It was a dark and stormy night...

Well, tonight it will be and probably into tomorrow afternoon. Might get some power outages. I went out and bought a mini-lantern and some more batteries. The power has only gone out here once since we've lived here. The last time we had to use this tool that had a light at the end of it and our cell phone for light. Talking about not being prepared. I'm thinking of getting a hand-cranked light so we're not dependent on batteries. I didn't have a lot of money to spare right now as I had to pay for a few things that I don't normally pay every month like an eye doctor exam and utility (we actually pay that once every two months). *sigh* I will probably get some supplies with some of that tax refund. I can probably wait on new tires for a bit.

Oh yeah...SEAHAWKS PLAY ON SUNDAY!!! Please watch...for my sake. ^_^

Fear of Girls

Care of Digg.com and Google Video: Fear of Girls. Thanks. :)

*BG*

Radcon, I'll be seeing you in three weeks!

Two Things

One: THE SEATTLE SEAHAWKS ARE GOING TO THE SUPER BOWL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11111111111111!!!!!!!!111

Two: I've lost just about 9 pounds on me diet. And I can touch me toes a lot. And DDR is about to be funner when I bump it up to standard. ^_^

My Toes!

I can now do a stretch where I can touch me toes! Yay! Only took a couple weeks of DDR and stretching to get me there. So all is good on the diet front. Lost just about 6 pounds since I started. Though I think E-Diets is trying to starve me.

So they provide me with a menu and shopping list. Both will list the number a calories in a certain frozen food. However, the menu is saying a certain amount of cals while the actual product is saying something lower. Lies!! I tell you!!!

Ok, I'm not really complaining...that much. It's just like I don't like the hungry feeling when I approach the next meal. But oh well. It's all good. By the time Radcon comes about, I should be lighter than I was last year. And if I don't get to go to Radcon...I'll cry...I'll still be a "sexy beast". hahaha I mean really!

1600x1200 Resolution

Pixels has nothing to do with this post.

So, I guess I should update on the weight loss res-oh-lution for 2 Oh Oh 6. Yeah, I don't know what I'm typing either. But anyway, I've lost about 3 to 4 pounds already. I'm feeling a little hungry each day. I think I'm not getting my full diet as dictacted by E-Diets. I'm also doing DDR for at least 30 mins 3 days a week which isn't in my diet plans. So I could be messing myself all up. But who cares!! I'll be light and prancy(?) for Radcon...Oh yeah, there's a good chance I'm going to Radcon this year. :)

Happy New Years!!

On the East Coast. 15 Minutes ago. haha We still have 2.75 hours left to midnight.

So Dave finally got a Nintendo DS. He got quite a bit of holiday money which popped him close enough to get a DS and a game. He's been wanting one for a while now because of the game Nintendogs. Actually there's a whole slew of games for the DS that's awesome! I need a better job just to buy them all! heh

Dawn's family came up today bearing gifts and stuff. They got Dawn and I a new blender. It'w freaking awesome! Like 16 speeds and a glass jar/container...thingey. Our last one was plastic and would choke when it tried to chop up ice. So it's all good! ^_^

So I probably won't post for the rest of the evening. Happy New Years and stuff!

And So It Begins

Why wait for New Years when you can do resolutions whenever the hell you want to!!

So, here's my list, some of which I've already started:

• lose weight - I joined up with EDiets again. I liked it last time and it worked. I suspect I will see the same results.


• Learn Japanese - So I've been off and on over the course of last year trying to learn this. I've picked up some stuff here and there, but nothing to where I could lead a nice conversation with someone else. I hate doing stuff just to learn it. If I can't use it, I'll lose it. So I need to find ways to use it other than going to Japan, though that would be fun.


• Get a full time job - I could be happy in the short time just to have a contract position, but working straight 40s seems limiting to me. Also being a contract seems not as cool.

So that's what I have right now. I have other things I want to do, but these are the most important. Each one has it's hurdles and time needed to invest. About the only thing I resolve to do is to do my best.

Crap

I was writing a posting about Nova the other day and my computer thought it was a good time to give me the BSOD. I need new memory me thinks. I'm getting tired of the random BSOD. *sigh*

So I started up DDR again. I'm doing about 3 times a week. Tomorrow will be a week of doing that. I'm also trying to stay late at work to read and or do stuff that I can't do at home due to distractions the other days of the week. Damn, I also sense my monitor about to go color blind again at this very moment. Anyway, I've been reading up on C#. I got a new book a month back on C# 2005. It's pretty cool. I need to learn it better. I need a full time to make all this time I spent in school and stuff worth while.

I'm currently drinking this organic apple juice stuff mixed with Vodka at the suggestion of Dawn's dad. It's odd tasting. Fortunately, we bought some Sierra Mist tonight so I can fall back on that. :)

Well, happy secular holidays and stuff. May all your holiday dreams become reality. ^_^

Happy Holidays!

My monitor is beginning to die a slow death. One of the colors keep on flickering in and out. I guess it's time for me to go flat. :) I'm sad though. I like my 19 inch monitor. I hope I don't have to put it out its misery. Oh well.

Seahawks!!! NFC West Division Title Holders

How about them apples! The Rams lost today. Before the Seahawks play tomorrow night in Philly, they already know that they have the NFC West Division title. What's cool about this is Seattle still has 5 games left. 5!! And they are the first team to clinch their division title. And now, Seattle will be playing for home field advantage through out the playoffs. I don't ever recall even thinking that before. Seattle and home field advantage were always polar opposites. The mere thought of it makes my head swim. :D