05.23
It’s been over a month since my last post and much has happened. I have been extremely busy as of late and some things that have come up have made it very difficult to not only have time to blog but even be able to do so.
Most notably, about the time that I stopped posting, I started experiencing serious hardware problems. First, my memory started failing, so I replaced a 256MB stick for $3.90 at Office Depot (gotta love old hardware). Then the processor started overheating like a mug, but that was easy to fix (thermal paste had basically baked off). Then the worst of them all, the 20G HDD I had plugged into citadel (the desktop) started giving worse clicks of death, sometimes resulting in the head falling off the track and needing a reboot. I replaced the HDD with another one I had lying around (6G) but had problems with all of my older small drives as they all have started experiencing CoD. I even had a 120G WD that gave out that could not be resurrected.
After 2-3 weeks of not having a usable desktop environment, let alone a bootable HDD (I was booting to the Gentoo LiveCD), I finally installed the base system and was ready to go. For those of you wondering, the Gentoo Linux Graphical Installer is a waste of time if you intend on installing from ~x86 or stage0 (cannot restart from last successful package/stage).
I also started experiencing pauses in my DVD backups. After testing 10 or so different media ID disks (types of dye) and 2 burners, I concluded that the old Philips 642 needed an upgrade. sunshine and I took some DVDs to Best Buy for a test drive. We ended up settling on a Philips DVP5960. This player is fantastic; not only does it play through every reproducible pause but it also upscales to HD 1080i! It can still play DivX, MP3s, and image slideshows. All for a meager $80!! I’m starting to think that Philips makes the best players on the market.
Since all of this hardware trouble started, I have started building a new computer. I am going to be very selective as I want this one to last at least as long as the last one (5 years). We replaced the CRT monitor with a 19″ Dell 1907FP and purchased a Logitech Wireless mouse/keyboard setup. I will eventually write something up about this later so that other people can figure out how to use any kind of keyboard in Linux (mostly multimedia) without drivers of any kind.
sunshine and I also bought some mp3 players; I bought the Samsung 1G YP5-ZB and she bought the Philips GoGear 6G. I’ll dedicate a separate post to just this as well some time in the near future.
I have continued my running and have improved my distance and time. I started at 1 mile with an 8:34 pace. Every 3 workouts, I extended my distance by 0.15 miles. I am now running 3 miles (made a jump from 2.35 to 3 because I am doing much better) and the last run I finished in 25:34. I have upped the leg workouts and I am noticing a definite muscle structure growth in the lower body. I have also started gearing up like a runner. I now have the flash music player, some excellent Addias running shorts, a spiffy Timex watch that sits on the side of your wrist, and comfy Reebok shoes. Now I just need that time to fall below 24:00 and all of my goals I set last year would be met. My goal for this year is to extend this run at this time to a 10K.
sunshine and I have seen many a movies since my last post and I have failed to post a review. I will start doing this more as I have time. To make it easier on keeping up to date, I will probably keep the review short by removing content/spoilers and discussing only my opinions with a brief (cut and dry) overall rating. I also bought MGS3:MGO and became addicted, but I had to forfeit this to rainman so I can focus on something more important (see below).
Lastly, I started studying for the GRE heavily. I am aiming to take this test on June 17th so I want to be as prepared as possible. I have invested all of my time on the vanpool to practicing problems from some of the workbooks we bought. So far on the practice paper tests, my scores have been less than satisfactory, but I am hoping that the rest of my application will vastly overshadow this score. I had a temporary copy of some of my application materials stored in my WordPress system, but I have since mailed that stuff out and removed it. I will post more about this sometime in the future.
So in case you don’t see much activity from me in the next month, don’t be surprised, this test is consuming my life but the deadline will eventually pass. I must go and attempt to catch some Zs.