Yearly Archives: 2007

BRB, DVD

7 Replies

Lately I’ve been experiencing various issues with my DVD rom drive. It wont be detected, it wont copy files, it wont read files, etc. Overall this has been pretty frustrating lately because i have had several important medias delivered by way of DVD. This has led to probably hours of struggling, and general cursing at this inanimate object. Then, for some reason – at 12.30 a.m. on Friday (technically Saturday) – I decided to finally BRB this drive, seen here:

Old DVD Drive

After BRBing this hidous piece of equipment (note, never buy “Liteon” product). I then set my task of making my external DVD RW/Cd RW drive work on my computer. First, a flashBack: for Christmas this past year, i purchased my father a nice new shiny DVD writer. A Pioneer, I believe… Part of that Christmas present to him meant that I got to take his old DVD RW drive, an external usb2 device, and claimed it as mine own. Now… finally… 5 months later… I tried hooking it up.

With the ease of installation and configuration on Ubuntu 7.04, i figured this to be a plug and play operation. Pretty much Neg. This external drive did not even get detected. I went at it pretty hard for about an hour, and finally gave up. I had surrendered all hope and succumbed to the fact that i would just buy a new DVD drive, an INTERNAL DVD drive. Then, at that exact moment, the fires that forged mickeyvb churned with a breath of fresh oxygen and took over my being. I began dismantling the external DVD drive. I detached cables. I took out about a dozen screws. I cracked and pryed the plastic shell. Pieces and parts flew. And after about 20 minutes of sodomizing this external drive, i was left with an internal drive (right) and some trash (left):

New DVD Drive

That shell looks alot worse in person, and there are many more parts to it not shown. After all this was said and done, this drive fit perfectly and worked perfectly like any other INTERNAL drive. It was a fantastic moral victory, and so i am no longer in need of any DVD drive. Although this one only writes at 8x – it will do. 🙂 Now i can concentrate on the AVIC D3 and a new Digicam.

In closing, here is a picture of my gato – she pawed at screws and sniffed things. Obviously trying to help me in my endeavors, but not possessing any opposable digits, she failed to provide any adequate assistance.
Kitter Wompus

Things That I Want…

7 Replies

In a sheer copycat post of Vanbergs’ most recent post, I have constructed a post to inform the entire world of my own most intimate desires.

Thus, behold the unordered list:

  • The Pioneer AVIC D3:
    Pioneer Avic-D3
    This aftermarket head unit features GPS 3d navigation, DVD video playback, Ipod integration, Divx playback, Satellite radio, and of course am/fm/CD/mp3. Not to mention, it fits perfectly into the scion tc. This ultimate piece of electronic equipment is about 1,000 dollars. We’ll see what happens.
  • Halo 3:
    Halo 3 is going to be an impossibly epic and undefinably perfect video game. It will be the best game of all time, and this title will never be overthrown. There really is no other way to describe this enigma. Long story short, when halo 3 comes out, vanberge is an xbox 360 owner; and a happy one.
  • DVD Burner:
    I need a new DVD drive/burner for my PC. Currently i have a DVD drive, but it fails to work approximately 80 percent of the time. Sometimes it’s not even detected as an IDE device on Bootup.
  • 24 Cancelled:
    Unlike vanbergs, I don’t want 24 to be good again. I want it to be over. I want it to be cancelled. My frustration with this television show has been incurably fueled and there really is no turning back. I no longer watch 24 because of how ‘good’ it is, or even because I like it; I watch 24 in its sixth season simply to punish my own being. I don’t even know what’s happening.
  • A new Camera:
    I’ve passed my phase of wanting a Digital SLR. But, I do want a new camera – and i want a good one. There are plenty of mid – level cameras that offer more than enough to satisfy my sporadic photography/gimp phases. If it has a 10x zoom and some forms of manual control, i’ll call that par for the course.

That concludes a pretty good representation for the material things that i currently wish for.

