Why hello, sunshine, green grass, and blooming trees. We’ve missed you.
Yes, hello, to you too, mower. Back so soon?
Mar
25
Computer Build 09: Part 7
Mar
25
After a couple days away, tonight I pulled out the motherboard tray and mounted the mobo and the graphics card. To be honest up until a couple days ago I wasn’t even sure the tray could easily come out, then I noticed that five thumbscrews is all it takes to yank it from the case. Currently I’m planning on using the lower PCI express slot for the video card. This should allow the southbridge to keep cooler. You can also see the Creative audio card that came with the motherboard.
The IO panel fits in with the appearance really well – even if it is on the back and will be covered with plugs.
Filed under Comp hardware / mods
Mar
23
Big Dance, Big Fail
Mar
23
I finally know what it’s like to see an NCAA tournament game first hand. Unfortunately, I also know what it’s like to pay a bunch of dough to see the Buckeyes lose (yet another) heartbreaker on the national stage.
Friday, D and I headed up to Dayton to see a couple first round NCAA games. Our seats were awesome, in the lowest section, just nine rows from the floor. The first was the overall #1 seed Louisville up against the #16 play-in winner Morehead State. Morehead gave the bigger and faster L’ville a good run in the first half and actually took the lead for a bit. The arena went crazy thinking this could be history in the making (a #16 beating a #1 for the first time ever).
But of course it didn’t last. In the second half, Pitino woke his team up and UofL finished the game up by 20 points. For a bit of the Louisville game, some of the Ohio State payers came in and sat across the aisle from us, no doubt scouting what Louisville would hold in store for them in the second round. Only it wouldn’t matter.
Game two was Ohio State versus the Siena Saints from upstate New York. Even though it was a 8-9 seeded matchup, the schools couldn’t be more different. Enrollment at OSU is over 50,000; at Siena, under 3,000. The University of Dayton arena is only an hour from Columbus, so essentially it was a home game for the Bucks, and the sea of scarlet in the stands showed it.
Things started well for the Buckeyes, gradually building a lead through the first half. Five minutes into the second half the lead had grown to eleven and fans were breathing easy. Then suddenly Siena came roaring back, scoring nine unanswered points to pull them back. The Bucks were visibly shaken. Their outside shooting was cold, and their inside players players were getting beat by the smaller Saints. The rest of the game is one, big, painful blur. The Saints pushed the game into overtime with a 3-pointer under the one minute mark.
And then hit another 3 with under 4 seconds left to force a second overtime.
And then hit another 3 again under 4 seconds to take a final two point lead.
It was the most incredible game I wish I never saw.
Filed under Sports
Mar
19
Computer Build 09: Part 6
Mar
19
Installed the CPU cooler last night. You can see how it’s a tight fit and that my cooler options were limited.
Filed under Comp hardware / mods
Mar
18
Computer Build 09: Part 5
Mar
18
Just a quick update on the last couple days of building. A few peeps have been wanting photos along every step to vicariously live the geek thrill ride. So photos, you shall have…
At this point the fans and PSU have been installed. Pay no mind to the wires, they haven’t been dealt with yet. All the fans are from Enermax and rated around 18dBA.
I used mesh fan grills on the front which also work somewhat as filters, and basic wire grills on the back. For the first time I’m trying to dampen any noise between the fan and the case. I used the included rubber mounts for the rear fans, but to keep the front sleeker I used a combination of pan head screws and rubber washers (inside and out).
The new CPU came yesterday so I started prepping it. The black fins on the heatsink are sick, but the fan includes two bright green LEDs. That wouldn’t fly with this whole red and black scheme, so I had to get in there and disable them. I thought about subbing in red LEDs, but finding the right type (size, voltage, and current) was a little more bite than I wanted to chew. I’ve also added a shot of the mobo with the mounting hardware added (plus another look at the RAM and northbridge coolers).
Filed under Comp hardware / mods
Mar
16
Computer Build 09: Part 4
Mar
16
Last week the case for the build arrived. I went with a pretty unique cube design. For a while I considered fab’ing my own case out of acrylic, but I really wanted an Aluminum frame with acrylic panels. Knowing that decent metal work is a little beyond my facilities, I went with a semi-custom case from Mountains Mods. They are a small shop in Oregon who makes Aluminum cases that are both well designed and well made. You can start with their stock designs and add custom powder coat paint and choose specifics like rivets and thumbscrews, or they can even take your custom designs and make aluminum panels and laser etch acrylic.
