Archived News starting from 05-06-2010 and earlier
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With my last processor upgrade to this server
one month ago, it was time for
another new one as AMD just released their 6 core
Phenom II X6 processor. Why 6 cores? Aside from the tremendous processing demand placed on this server, I thought it was time to dedicate a core to each of the 6 people that actually spend time visiting this site. How's that for a thank you. Here's a
reference diagram to use when choosing the core to serve your request, so don't go stealing CPU time from someone else's core! The most demanding task of browsing
Cougafest albums has almost
no effect on CPU usage now, and surprisingly the wattage consumption is the same as the old Athlon X2 so I pass the hippie requirement as well. Most importantly, this CPU features a
turbo core that not only sounds cool but ramps up the more popular cores when a task isn't fully multithreaded. This will fit nicely with my upcoming turbo car.

After learning Blackberry OS 5 did all kinds of futuristic things like automatically changing your time zone based on where you are, not flashing the charge light all night long and having a browser that's semi-useful I was disappointed to find out Verizon has not yet released it for the 8330. Fortunately I found
this post on how to steal it from Boost mobile (another CDMA carrier) and force upgrade it. Almost 2 hours after I started, with at least 2 instances I was convinced I bricked it, I'm finally running the latest and greatest Blackberry OS. That puts me at about 2008 for mobile technology and features, can't wait for WinMo7.

A long night of Starcraft (some would say too long) started off with a
brutal defeat by the
Senator and TomTom against
Excelcier and I with me contributing so little to the game I was effectively useless. A quick team changeup yielded a
victory for the Senator and I after I embraced the
transformers to compliment
mr. pants. Then
TomTom and I made a comeback after an initial air drop rush looked to squash us in the first few minutes. The final game was another defeat, so it will not be mentioned other than to say Excelcier touched me in appropriately during the game.
Facebook took another huge step in taking over the world today with their stupid simple
like button API. You'd be nuts NOT to include this feature on your blog/soapbox as it not only puts more
pieces of flair to make you look important, but it also plugs your blog/rant on their facebook feed. The 3 lines of required code is brilliant, and will soon be on every page on the internet until the traffic finally kills them and the fad dies off. Until then, add the like button!

After
Enorym showed me the
Eco Gauge, my existing
air/fuel gauge started to look a little outdated. Not satisfied with the sensible feature set provided by the Eco Gauge, and determined to have the latest multi-purpose gauge technology, I discovered the
interceptor gauge. In addition to displaying air/fuel, it has close to 100 other measurements to spit out; acting as an ODB II scan tool in a standard gauge form factor. I was fortunate to have the
photo taken with my gay neighbor in the background sucking down a cigarette and staring at me. While I haven't tried the 1/4 mile timer or data logging features, the cyclic scan of 8 parameters alone was worth the cost. Knowing things like my intake air temp and fuel sender rate has opened my eyes to a whole new set of things to panic about on my car.
With spring here and my hippie needs approaching peak, I decided to invest in a
Energy Detective to monitor my electricity consumption. After
installing the sender unit, the receiver just needed to be plugged into the wall and my router. It has a web server built in, so now I just need to type http://power on my local network and I see
this but with my data. Not satisfied with a local-only solution, I quickly exploited the API and created the new
power page with a failed attempt at gauges that I hope to remedy soon. I expect heavy traffic, but this will hopefully eliminate the constant questions I get about my power consumption. It also reports to
Google Power so the corporation that owns the planet can also keep an eye on my electrical usage.

Despite the best efforts of my
ex-girlfriend, I received and activated my Starcraft 2 beta key today. As the download progresses, I bask in glorious nerd envy until someone figures out that now all you need to do is pre-order a copy to get a key. I pre-ordered mine over a year ago, and Amazon finally coughed mine up. Probably out of fear of what someone who keeps a pre-order for that long might do in retaliation if not appeased. Now is the time you grind your teeth in jealousy.
UPDATE: Just won my first game,
check out my replay! (pretty sure you can watch replays on the "leaked" beta, then you can pretend you're winning!)

The
KFC Double Down has received
increasing news coverage prompting
MantraPolo,
TigerBomb and I to try it out, proving how effective controversial food items market themselves. We were greeted with a
full size ad on arrival, but none of us were brave enough to try an
entire 1,540mg sodium laced double down, so we decided to split one into 3 pieces reducing the overall artery clogging risk. To get the complete southern KFC effect, it was eaten
in my pickup truck bed while we shouted obscenities at passersby. The
small piece I dared to eat wasn't as salty as I thought it would be, with the bacon and cheese barely able to stand out from the two chicken breasts. Closest match is chicken cordon bleu with a lot of chicken in the mix. So far no cardiovascular problems, but the day is young.

While
Stavos and I harassed Lisa via the rovio webcam, she was hard at work on
this drawing of our cat Sam. Upon hearing she was sketching him, Stavos remarked; "that cat is like a god in that house." A true statement, and a sketch definitely worthy of his status.

Immensely satisfied with myself over the triumph that was replacing rear drum brakes on my truck yesterday, I decided to
repeat the magic by swapping a lower control arm and changing brakes and oil on my Cougar. The success of all three allowed me to title the weekend "kickass car maintenance weekend" and leaves only a fuel filter change for a rainy day. Lisa was, of course, beside herself with joy after hearing of all the mechanical accomplishments I had made and brought the cat to share in the celebration, who promptly
pissed all over her in excitement. Robbie was
especially excited after seeing the cat piss, but more interested in burning the old control arm and brake pads in his newly created metal vaporizing fire. After Lisa finished calling all her friends and bragging about what an awesome mechanic I am we burned some oil and called it a night.
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