If You Build It Then It Will Rain

[nfotxn]

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Let me tell you that one of the swellest guys I know is Greg Duke (plaidninja). We actually met from this here crazy Livejournal thingy, no joke! What's neatest about Greg is that he can put even the most high strung instantly at ease. You know that ethereal concept of masculine "easy goingness"? He's got in in spades.

All coo'ing aside I spent last Wednesday in the city with Greg and my friends Brendan and Mike. We were in town to build Brendan a new computer 'cause we could price compare on foot from all the OEM computer part shops at College and Spadina. Well really my friends wanted to see all the lovely sights and sounds of the city. And being the well cultured suburban downtown virgins that they are I was flattered to be called upon both for my skills with dodgy Taiwanese computer dealers and carnal knowledge of the city's better parts. What else are your geeky gay friends good for anyhow? Also enjoyed were some comic book shops along Queen West where we saw the queerest comic. Featured on the sidebar are Greg's apt comments. We played with guitars at Steve's music too on which Mike could not resist thrashing some tap action. Oh the joys of downtown in the big city. Living off the fat of the land we were!

Later there was suprisingly good and very affordable (~$10CAD after tip) Thai buffet to be had on Queen West no less. I'd always thought eating around there meant cheap shit or over priced. I'm so glad to be proven wrong.

Most unfortunately at several times during the day the heavens decided to open up and piss downwards. I don't mind the rain in the summer really but it kinda impedes buying sensitive computer gear and carting it around town. Luckily we devised a plan and thanks to the construction on the College streetcar line were able park long enough to pack away the various parts we'd chose to construct Brendan's new box from. For the geekily inclined I built:

• Athlon XP 2500+ (Barton core)
• 512MB DDR400 (unnecessary freebie upgrade)
• ASUS A7N8X-X (nForce2 400)
• MSI GeForce FX 5700 128MB
• Fujitsu 120gb EIDE /w8MB cache
• LG 8X DVD-/+R/RW
• A Windows XP Home license ('cause running Windows Update is rather necessary these days and stealing is wrong)
• 19" Samsung flat CRT tra-la-la wiggity whack

All of which including the unnoteable bits like PSU and case came in at just over $1200CAD including taxes. Which is really rather incredible given the sort of performance the machine gives. Also seeing that the last time I'd built a box was back in 1999 I was suprised at just how much of the process has been improved further. It really is like lego these days. Brendan's box booted up and started the Windows XP installation process from the CD on the first go. I was really rather impressed.

Comments

[aadroma.livejournal.com]

:: laugh :: Greg needs to pop up as a sidebar more often. ^_^

As for the guitar text : Smildy rock our of a godson unateye Steve's music shop? o_O Now I know how the Newton felt. :: chuckle ::

Palm-O

[nfotxn.livejournal.com]

Yeah I understand the cursive text is a tad hard to decipher. It's designed mostly as a stylization really. All the meat of what I have to say is written in the entry.

Greg says lots of great things. He is a wealth of hilarious and insightful quotes just waiiting to be plundered.

Looks like...

[jerbearmn.livejournal.com]

If I'm not mistaken it looks like that'd be a Jackson Kelly.



I use to own one and I loved that thing. =)

Re: Looks like...

[nfotxn.livejournal.com]

It is indeed! And it seems these days they are in vogue 'cause they are selling discount-o-rific $400CAD versions all over the place. I like how the heck comes out of the body. It makes the action really nice although I am so used to the traditional feel of my faux ES-335 that switching to a modern metal guitar seems like a stretch.

Re: Looks like...

[jerbearmn.livejournal.com]

Agreed, my Kelly played sooo nice. I wish I didn't get rid of it. I know at some point I'll get one again more than likely.

This is what I have now, I posted these on the ESP Guitar Forums: http://p222.ezboard.com/fespguitarsmessageboardltdandespguitartalk.showMessage?topicID=8146.topic

Hope that link works. lol

I got it specifically since it was on clearance, it's the same model James hetfield uses. So being the fanboy I was, I had to have it. Only paid $289 for it though so that was a great price for a discontinued model. \m/ =)

Re: Looks like...

[hannibull.livejournal.com]

those look amazing :-D especially those last 2
Are they easy to play while sitting down? Because the model looks like it mustn't be easy to let it lean on your leg, but rather to play while standing :-)

...

(xcuse my ESL, tired...)

Could this Icon be more apropriate? I Think Not!

[plaidninja.livejournal.com]

I like how skeptical I look in that picture. It lets everyone know I'm not overawed by RuPaul's glamour and fame. I'm just telling, it like it is, straightup.

[sinnabor.livejournal.com]

Please don't tell me you paid full retail for Windows when you know, like, 5 guys at Microsoft who could totally have scammed an employee-discounted version for you.

Oh, well, good for my stock I suppose.

[nfotxn.livejournal.com]

Oh we paid $115CAD for an OEM version. I mean I would have totally scammed one off of my awesome Microsofties but it would probably have not been available in the timeframe Brendan wanted his computer.

[sinnabor.livejournal.com]

I thought instant gratification was an American thing? :-)

Nah, I totally understand. Latency sucks.

Though I don't understand the thrill of building a PC. I had to deal with assembling them from cheapest possible sources back before PCI and USB (remember EISA? no, of course you don't), and it was such a frickin' nightmare that I now only buy PC's preassembled from major brands.

4 real!

[nfotxn.livejournal.com]

Hey, I'm not too young to remember EISA and VESA slots dude. I learnt everything I know about PC hardware messing with manually setting IRQs, DMAs with jumpers and dip switches. That's why the experience of having all this work right out of the box(ex) was totally mind blowingly cool.