Enoch

If Bledsoe had entered the league 15 years earlier, he could've been the best QB ever. If he were on a decent team in the 1970s, behind the kind of line you could build and keep pre-free agency, he would've been a god. In the '90s and '00s NFL, though, with its weaker OLs and faster defenses, he was never better than "very good." And he probably hung on a little too long, but at least he's leaving with his health. I doubt he makes the HoF, simply because he's a hero to nobody. NE fans (and HoF voters) remember his flaws more than his virtues, and his performances in Buffalo & Dallas were all well past his prime. Although, on the other hand, his blog was hilarious!!

Don't worry i did too LOL. I'm beginning to suspect that I enjoy shopping for computer components a bit too much. Last night, my girlfriend wanted me to order her a new USB flash drive. I got her a pretty simple one, then I got myself one that will work with Vista Readyboost (I don't particularly need the speed-- I just want to test out how it works). Then I bought a cheap new keyboard & set of speakers (mostly because my old ones are covered with schmutz from my student days when I would usually eat meals at my desk), and a little exhaust fan to go under my GPU, which seems to be trapping a lot of heat. The order only cost me a little over $100, but all this little stuff is adding to the already impressive cost of my new system. And I still have to buy a copy of MS Office at some point. Good thing I have a reasonably well-paying job!

Po-tee-weet

Bloody snow? Isn't that one of the signs of the apocalypse or something? On my end, we've got a chance of rain later today. Hopefully it will not be raining when I have to walk home. Other than that, it's a normal workday, and at the end of it, I'll be a little richer and a day closer to the replacement power supply for my new PC getting here so that I can start playing some non-GBA games again.

To provide some closure to all you stalkers out there, I filled out my tax forms yesterday. The U.S. Treasury owes me about $2200 (for taxes deducted from salary drawn from same U.S. Treasury), but I must pay the Commonwealth of Virginia around $600. Today was a fairly ordinary workday, except that most of my bosses were out of the office, so there was little incentive to work particularly hard.

To me, the great thing about having magic in the gameworld has always been to capture the sense of wonder one gets in seeing one's surroundings through the eyes of the pre-scientific world. Before everything was scientifically explained, everything seemed possible and mysterious (or, as Grom put it, "a trump card for the impossible"). The game mechanic effects, to me, have always been secondary. (By the way, D&D magic systems now suck for this purpose-- where's the mystery and excitement if I can find all the powers of the Big Bad Evil Wizard on p. 63 of my game manual??)

Charles Mingus, et al. -- Hog Callin' Blues Off of:

Wait, you pay taxes every month right? and then they send you an estimate of it, which you have to correct for yourself - adding extra income etc. right? I hope you're not expected to pay your taxes for an entire year at once. For individuals, the Feds & State gov'ts (most, but not all, states have an income tax) deduct a % from payroll checks. At the end of the year, your employer(s) sends you a statement of the amounts you've earned and the taxes you've paid. You plug these amounts into the tax forms, account for any additional income/loss (like interest on investments), take any deductions that you are entitled to, and figure out how much you owe. If it's less than what has already been deducted, you get a refund; if not, you've got to pony up the difference. Businesses generally pay estimated taxes every month, and the same annual accounting process is used to see if they've paid enough or too much.

I have the 941BW, and I'm happy with it so far. The blacks could be blacker, but the colors look normal to me and the refresh rate is solid.

Apart from a quick run to the grocery store, I'm spending the day loading my CD collection onto my new PC. That's about as far as I'm willing to push this machine right now until I get the replacement for the power supply I had to send back-- I pulled one out of my old machine, but I don't trust it to run the video card at full draw. And I am also desperately avoiding doing my taxes.

Springsteen-- Meeting Across the River One of my favorite lesser-known tracks from "Born to Run"

I've been feeling kinda Muppet-y lately, and I've always like Zoot. The old one (now the personal photo on my profile) was the most interesting result from a GIS for "bureaucrat," which I did when I got my current job.

Honestly, I don't know why church groups aren't all for this. If Christ could transubstantiate the essence of his body and soul into bread and wine for his disciples, he could certainly do so with chocolate. They should adopt the Chocolate Savior immediately-- think of what would happen to church attendance when the Eucharist offering is switched from stale crackers to chocolate candies!! Of course, such an approach would be rife with theological debate. Was Our Lord dark chocolate, or milk chocolate? Did he have nuts, or pralines, or creamy nougat? I could foresee many papal pronouncements on the mixing of the Blessed Savior with heathen peanut butter...

Mmmm.... Sacralicious... (I can't believe that nobody else has posted this yet!)

Interesting stuff. I hadn't been following DA, so the catch-up thread helps considerably. And hooray for the abolition of divine magic! The Faith Question is far too useful a mine for character & faction development to throw it all out with proveable, repeatable miracles.

