I'll post pictures tonight. It's a tad bright, so I turned the brightness down to 5/100 instead of the default 100/100 and that seemed to work. It is not a $400 Dell LCD but for the price ($200) it's large, crystal clear and great. I can see that a Graphic Designer would hate this LCD because it just can't do what the more expensive LCD's can with color but then - it's not an expensive LCD!
Good buy. More on that later.
See the tracking information page.
Yes, it's true! My PureXS is in Orlando, FL. I doubt it will arrive at my place today, which is sad.
Ironically, my PureXS will be closer to my friend Chris Brown, in Kissimmee, who is South of me and farther away from its origin (Indiana) than I am. Maybe the plane flew over Alachua County or the City of Gainesville before landing there... it MUST have come by plane to have such a wierd route.
THE BIG E-MAIL
I sent the guys this e-mail.
FRIDAY before SATURDAY'S LAN PARTY
Since my cousin Paul is stuck at home guarding the house and tending the aging dog, Yogi, with his folks gone, I plan on taking my system over to his place and messing around there, getting stuff installed, going "Wow" and making "whooping" noises. I'll get to bed at a responsible time for Saturday, but I'm going to ask him if I can sleep over.
Update:
The Fate of AAC Direct / All American Computers
Shipping update (see my Google Page for complete info) Oh well. I suppose 10:30PM versus 9:37PM today is about the same to me as "ETA ATLANTA 0712/14" which I would guess is 7:12AM tomorrow? I have no idea. I can't imagine them guessing the minutes like that but there you go. Hopefully it will be here tomorrow evening.
Mmmm mmm can't wait. Sitting here doping around with Rollercoaster Tycoon 3. Glee. Yay. Bleh.
Update:
The Fate of AAC Direct / All American Computers
Concerning what a few friends have told me about OBLIVION: The Elder Scrolls IV, I found on www.GamersGoneBad.com a rant I made about multiplayer gaming that speaks true still. The topic then was Galactic Civilizations II, but it might as well be any well-made single-player experience...
"For years, I have thought that any game that could, should be multiplayer. It all started back with the original ZELDA on the old Nintendo. I recall thinking "If I could edit this game and create my own overworld and underworlds and watch my friends play, I'd never stop playing this game." I then thought "And if we could play together, each criss-crossing whatever screens we happen to be on independantly across the world, or working together in the same area, that would be cooler than is imaginable."
That was, what? 1987-1988? Nearly 20 years later - I have news. Playing with your friends is fun, but unlike when we were kids, and games were so simple an affair that all you needed was a second controller and a friend to invite over, we now have to pay $50 per game. Most of your friends probably don't own the same games, and even if they do, both of you wanting to play the same game at the same time is like errant asteroids finding planet Earth.
This is why Internet match-making is what it is, and let me tell you - "...those you encounter online, almost as a rule, are complete and utter cockmongers ." I've been in the 5th ranked guild out of 16,000 North American Guilds in Guild Wars. I was the Captain of the Monk team, 3rd in teir. I've been ranked 20th in Dawn of War's "2v2 players" list, fighting alongside my cousin Paul. I have proven that PC gamers who've been around since Castle Wolfenstein can, instantly, do as well as the 90th percentile in Halo 2 using a Lik-Sang keyboard/mouse adapter (all it took was learning where the gun drops were), and again in the PC port of Splinter Cell: the one where you only have versus mode.
The only place you can go from the top -- is down. And quite often, getting there is a struggle more than an adrenaline rush -- after over 10 years of competative gaming, I really don't give a flying fuck anymore. There's always a new game and ever-younger than you pricks who think that, somehow, dominating other people online is akin to kicking other cave-men in the jaw and breeding with the women while they lie there and bleed. It's a primordal attitude that reveals itself eventually for what it is.
No one plays together as a team. Axe ZELDA with your friends, and you are left with ZELDA, the Editor. "
"2148/13" my PureXS is arriving in Atlanta sooner than 10:30PM? The time changed.
Update:
The Fate of AAC Direct / All American Computers
David with AAC called me (called my house first and got my 6yo) at work and said the shipping price comes to a whopping $100.89 (ouch - that's over half the cost of Maria's new 19" widescreen LCD) and will arrive no later than Friday at 5pm.
So now all I have to do is... WAIT MORE.
Ooh and Kyle just called me and is going to sign my PureXS with his scrawl and printed name! Oboy! He says the guy who is going to take it is due any minute so he has to sign it and box it up right now. Fun fun!
