My friend Tom came down from Alaska to deal with some family things a couple of weeks back.

Of course, while he was here, he solicited me for advice on what parts to get so that he could build a computer that wouldn’t become obsolete in 2 years.

“Good luck” was my advice.

Of course, we did get online and did some shopping. We ended up with the following:

ASUS A8N-E Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 Ultra ATX AMD Motherboard
AMD Athlon 64 3700+ San Diego 1GHz FSB
eVGA Geforce 7800GT 256MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16
CORSAIR XMS 1GB DDR Dual Channel (2x512mb) with heat spreaders
Seagate Barracu 250GB 7200 RPM Serial ATA150 Hard Drive
XION II XON-103 case (black with blue fans)

He already had the DVD burner a few other components.

Because of time constraints, Tom had the parts shipped to me, and I would build it for him. This turned out to be a very good idea. The 450watt power supply that came in the case isn’t exactly what I was expecting (I guess I should have paid more attention to the images on the website). It has exactly 4 molex connectors (the rectangular power plugs that go into a hard drive or CD-ROM). I had to add several “Y” adaptors and am crossing my fingers that once he installs his CD, DVD, and other hard drive, the supply will actually run them all.

6 weeks ago, my physical therapist and Doctor agreed that I should think about converting my cubicle at work into a “sit-stand” configuration. The idea is that I sit most of the time, but can stand from time to time if my back starts to bother me. I spoke to my manager about it, but held off from actually requesting it from our facilities department for about a week.

Why oh why did I ever mention it?

I’m not going to go into all the gory details, but after 4 weeks of standing in my cube for 8 hours a day, I finally got fed up with it. Today, they dropped one side back down so I can sit again in my old chair (which is quite comfortable). I’ve ordered some hardware (a DVI splitter, second LCD display, and wireless keyboard/mouse) so that I can work from both heights (total cost: under $500).

Why the hell didn’t they just do that to begin with instead of trying to order $800 chairs that won’t work and then balking at the $1,000 system that would raise and lower my desk.

Ugh.

At least I won’t be going home with a sore back, shaky legs, and 1,000 lb feet any more.

For my birthday, my wife wanted me to get an LCD display for my home PC.

After much research, I settled on the BenQ 19″ 8ms display.

I got it, like 99% of everything I buy that’s computer related, from newegg.com. I paid $299.99 for it (which was a steal!), but noticed it’s on sale today for $289.99 and there’s a $30 rebate.

Crap.

I guess that’s just the way it goes sometimes. I’m looking forward to taking it home and trying it out tonight. Sure… it’s smaller and doesn’t handle the same screen resolutions and refresh rates as my 21″ Sony Trinitron, but it also won’t take up quite so much space on my desk, and the image quality should be better as my Geforce 6800Ultra is dual DVI and a regular monitor is slightly blurry after using the DVI to D-SUB adaptor.

It’s October 2nd, and that means it’s “Airplane Dance Around the World” day!

So… do your part to help promote world peace… do the Airplane Dance today!

Oh… and for those who care, it’s also my birthday today. 39 stoney grey steps to the grave. Miftah (of mrmoth fame) wrote me the following:

My “Mr. Deeds” attempt at a Hallmark Card sentiment

For answers to quandries by the score
For discount web hosting and parts galore
For being patient through silly forum wars
For not taking a cut above cost at the cafepress store
I always use you like a $3 whore
But I probably love you a whole lot more.

Happy birthday, Biobutt!

PS: I’ll still be doing the airplance dance, but thats typical of most weekends anyway.

The “Name my kitten” contest is over, as we’ve finally come to a decision.

It was hard, but we’ve finally settled on “Seven”.

Huge props to Jen and Zipper for both coming up with the little tube rat’s name.

Of course, my eldest son refuses to call her that, stating it’s too “Trekie”. He insists her name is Oreo.