I saved up my pennies .. well, I put it all on my VISA. Anyway, I got my first new computer in three years because frankly my old one started getting so noisy my hearing was going. Obviously, I also wanted to upgrade my CPU (going from 1.3ghz to 3ghz) and moving to a SFF (Small Form Factor) would be nice to free up space on my messy desktop. Putting in a DVD writer would help in archiving some of my old very media intensive projects (video). Finally, I wanted a system I could also take places.

For some odd reason I decided that I would build it myself instead of paying someone to do it. Two hours later (break for dinner) it was mostly done except for Windows 2000 install and driver updates (which took the rest of the evening).

I bought all of these components at NCIX. It took them five days to assemble my order. I have no complaints about their service and the prices were competitive. Their PC builder online was quite useful in speccing out the system.

Components:
Notes:

Okay, I'm shocked. Not surprised given the man but shocked that it happened, nevertheless. He was a muckraker, an entertaining writer, a larger-than-life character, a drug-taking pioneer. He also loved guns, liquor and America. Read the story here >>

Two women who worked for the Gorilla Foundation best known to host Koko, the gorilla who can communicate using American Sign Language, have sued the foundation allegedly because they were pressured to expose their breasts to the gorilla. The women claim that Francine Patterson, Koko's trainer, once said to the gorilla: 'Koko, you see my nipples all the time. You are probably bored with my nipples. You need to see new nipples" and then asked the two women to do it, threatening their jobs if they didn't. Read the story here >>

The writer of "Perdido Street Station" has assembled a list of science fiction and fantasy novels that socialists should read. I'm not that widely read but I can recommend a handful of them: Kim Stanley Robinson's "Mars Trilogy", Ursula K. LeGuin's "The Dispossessed" and Ian M. Bank's "The Use of Weapons". Read the list here >>

As part of my learning Adobe InDesign I created a fake movie poster using a photo taken by Dylan Couper during our "Counterstrike" shoot. Take a look here. Also a printable quality .pdf here. If you were involved in the production and wonder who are these people in the poster you never met, well, I made them up and I will have an accurate poster coming soon.

This Chicago Tribune article talks about the declining numbers of drivers who know how to drive manual and who don't see the need for it. According to the article, less than 10 per cent of cars purchased now are manual. In case you were wondering, my Mazda3 has the hybrid 'tiptronic' system where you can manually change the gears if you want to or put it into D. However, no clutch!

I hope you all had a good Valentine's Day (or weren't bothered by the couples if you didn't have anyone this time). My girl and I went to The Fish House at Stanley Park where I had a very nice smoked black cod.

The BBC reports that park officials in the Cumbria region of England are worried that a gnome garden built at the bottom of a lake has returned even though they requested that divers remove it after the deaths of previous divers. Read it here >>