Update:
The Fate of AAC Direct / All American Computers
I can't reach All American Computers by phone. I get the message "All Circuits are Busy Now" in a woman's nasal tone from the phone company. The call never actually gets to them. If they've got major phone problems up there in Indiana they might not be able to reach me, either. Curse the phone conglomorates!
I am going insane. They need me to give them Maria's credit card information so they can charge me shipping so they can ship the PureXS so it can arrive in time for Saturday the 16th, when my big, bad LAN Party is, so the guys and I can have fun so I don't have to call them all and say "Sorry no party" after four weeks of planning. Aaaah!
I'm okay, I'm okay.
Update:
The Fate of AAC Direct / All American Computers
The LAN Party is a Go
The bottom line is good: My PC will be with me in time for the LAN Party on Saturday, September 16th!
Kyle says if the LIAN LI side-panel doesn't arrive by Tuesday he'll ship the case with the default panel and ship the clear side-panel later.
The RAM issue hasn't been resolved, it's still running at 677MHz, however, a BIOS revision will probably fix that later, and as he put it "The motherboard is built to have RAM at this speed. When folks overclock their RAM they can actually mess up their timings and slow their system down. I don't think that would happen here but the point is the benefit is negligible and probably not worth waiting for (with an update down the road)."
So I'm a stickler and I want that 800MHz - at the very least I want to try it out and see my 3dMark 2006 scores to check for what difference it makes - but I'm content to do that on my own and not let it hold up my system any longer.
One More Weekend with Mrs. Chop-Fest
I guess I have one more weekend with Clara, my 4yo gaming rig, humdrumming around, trying to find games made between 2001-2003 that I might actually like to play. I'm so sick of low-frame rates.
I tried Star Wars: Empire at War, which is actually a fun little RTS due to its "conquer the galaxy" mode where you collect planets, have them build stuff and send those fleets places to invade other planets. Super keen. As an RTS it's very bland, standard "overwhelm the enemy" and "watch out for air power" when on the ground, instead of space. Anyway, it was running all right on Clara, until I had a lot of planets pumping out stuff, and then just the UNIVERSE map was slow, never mind once I got big fleets of ships going, even with a unit cap. Talk about stupid! So I stopped playing it.
Future Gaming
I got Call of Juarez but I can't play it on Clara - so I'll have to wait for my PureXS, and when I get that I'm pretty sure all I'll be doing is playing Oblivion, so I'm not sure why I got it. It looked Western.
I also want to try out X3, Rise of Legends, F.E.A.R. multiplayer and... a bunch of other stuff.
In the mean time, I have the Soundtrack to Oblivion (awards), and I listen to that almost daily at work. I dream not of Oblivion, but of Draco, Shila and the lands of the Ancient Dragon, not dissimilar in setting and genre.
Hearing my Baby Humm...
I had a very odd sensation while on the phone with Kyle. He asked me to listen and then he said "I'm turning on your (PureXS)." I heard the switch and then her jump to life, all fans ablaze. One immediately died down a bit, and the other waited longer - X1900's in Crossfire, only one will immediately slow down, the other waits for Windows to post back to it. I heard her quiet way down once Windows was at the login prompt.
It struck that cord in me, not nearly as sharply, as when I've seen my children in ultrasounds, or heard them thumping and felt them moving about. It was oddly surreal, and I was kind of disappointed in myself for feeling that way - but there it is. Granted, my children made me cry with joy when hearing them - this did not. But I did feel the pangs. It struck the same cord.
Wierd, huh? He was just trying to demonstrate the minor differences between the X1950's and the X1900's (in Crossfire, both X1950's slow down immediately, whoopdiedoo).
Update:
The Fate of AAC Direct / All American Computers
I have no more pictures to lavish upon my Internet Shrine to my future PureXS, and now I'm worried that I will have to cancel the Sept. 16th Saturday LAN Party.
Kyle at All American Computers is still working on the RAM issue and waiting for the side-panel from LIAN LI, the case manufacturer. I'll call him after lunch today.
Rob Pardo's keynote speech gives all the management details that shows how they thought up and executed WoW's production. Great read.
I... unlive! Election Day Tuesday I was up from 5AM until 2:30AM Wednesday, at work from 6am to 2am. I got 4.5 hours of sleep and I'm back in at work at 8:30am.
The image is some random guy dressed up, not me. I don't wear glasses and have a 'stach and beard growing. Well, what suffices for manly hair growth on my nubile face.
I called Kyle at AAC and everything is coming together. He's a bit pissed because a case didn't arrive for another customer he's working on (a computer for Microsoft) but was pleasant with me. He's also tired because he was up late as well. Running your own business has got to take a lot out of you.