My case is a pretty standard “Twice7″ model except with three 120mm fan holes up front – that’s in addition to the single 120mm and two 80mm fans in back. It’s basically split into two cooling zones, the motherboard/expansion card area on the left and the PSU and drives on the right. It measures 14” in each dimension and weighs about 10 pounds empty, a bunch lighter than other cases. I went with a glossy, deep coat of red paint which will tie in fantastically with the other components. More build pics coming soon.
Filed under Comp hardware / mods
Mar
12
Computer Build 09: Part 3
Mar
12
Several other parts showed up this week: the motherboard, the ram, and the graphics card. It was a very exciting day in the neighborhood. I finally could do a quick hook up to make sure nothing was DOA. So far, everything works like a charm.
A quick rundown on the latest parts for the few people who care:
- Foxconn Bloodrage motherboard:
1366 socket, 3 triple channel DDR3 slots, heat pipe coolers for north and south bridge, 8 channel audio breakout board, dual Gb LAN, lots of overclocking potential. - EVGA GTX 260 core 216:
896MB, 448-bit, 55nm GPU, factory overclocked with room for more, plus a free game! - OCZ Reaper DDR3:
3 x 2GB, 1866, cas9, extended heat pipe coolers
Can’t wait to get the last few pieces and get crackin!
Filed under Comp hardware / mods
Mar
11
Kickin It With My Homies
Mar
11
A recent weekend project of mine involved taking a perfectly good piece of a musical instrument and adapting it to work with a video game – a video game I don’t even own. I made a new bass drum pedal for Rock Band.
Filed under General News
Mar
08
Watchmen
Mar
08
As the first of the highly anticipated films for 09, I was very excited to catch Watchmen this weekend. And being a rather important release for all of geekdom, we went with a group of 15, nearly enough to command an entire row. I’d spent the last week re-reading Alan Moore’s book cover to cover, totally engrossed, and very curious how certain bits would translate to film. Besides a lot of crazy sci-fi imagery, Watchmen includes an interesting narrative, often layering different dialogs or rapidly jumping through different timelines. The visuals by Dave Gibbons, are cinematic – panning, zooming – and often brutal.
Gotta say, I was very happy with the movie. Watchmen has gone from graphic novel to a film which is quite graphic. It shares the dark and gritty atmosphere of Nolen’s Dark Knight, but with more sex and violence. I think most fans were worried that the adaptation would be toned down to maximize the marketability of a “comic book movie”, but gladly they kept it fully an adult movie. There plenty of adult themes (like the nihilist outlooks on one’s own life and career and the world at large) and plenty of adult scenes (lots of nudity, mostly male, and some brutal fight scenes). Visually, as most people expected, the movie rocks. Director Zack Snyder really stayed true to the book’s look of each scene – in fact his trademark slo-mo created moments with an amazing resonance to the original cells. The casting was really good (though I would’ve preferred an Ozymadias a bit older looking), and even characters with small parts were spot on.
I really appreciate the thought that went into the soundtrack as well. I’m not a fan of Bob Dylan, but it was a perfect backdrop to the almost-still frame retrospective sequence in the opening titles. The result is a beautiful five and a half minutes of film. Later, 99 Luftballons was as fitting as could be both chronologically and thematically. Leonard Cohen’s dark and jaded tone in a couple of songs was also a perfect compliment to a world on the brink of nuclear armageddon.
For all the exact similarities though, the movie is unique from the book in a few ways. The most striking to me was a new take on the ending – and I’m glad. The original ending was fine in the book, but wouldn’t have played well on screen…at all. Besides that, most of the differences were just omissions in order to restrain the movie to its already massive running time. As I think through all the cuts, however, I can’t think of any that really weaken the story. Of course I’m coming in with all the detail provided in the book. I wonder if non-readers would feel that there were things unexplained. Or maybe less than that, perhaps without all the detail of the original, viewers just might not really “get” the characters or their alternate version of our world. Reading the book first will “spoil” key plot points, but I believe it makes the movie even better.
Filed under Movies
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