AtomicInternet Archived News

Archived News starting from 11-05-2007 and earlier

Late invites for todays LAN party resulted in a lower-than-usual turnout, but still managed to provide ample entertainment. Beginning with Battlefield 2142, we eventually moved on to the new Unreal III beta demo, which had the same classic guns, but a controllable robot and naturally much better graphics. Moving to FarCry afterwards made the once mighty game appear very outdated. Once we were down to 4 people we switch to Xbox for quad split-screen multiplayer Halo III followed by extensive amounts of Sega Rally Evo, Forza2, and Guitar Hero II and III. Timelapse video here.

Waking up to 38° this morning and seeing the frost warning light in my car brought back horrible memories of frozen nose hairs and gray slush, but with the first sign of winter showing up at the end of October I couldn't really complain. By 1pm, it was 60° again showing Michigan really has stopped hating me. A company-sponsored game of bowling at 3pm put the final warm fuzzy on the best winter reality day so far. Now I just need Keith to post the temperature in Mississippi to have it all come crashing down on me.

After my Canadian girlfriend attended my wedding for my now American wife, the question of a Canadian marriage began to come up more frequently. I decided to take a trip to Canada today and discuss the situation at length. To show her support, Lisa created a salad of gigantic proportion to feed no less than 20 people. Unfortunately only Ron and Jen were able to join Lisa, Melinda and I, so most of the salad was illegally transported back over the border after our meeting. Upon arrival, I learned the meeting was in fact a labour trap (you spell it with a u in Canada) and was forced to put up Halloween decorations while Lisa, Melinda and Jenny discussed the details of the Canadian wedding. Once the details were finalized, we enjoyed a lovely roast beast and vegetables along with the giant salad. Wondering what the details are? So are the neighbours (yes, also with a u).

Tonight was Senator Kelleys halloween party extravaganza, attended by many of my close friends. Lisa decided to be Supergirl and look hot, which meant I was required to be Superman and not look hot. Instead, the only available costume had diaper-like pants that did nothing to conceal my lower anatomy. In addition to enduring my pants, party guests also had to witness blatant incest as I later learned Supergirl and Superman are in fact cousins. The logical option in such a situation is to karaoke loudly with Keith and Tim which is exactly what I did.

After their appearance at the wedding, the gnomes spent the better part of 2 weeks in a box in my basement. Today we finally unpacked them only to discover Bugsy was missing. His come hither stare apparently caught the eye of a passerby and overwhelmed them with temptation. He will be missed, but not forgotten.

I decided two self absorbed nerd posts were not enough to convey my excitement regarding my new theatre setup, so here is the third and final installment for your my enjoyment. The addition of an Xbox 360 and HD DVD drive finally brought full 1080i content to my HD hungry projector. The built-in media center extender also supports playback of my HDTV recordings currently served over the wireless adapter which surprisingly provides sufficient reliable bandwidth. The recent addition of an HDMI port to the "premium" Xbox 360 package made it an obvious choice, but my projector lacks a digital audio out port, so the digital audio in the HDMI cable had nowhere to go. The included Xbox component cables only offer analog audio, or an optical digital port, and wouldn't fit with the HDMI cord plugged in. The "official" solution from Microsoft is the Xbox HDMI AV Cable which magically fits alongside the HDMI cable for an additional fee of $50, but again with only an optical digital audio output. Being a cheap bastard, and lacking an optical digital audio input on my HTS3555 receiver, I found this hack to create a coax digital audio output which was so easy it made me wonder why Microsoft is so against including one in their cables. Maybe they struck a deal with the optical audio cable companies who don't want you to know digital audio is identical over optical or coax cables (ok fine, excluding long distances). My digital audio rant aside, my new setup is finally complete, aside from some much needed screen goo.

Lisa and I took our honeymoon in Aruba for 10 days of beach time and island exploring. Most notable about the island was the proliferation of iguanas and lizards that provided good sexual innuendo potential which was exploited every chance I had. Everyone on the island spoke at least English, Dutch, and Papiamento, with the workers at our resort speaking over 7 languages, so unlike Cancun communication was easy. Lisa enjoyed taking photos of her hands, fingers, and toes while I enjoyed the many topless sunbathers on the beach. The best activity by far was our sunset cruise on a double-hulled catamaran. Pirates boarded the boat about an hour into the cruise and offered me a hefty sum for Lisa, which I initially accepted only to have it fall through once they found out she had crabs.

After months of a crabby fiance, and more money than I want to think about was spent, the wedding is finally over. Lisas grand vision was wonderfully executed by everyone involved, which was quite a few bridesmaids, family, friends, and a morlock. The groomsmen and ushers did their job and kept me laughing the entire time with random comedy routines. Quite a few comments were made on their ability to provide laughs consistently for such a long period of time. This was of course due to the proper combination of shenanigans and brouhaha I measured out before choosing each wedding party member, keeping my panic level well below 60% for the entire event. The pre party got everyone sufficiently warmed up for the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner, which meant everyone was well acquainted for the wedding and reception. Despite my lack of an audio booster for the music, the reception was a great success and I finally learned how to do the chicken dance. Thank you to everyone involved for your help in making our wedding such a wonderful memory. We'll be thinking of you all while we're in Aruba enjoying the beach and the sun and you're stuck at work in 50° weather.

With my projector missing a proper 5.1 sound system, I decided on the HTS3555 after seeing it for $190. Not only does it upconvert my format of choice (DivX) to 1080i, it's able to play the files from a DVD or USB thumb drive. I was surprised to find a quality (and heavy) center speaker, with the 4 others more than sufficient for my tone-deaf ears. The sub woofer is predictably weak, but sufficient when maxed out. After an hour of splicing and routing speaker wire behind the wall, I finally had proper audio in the Morlock theatre to compliment my now mounted projector with patented licence-plate cable concealer. Now I just need Whineyho to buy the HD DVD drive for his Xbox360 so I can steal both and have a complete HD theatre setup for under $1,000.

Enter a word or words to search for:

---

Find articles posted by month: Jan (1) Feb (2) Mar (3) Apr (4) May (5) Jun (6) Jul (7) Aug (8) Sep (9) Oct (10) Nov (11) Dec (12) 2010 2009 2008 2007 2006 2005 2004 2003 2002

1546 Total Articles
4361 Total Comments
Top 10 Commented Articles
Your Xbox 360 Wants 802.11N	45
Jan LAN Dual Core Part 1	37
Comment Party Great Success	31
Gravatars	28
Deflowering of a Morlock	24
Cougarfest 2008	23
Plasma Lives!	22
Sonic Update	21
Verizon WinPhone7?	20
Gutting My Cougar	19
Top 10 Commenters
Stavos	1346
MorlockPrime	552
Excelcier	487
tim	235
R1OT	195
AtomicInternet	166
enorym	164
Senator Kelley	131
E1	114
Duane	94