Poor Maria Alejandra tried to wait up for me but feel asleep at 1am. My poor lovely, loving little Mexican girl. She's so devoted, so loyal.
What's to say? It looks freaking awesome! (click to enlarge)These two benchmarks from GotFrag disturb me:
I saw the last episode of Season 3 (series got canned by HBO), and it totally fucking sucked, pardon my French.
"It told us so much about each of the characters."
It contradicted everything that the characters have established. I'm not appealing for a bloodbath, but some preservation of the characters that we have all seen develop through the seasons, even if it was Bullock's use of his badge to thwart Hearst in some way. To see them all buckle tells us that it was all just an act. That they were nothing more than the "bullies" that Bullock lamented about to Hearst. What was this? The author's way of telling us he had us all fooled?
And more generally, when an author foretells of something within a story, and uses lots of devices to build to it, but then doesn't follow through with it, it's very reasonable for an audience to be unsatisfied. The author seems to have indulged a bit too much here for the audience's liking. The conclusion he deprived us of was the hook that kept us coming back, and we feel cheated."
"To those people here that mistook people standing down to Hearst as being anticlimactic, what's happened here is that Deadwood has shown itself to be strong by showing itself to be united. "
Bullock loses the election. Ellsworth leaves town. Who knows what will happen to Charlie since Bullock loses. The Doc is dying. What's so united about this? Their futures are all left hanging. We have no idea of what happens next.
I don't even think it's historically accurate. Bullock was the sherrif of the town from it's inception. There is no mention of his defeat so shortly after being appointed sherrif. History places him as the sherrif there for quite a while and that he restored "Law and Order" in the town.
"It's about priority, and learning to adapt. And we see that in everyone's decisions, right down to Charlie accepting the tea instead of coffee. Hearst's departure is worth a fucking lot to everyone in the camp. And Hearst has seen how unpleasant it is for him to be there, the poor put-upon delusional cocksucker. It's win-fucking-win. Everyone's standing up to Hearst, saying "we know you have the power to destroy us but we aren't gonna suck your ass pretending we like you." But they misunderestimate him as much as he misunderestimated them when he showed up in the town. He'll still be a presence, but again, the camp will adapt."
And what exactly is attractive about a story where everyone gives into corrupt power and and conforms? They aren't standing up, to Hearst whatsoever. If you think that Charlie's and Seth's little speaches to Hearst were not pretending, you lend too much weight to hollow words.
See my Google Page / Shrine on this PC, complete with pictures, a link to every blog post, and thoughts.
My good friend, Chris Brown, found me. Actually he already knew everything - he had seen www.GamersGoneBad.com, my Blog (which is linked from there) and Google Home Page (with pictures of me & mine).
Drastically cool to be back in contact with him.
Darn it, he lives all the way down in Kissimmee though.
This is what I plan to order later today from All American Computers.
E6700 (2667 C2)
INTEL CORE 2 DUO E6700 2.66GHZ 4MB CACHE
MB 975XBX
INTEL D975XBX 1066FSB CF CORE 2 MB
2x DIMM 2GB 800MHZ
GEIL 800MHZ DDR2 2X1024MB VALUE DIMMS
CASE LL V1000B
LIAN LI PC-V1000 B BLACK ALUMINUM CASE
CLEAR SIDE PANEL
2x FAN 120MM RED
120MM RED LED CASE FAN
PWR ATX LIB620
620 WATT ENERMAX LIBERTY POWER SUPPLY
VID 512 X19XT
ATI 512MB X1900 XT PCI-E CARD
HD 320 SEA SATA
SEAGATE 320 GIG 7200 RPM SERIAL ATA HD
DVDR 3500AGBP
NEC ND-3550AGBP DVD+/-RW DUAL LAYER BK
SOFT MS WINXP H
MICROSOFT WINDOWS XP HOME EDITION
SETUP & CFG
SYSTEM / 1 YEAR PART-3 YEAR LABOR WARR.
The soundcard isn't listed here because I'm not sure what I'm getting - Audigy SE (5.1, EAX, all hardware, but no extra features) or something juicier.
I also want a 2nd hard drive for RAID 0, but I'm not sure I can afford it, which also affects the soundcard.
Update:
The Fate of AAC Direct / All American Computers
Britney Spears - White Trash
What a wonderful example this girl puts on for the youthful daughters of America.
And her boyfriend, who is no mental giant himself, displays how much smarter he thinks he is than her in his voice. He must think he's real big to be able to talk down to an unarmed opponent who happens to be a celebrity.