In case anybody still cares, I've figured it out (with some excellent help from EVGA customer support). It was the power supply. The key clue I had been overlooking is that the amount of time the machine actually ran when I switched it on was dependent on the number of components I had plugged in. With nothing but the 2 Mobo plugs, it would run until I switched it off. If I hooked in the video card, it died as soon as it tried to check the GPU memory. If I then added a hard drive, it died even before that point. Ergo, I and the EVGA dude became convinced that the PSU was crapping out once a particular draw level was reached. My mistake earlier occurred when I tried to use my old PSU with the new machine. I neglected to hook up the dedicated GPU power line, because that PSU lacked a pci-e connection. When I tried to boot it up like that, the GPU screamed at me and I shut it off in a panic. I have since discovered that my mobo came with a dual-molex to pic-e converter. Using that, I was able to wire my old PSU in completely, and the machine booted normally. I don't have a lot of trust in the old PSU (a 500W Turbolink), so I'm not going to push it with anything strenuous until the RMA on the Seasonic comes through. But it's a huge load off my mind to finally know what's causing the problem (and to know that it wasn't my incompetence). So, in summary, EVGA Customer Support, Seasonic for sending me a short-lived PSU.

Fairly unproductive at work today. I just couldn't seem to focus very well. Could be the beautiful weather outside-- mid-70s, mostly sunny, just past peak for cherry blossoms, and just before the serious tree pollen kicks in. Went home a little early, and talked to EVGA customer support regarding my problems with my new PC. They blamed the PSU (not surprising considering that they made the mobo & GPU), but their logic makes sense. There's one more test that I will perform in a few minutes to see if they were right. Then it's a little ironing and bed.

Ha! My apartment is on the 5th floor. Although pitching it into the now-empty swimming pool below would be impressive, I'm not ready to give up just yet. (And, yes, I have retried every connector I know of.) I ended up putting off talking to EVGA until this evening. I find it's better if I take the frustration in small doses (accompanied by larger doses of fine imported ale).

That's what I'm hoping. I have a functional PSU (either 450W or 500W) in my old box. (I considered just switching it to the new one, but I decided to go all-new with a little more headroom.) So I'll try the switcheroo after work tomorrow. Assuming that works, I should have a functional machine while I wait for the replacement. Of course, that doesn't mean I'll enjoy myself dealing with customer service, shipping, etc... Okay, I pulled my new PSU out of the box, and tried hooking it to my old machine. It worked like a champ. I tried hooking my old PSU to my new computer. It did not work. I also noticed that, when I push the power button and fans spin & lights flash for 2 seconds, the one exception is the GPU fan. It takes a minature lurch at power on and stops, well before anything else in the box stops working. Unfortunately, my old GPU is AGP, so I can't swap it out to test it. Long story short, I think my motherboard is the problem. I poked around the EVGA forums for a while and found this thread, which tells me that this could be either a PSU or Mobo issue. I'll put a call in to EVGA customer support after dinner (they made both the mobo and the GPU), although I think the RMA has to go through newegg. Luckily, both companies are based on the west coast, so it's easy for me to reach them after work.

That's what I'm hoping. I have a functional PSU (either 450W or 500W) in my old box. (I considered just switching it to the new one, but I decided to go all-new with a little more headroom.) So I'll try the switcheroo after work tomorrow. Assuming that works, I should have a functional machine while I wait for the replacement. Of course, that doesn't mean I'll enjoy myself dealing with customer service, shipping, etc...

... And it appears that I spoke too soon. I was messing around a bit with Oblivion (it being the most graphically-intense game I own, I wanted to see how the new rig handled it), and the machine just shut off. When I try to turn it on again, lights come on, fans spin, etc., for about 2 seconds, and then nothing. I'm guessing that this means either PSU or Mobo problems. (Anything else I should be worried about?) I have a functional PSU in my old system that I can hook in to see if that's the source of the issue, but I'm not going to try that until tomorrow at the earliest. This sucks. Things were going so well, too. :'(

I am now posting from my new rig. Hooray! It was a bit nerve-wracking, and I was continually afraid that I was being too casual in touching some of the components. But everything seems to be working well. I had one issue with the hardware I was sent-- one of the sticks of RAM had a bent heat-spreader. For about 20% of its length, the spreader on one side is just slightly bent away from the rest of the module. I plugged it in to see if that's the only problem, and it seems to be working fine (although I haven't pushed with anything more strenuous than installing a pile of programs). I've sent an email off to the manufacturer's customer support describing the problem, so for the moment I'm going to continue to use it until I hear what they advise.

Update: I ordered stuff last weekend, and my apartment is now full of boxes. I'm going to try to put it all together tomorrow (after I clean off the desk). I have coaxed myself into some confidence regarding the physical assembly. Now I'm most concerned about mucking around with the BIOS, which I've never done before. The basics of what I've ordered: EVGA 680i mobo, e6400 core 2 duo, 320GB Seagate HD, 600W Seasonic PSU, 8800GTS (320MB), 2 GB Patriot DDR2 800 RAM, 19" Samsung widescreen LCD, a new DVD read/write drive, Vista Home Premium, and some other odds & ends. Ended up costing more than I had hoped, mostly because I have too little discipline in holding back when the 'next best option' is only $40 or $50 more. So I ended up with a system that is probably well in excess of my current needs. Hopefully, it'll pay off in longevity.

Very nice. IIRC, that's from "Blues and Roots," which is a good place to start with Mingus. "Mingus Ah Um" is the logical next step (and, according to many, his best non-long-form work). It's mostly comprised of compositions inspired by Mingus' heroes-- "An Open Letter to Duke," "Bird Calls" (Parker), "Goodbye Porkpie Hat" (Lester Young), and another tribute to Jelly Roll Morton which I believe is just called "Jelly Roll." A less well-known Mingus album that I really like is "Charles Minus Presents Charles Mingus," which features a smaller group with some amazing work by Eric Dolphy (and the vocal-included version of "Fables of Faubus").