2004 October

Child’s Play Charity

Child’s Play Charity is a way for the gaming community to offset the negative sensational media talk about how gaming makes us evil and want to kill. This is a way to show that gamers are, by a vast majority, good people and willing to help others in need.

Child’s Play works the same as last year. With the help of hospital staff we’ve set up Amazon Wish Lists full of video games, toys, and movies. You can go to each hospital’s list and buy a toy, and that toy will be sent to the hospital. Some of these kids are in pretty bad shape—imagine being stuck alone in a hospital over the holidays–so getting something from a fellow gamer would really raise their spirits. Some of the stuff the hospital will give away for kids to keep, while other gifts (like consoles) will be kept by the hospital for patients to use throughout the year.

Good Bye Cruel World

Goodbye, cruel world
I’m leaving you today
Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye

Goodbye, all you people
There’s nothing you can say
To make me change my mind
Goodbye

I’m going to be leaving this November 16th.

Barbecued Pork - War Style

Here’s a screenshot of a game I’ve been playing, called Rome: Total War:

Click to enlarge

Setting pigs on fire and letting them run, hopefully at the enemy, was a tactic used to instill fear and to break tight formation, especially calvary, thus causing chaos and possibly tipping the scales of the battle. It was also highly effective against war elephants, which armies in Egypt used to trample soldiers to death. This game is very addictive, realistic, and requires endless amount of strategy to win. I’ve been playing this one for weeks, and don’t see myself getting bored of it anytime soon.

Sony WEGA TV Adventures (Or I Hate Sony)

You may remember I got my 27″ Sony WEGA flat screen TV for free over a month ago. Unfortunately it only worked for about 24 hours, and then it wouldn’t power up anymore, whatsoever. We didn’t have any power outages, and the TV has been treated with care when setting it up. Therefore it was DOA.

I had to call Sony’s Customer Support, and tell them that I got a dead TV acting as a paperweight in my living room, and could they please send me a new one and I’ll return them the dead one. They said no way, they gave me some numbers to call to have people come out and repair the TV since it was on warranty. I was flabbergasted, but I said fine, it’s not like these people will be able to fix a dead TV. I called the numbers, but none of the shops would come out and repair my TV.

Keep in mind that Hurricane Jeanne came around, and caused a delay in me getting this situation cleared up. It didn’t help at all that Sony wasn’t cooperating very well. After the hurricane passed and life settled down a bit more, I called Sony up again and said that they are wasting my time, which is valuable, and to please get me a new TV because I don’t like having a large paperweight in my living room. They said they will hire a new repair man nearby to come out. The guy came over 2 days later, and I asked him, “Would you want a repaired brand new TV?” He was understanding. He fiddled with the TV, but he couldn’t get it to work. He said he’d call Sony and tell them to send me a new TV.

A week later, I haven’t heard anything from the repairman nor Sony. I called up Sony, and they said they haven’t heard anything from the repairman, and they would call both him and me the next day. They called me, and said they wanted proof that I own the TV. I faxed them the invoice. It has been two weeks since I faxed them the invoice, and still nothing. No word from Sony, no new TV sitting in my living room, nada. Keep in mind that everytime I call Sony, I’m put on hold at least 15 minutes, and at one point, 2 hours. This is a lot of wasted time, which makes me wonder if it was worth spending a mere $2.50 for this TV, because I’m paying out the ass in time with Sony giving me the run-around.

Now here is where it gets confusing. Yesterday my roommate’s brother grabs a remote control to turn on the old TV, but grabbed the wrong remote. It was the remote for the Sony TV that wouldn’t work. He pressed the Power button, and the Sony TV turned on. I tried to see if it would work a week ago on a whim, and it wouldn’t. So suddenly the Sony TV wants to work, which leaves me with the conclusion that it is a female TV — only works when it wants to. What makes a TV not work for a month, then suddenly decide to work? I’m still waiting for the new TV from Sony, I don’t want a flaky TV that decides to not work for months at a time, and then work for a few days again. In any case, I don’t plan on buying a Sony TV in my future, ever. Not with this kind of support they’ve been giving me.

Computer Upgrade Coming

I just got done spending $850 on computer upgrades. My current computer has been acting flaky lately; BSOD‘ing often, freezing up, or just running slow. Since I’m heavily into PC gaming, and the impending release of Half-Life 2, a top-of-the-line computer upgrade is in order. Here’s my current system specifications:

• Pentium 4 2GHz
• ASUS P4T-E
• 512MB PC800 RDRAM
• PNY GeForce 6800GT 256MB
• Soundblaster Live 5.1
• Antec 350w

Of course, 180GB of hard drive space, which I won’t need to upgrade, and a crappy full-tower case I got real cheap. Here’s what I ended up ordering:

• AMD Athlon 64 3000+ (Winchester 90nm)
• Gigabyte 3D Rocket HSF
• MSI K8T Neo2-FIR
• Corsair XMS PC3200 1GB DDR400
• Thermaltake Tsunami Dream Mid-Tower
• Thermaltake 480w Silent Purepower Xaser Edition
• Creative Labs Sound Blaster Audigy2 ZS
• Optorite 8X DVD+RW/-RW Drive

It should serve me well for quite a while, especially if I can overclock the processor to 3500+ levels. Needless to say, I’m pretty excited.

Strawberry Lime Smoothie

Every night, for dessert, I make this smoothie that I’ve come up with. It’s very healthy, and tasty enough that even kids would beg for it. Here’s the recipe:

• 1 bag frozen strawberries (fresh works too)
• 1 whole lime
• 1 jug soy milk (vanilla flavored)
• 7 teaspoons brown sugar
• 4 ice cubes (add more if using fresh unfrozen strawberries)

Add half a bag of frozen strawberries, or fill the blender halfway, cut the lime in half and add one half of its juice to the blender. Add soy milk til it reaches the top of the blender. Add 7 teaspoon of brown sugar. Then add ice cubes. Blend at the lowest speed setting until it reaches a smooth consistency (about 45 seconds.) Shake the blender lightly while it runs to ensure everything has settled and has been cut up properly. Add to frozen glasses, and take the other half of lime and slice them up and slide onto or into the glasses.

The tartness of the strawberries and the lime is wonderful, and the brown sugar adds the aromatic sweetness to it to balance it out. The soy milk gives it a strong base and is very healthy to boot. The ice helps smooth out and cool up the mixture. Makes 3-4 servings.

Unfortunate Memorable Songs

The worst part of a relationship is having “The Song” that the two lovers share that symbolizes their love. One such song was U2’s With or Without You. A song that is sobering all by itself, but even moreso when you make it “The Song.” So when we broke up, everytime I hear this song, I either get teared up, or really depressed. The thing is, I’m way over her, yet it still provokes feelings in me. I’m not sure what to do about it. I can’t forget about it, I can’t make the song evoke different feelings in me. So I dubbed it the Unfortunate Memorable Song Syndrome or UMSS for short. I should open up a clinic for people that suffer from this disease.