On a more trivial note, I’ve upgraded to Ubuntu linux 7.04. This install was simple, easy, and is a fantastic operating system. Ubuntu has built in the abilities to enable restricted formats, made it easier to get proprietary drivers, and made improvements in NTFS support. Combined with fresh icons, artwork, i’m really impressed with this operating system. I’m definitely never using windows again on my home computer. I haven’t booted windows since December of 2006 – so i think i am officially converted.

At work, I’ve been diving into Microsoft WSUS. We’ve been struggling with our current patch management solution, and I had heard some good things about the new version of WSUS. After installing it on an open server, it took about 4 days to download the almost 30 gigs of updates necessary to function. Then it was a matter of configuring some group policies to turn on automatic updates on clients, repoint the clients, and lock it down so that users can’t change the settings. I have to admit – WSUS is much better than I would have ever imagined. I don’t think i’ll use it for servers just yet, but it sure makes it easy to update 350 clients.

The P4P Quoteboard

36 Replies

***Edit*** I am going to delete comments that are not ‘quotes’ ***Edit***

I had what I believe to be a pretty good idea. Starting a wordpress/commenting quoteboard. I always hear/read quotes that i wish i would have written down. I think that having this will be a good solution; quotes can just be commented in. I’ll permalink this post in the header nav if it seems to stick, which i hope it will. Because i do think it’s a pretty good idea. Please feel free to contribute via comment!

Format:
quote | who is quoted | brief explanation(optional)

Examples

  • “Nothing you can contemplate will ever be the same” | Iron Maiden | A lyric from the song ‘Wickerman’
  • “Say hello to your brother” | Jack Bauer | Parting statement to a dying Fayed.
  • “It ends tonight” | Neo | A comment that begins one of the best fights in movie History

March Lunacy

8 Replies

Or “Madness” – This event has seemed to grip me fairly strongly over the last couple of years. The vast majority of the year goes by, and i dont watch basketball, play basketball, or even think about basketball.

Then the NCAA mens basketball tournament kicks off and it totally changes my life for a couple of months. It puts me in a ‘basketball phase’. I watch basketball (college and pro), i play basketball video games. I shoot hoops in my driveway. Its a very wierd scenario.

At any rate, this year i have a couple different options to capitalize on the mens basketball tourney.

1. If Kansas wins, i win an Xbox 360. I recently went to a Microsoft Sharepoint /Exchange / Vista / Office 2007 conference at the amway, and they had a sports bar drawing inside GP sports. Each attendee drew a team, and if their team wins, they win. I drew Kansas and the prize of Xbox 360. So, everyone please cheer for the mother effing jayhawks.

2. If Florida wins, i will probably win money through an ‘illegal gambling’ pool at “work”. Although i’d rather have the x box, cash is never bad. Cheer for the jayhawks first, but the Gators second.

Also btw i just upgraded my gallery to 2.2. I love gallery.

Ker plunk

7 Replies

This past weekend resulted in a very comical scenario (unordered list):

The Short:

  • I have now have a new cell phone.

The Long:

  • I currently have a motorola V710, and its a great phone. But its a big phone (almost annoyingly big), and the battery life is abysmal. Its been losing its charm day by day, and I really became fed up with it overall.
  • Sunday morning came, and I started talking about wanting to get a new cell phone. Playful arguments ensued, and the determination was made that I could not get a new cell phone at this time.
  • My parents were coming down to visit and grab some wedding pics, so I started getting ready. Ate some quick breakfast, showered… Then, I grabbed my V710 (Still wrapped in Towel)
  • I delicately slide my V710 onto the bathroom counter… The V710 continues to slide, nearly stopping at the edge of the counter, but ultimately diving off the counter.
  • The V710 bounces off the wall mounted toilet paper roll…
  • The V710 bounces on the rim of the toilet seat…
  • The V710 submerges itself completely in the water of my toilet…
  • I grab the V710, flip it open, and watch the screen display an assortment of torrid colors before fading to darkness.
  • I pulled the battery as soon as I could, but damage was done… Even nearly a week later, the phone’s buttons do not work (although, it will boot up correctly).

