Dujodu Blog

Yes, the new computer is in transit! By wednesday I should be up and running, assuming the estimated delivery date is correct (unlike my amazon order which was supposed to get here today). I ended up splurging on the video card budget and went with an X800 XL instead of just an X800. I think the X800 XL will definitely be more bang for the buck and the extra 30FPS padding will probably keep it around much longer than the X800. I think the first thing I’m going to have to do is run Half-Life 2 @ maximum settings.. it should be quite the improvement from my Radeon 9500 pro - and the extra 512MB of RAM won’t hurt either. I’ll probably have some pre and post assembly pics once the rig gets here, but for now take a gander at what I’m running (walking) with.

(more…)

It looks like I’m just going to upgrade which I was kind of thinking about doing anyway - with the impending failure of my motherboard looming over my head. I didn’t really want to be semi-computerless for 2 weeks while I RMAed it either, but this computer actually isn’t that bad at all. I forgot that I combined my old HP with the police rummage sale PC. The result was a not so horrible 933MHz PIII with 384 MB RAM. The 4MB video card is a killer, but it’s not like I can install many games on a 3 GB hard drive (<1GB remaning) anyway. This is a pretty horrible time to have this happen though, I have a lot of things going on right now that require a computer, and with school starting soon I’ll need one even more. I was initially going to go with http://www.newegg.com/ because I’ve used them in the past and their service is excellent, but the way things turned out stuff was cheaper on http://www.zipzoomfly.com/ and you can’t beat free second day air. I just hope I don’t have to return anything, I know NewEgg has great return policies - but I don’t know about zipzoomfly. I’ll have pics of my new system later when it arrives (hopefully on wendesday). Here are some details though to curb your excitement while you wait for me to get a new computer (hah).
(more…)

The day was going fine. I got a ridiculously large amount of sleep - way more than anyone would ever need. Plans for painting a porch fell through (for now) so I really didn’t have any plans for today, I was just going to sit around doing nothing as usual. Then the power went out. Seemed innocent enough, power goes out in the middle of the day for no reason.. it’ll probably be back on in a few minutes and everything will be back to normal. I wasn’t on the computer at the time, so it didn’t even ruin anything I might have been working on. Well, eventually sitting around laughing at crazy televangelists (sp?) for awhile I went back downstairs to make sure the computer didn’t blow up or something (hah, like that would ever happen). Well guess what folks, it did. My motherboard and/or everything else in my computer has been rendered useless. Was it an act of god? Did I laugh too hard when the guy claimed the earth was 6,000 years old? Was it the straw that broke the camels back? no, of course it wasn’t but it is kind of ironic. So I type to you from an archaic computer purchased for $2.50 or something at a police auction, mixed with our old HP, and with the ethernet card from my now defunct system. This is very very annoying and will cause a whole lot of problems for me. It sucks.

And I can’t spellcheck because it isn’t installed on this computer. sorry.

p.s. I can’t approve your comments because I don’t have access to my e-mail. wonderful.

Well I’ll tell you what’s up. I just finished watching the last episode ever of “Six Feet Under” and it was pretty sad. Now I’m working on some Flash stuff which has been consuming a lot of my time in the past few days. I have to write a Fireworks article for the Macromedia Developer Center, which means I have to start writing some Fireworks extensions which will consume even more of time. I was also “volunteered” to paint a porch - something I’ve never done before and really don’t know anything about. Apparently that is time consuming too? I also have to sign up for some more classes sometime in the next two weeks, preferably sooner than later. I have a crap load of books to read that were supposed to be read already (p.s. Eric: I finished TMiaHM). I’ve been spending too much time watching ridiculously large amounts of old TV series, I guess I’ve cut back a little bit though since my X-Files binge. But seriously, if you haven’t already, go out and buy/rent “The Office (BBC)” - It’s only 6 hours anyway. I’m trying to conjure up enough energy to make some more posts, but everything I want to post about is either a) old news, b) said before but better, or c) nonsensicle. I did eat at an excellent Chinese restaurant the other day though, “Emperor of China” (thanks for the recommendation Jeff, if you’re reading). It was amazing and if you are into Chinese and living in the greater Milwaukee area, I highly suggest you check it out.

</most pointless post ever>

Yesterday I got back from camping at Governor Dodge state park. We were only there for two nights, so it wasn’t much of a trip. We did typical camping activities, hiked, made fires, slept in tents, etc. We brought the dog, so that was something new. He was pretty good, he just kind of sat around and ate insects that were flying around his head with ninja like speed. He slept in my tent and didn’t whine or annoy me at all during the night. We were at a pretty large and secluded group site so there were no annoying people blasting music or driving by in gigantic SUVs the entire time for him to bark at, so that probably contributed to his behavior. The first night was pretty clear and we could see the stars well, there were some meteorites which were decent. We didn’t see too much in terms of wildlife, we saw a beaver and that’s about it. Oh, I also saw some cool butterflies and took some pictures of them. We had a bit of car trouble too, the battery in the van died which was pretty annoying and stressful at first, but then ended up being fine since everything worked out in the end. Overall I think it was a bit too much work for only one full day of camping, but the camp site was really nice, check out this diagram and description:

(more…)

This is an open challenge to all you cat owners out there. I hereby declare that my cat is cuter than your cat! Here is a compilation of pictures I took of her the other day, and there are more of them just waiting to be taken. Expect a “My dog is cuter than your dog!” post soon.

(more…)

Just like the first rummage-o-rama post I didn’t attend the REAL Rummage-O-Rama which may or may not still be hosted at the state fair grounds. In fact, I don’t even know that I’ve been to the real Rummage-O-Rama ever, but it sounds like it would be a fun time. There was a neighborhood rummage sale here in Wauwatosa though, which we took part in (in a really half-assed way). I didn’t really try to sell anything, even though I have plenty of crap I don’t want. I was planning on getting some stuff together but then it ended up being the night before and I was extremely tired for no reason. I did take part in the rummaging though, and I was pleased with my findings. I hit jackpot on the first rummage I visited. I found a nice lot of anthropology books, most of which were marked between $0.25 and $0.75. Here is a list of the books, from left to right as pictured.
(more…)