So, I am now the proud owner of a motorola razr V3m. And this phone is phenominal. It has EVDO (which, apparently stands for EVolution Data Optimizer) – Basically, my cell phone is pretty much broadband speed. I haven’t found a speed test that will work on the browser, but it is light years past my V710’s internet speeds.

This RAZR also maintains all the functionality of my V710 – It plays mp3’s, it plays 3gp videos, it has a MicroSD slot, it has a 1.3 mp camera (which the quality is much better than the V710 as well). Not bad considering that it was 80 dollars vs. almost 160 for my V710 over a year ago.

Overall, it was a very funny situation. It’s not every day your phone ends up in the shitter.

Vengeance

5 Replies

Vengeance (noun – 14th century latin origin):
1 – Punishment inflicted in retaliation for an injury or offense
2 – Infliction of injury, harm, humiliation, or the like, on a person by another who has been harmed by that person; violent revenge

There are not very many things (if any) that are more epic than true revenge / vengeance. It is substance for great movies. It is inspiring… It defines heroes. It is human nature… A true gift.

An unordered list of one of my favorite tales of revenge follows with more detail:

  • Detroit Red Wings vs. Colorado Avalanche – In 1996, Claude Lemieux of the Colorado Avalanche layed one of the cheapest hits in NHL history on Kris Draper of the Detroit Red Wings (shown in this clip: NHL Cheap shots ). Kris Draper suffered a broken jaw, broken cheek bone, and concussion. He had to have re constructive surgery on his face due to the injuries. Claude Lemieux never apologized to Draper, or to anyone… Even though the hit was from behind, into the boards, and widely regarded as one of the dirtiest plays in the NHL…

    In the following season, the Detroit Redwings would seek their vengeance.

    On March 26th, 1997.. in Detroit’s own Joe Louis arena, the best game in NHL history was played. Words really cannot even describe it. It had to be seen. From the first drop of the puck, every Detroit RedWings fan knew it was going to happen. The score didn’t even matter. This bitter rivalry flourished. The teams were pushing, shoving, body checking at every chance… They hated each other. A couple fights came and went, but none involved Claude Lemeiux.

    Then it happened. Detroit’s Darren McCarty started the war with a single punch to Claude Lemieux. Lemieux fell instantly, turtled, and tried to cover up… Darren McCarty continued to strike him furiously – his fists powered by the relentless vengeance of every living Red Wing fan. Several Avalanche players made an effort to get to McCarty and stop the onslaught, but each Red Wing did their part and stopped the Avalanche players from interfering. Brendan Shanahan leapt into the air to hit Patrick Roy. Shanahan then grabbed another Avalanche player as Detroit’s Mike Vernon and Colorado’s Roy (the goalies) had their own blood soaked battle.

    As the smoke cleared and the referees finally pulled McCarty away, Lemieux’s blood was pooled on the ice and he had to be helped back into the Avalanche locker room… Ironically, he walked right past Detroit’s Kris Draper who was at the end of the Detroit bench…
    It was one of the most fantastic things I have ever seen. Darren McCarty was a hero.

    As the game progressed, smaller fights continued due to the bad blood between these teams, but it didn’t matter any more. Detroit had their revenge. The score of the game grew to a tie (5 -5) and actually went into over time. And in what can only be described as actual proof of divinity, Darren McCarty scored the game winning goal in overtime to give the Red Wings the victory.

    As Detroit celebrated, Darren McCarty shook the hand of every Red Wing as they made their way towards the locker room. As Kris Draper headed in, he stopped and embraced McCarty as if to say “Thank you”. It’s one of the most epic and powerful moments I can even remember seeing. This video does a fantastic job of telling the entire story in only 4 minutes, so I urge every living being to view it. RedWings vs. Avs

    Another longer version can be found here… but it isn’t set to “Filter – hey man nice shot”… http://youtube.com/watch?v=9N5xCY8be2o&mode=related&search=

    Literally, figuratively, seriously, and wholly epic.