or how i learned to elevate the mundane

I’ve had this one PC for 10 years now.  It’s undergone some upgrades since I initially purchased it back in January of ’96.  Here’s what it came with (IIRC):

• Pentium 1 – 150MHz CPU
• 16 MB RAM
• 2(?) GB HDD
• 2D video card

Total cost for this monster:  > $3500.

In ’98, I think, I upgraded the mobo+cpu+ram+hdd on this.  Basically, the only thing that remained of the old PC was the power supply and case.  Back then it got upgraded to a:

• AMD K6-2 350 MHz CPU
• 64 MB RAM
• 8.4 GB HDD
• 2D/3D video card (4 MB VRAM)

Pretty snazzy.  Ran Win9x like a charm.  Not so much WinXP when that eventually came out.  Since that major upgrade, I’ve added a new CPU (AMD K6-2 450 MHz) more PC133 RAM (it’s now got 640 MB) and it’s got more HDD space (70GB) and a good-for-its-generation video card (Nvidia GeForce2 MX400 – 64MB VRAM).  But the computer only serves 2 purposes:  print server and music server for my Roku Soundbridge.

Last Sunday, it served its last MP3 and printed its last document.  Now I’m in a bit of a quandry.  Do I purchase an ultra-cheap low-end machine to backfill this, or do I demote my current desktop to serve this function and get a new “high-end” PC as my main machine?

My main machine’s current specs:

• AMD Athlon XP 2700+ CPU
• 1.5 GB DDR2-400 RAM
• 330 GB HDD
• ATI All-In-Wonder-Pro 9800 w/128 MB VRAM (DVI-out only)
• Dual Layer DVD burner

The reason I’m balking is that a “low end” machine these days is hardly much worse than this.  Sure, I don’t get the big HDD or that much RAM, but the rest is fairly comparable.  Also, this machine is going to find a bit rough running Vista, unfortunately.

As I see it, I have 2 options:

1. Backfill low – keep my current machine and backfill the “server”.  From the looks of it, this will cost me about $400 after factoring in an inevitable HDD upgrade.  I can run XP MCE on such a machine and not only serve up music to the Roku, but also pictures and video to the Xbox 360.  The downside is that I will probably be looking at a main machine upgrade when Vista RTMs since I’m not going to want to run it on a “classic” PC.  That will almost certainly cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $1200 at the time which makes this total purchase $1600 or so.
2. Demote and backfill high – This means demoting my current main machine.  More than enough power there to run XP MCE easily.  However, to get enough headroom in today’s PC to ensure I have Vista strength, probably looking at closer to $1700+ for a PC today.  This option runs the risk of being on the low-end of Vista-capable.  Unfortunately, you cannot test drive PC’s at home for a few days before buying.

I need to decide relatively quickly.  We have no printing alternatives that work well, plus it’s a drag not having the streaming music.

If I should ever win the war against the sending of useless cards to one another in the mail, I will then set my sights against the sending of dead vegetation to each other in a gesture of… what?  Better to be you than the dead flowers I just sent you?

It seems to be far more pragmatic to send plants to someone.  You could easily send a flowering plant that would serve to add color and beauty to one’s surroundings while also sending whatever message you were intending.  Why isn’t this done more?  Because you don’t get a huge bouquet of live plant?  I try to send plants whenever I can, though I must admit that I do still send flowers to my wife when the need strikes or just on a whim.

Folks, send plants.  They live longer and are more rewarding.  Plus, you’re not throwing out some nasty bunch of dead vegetation with mold growing on the stems 3-5 days after receiving dead flowers.

This past weekend was “Reunion Weekend” for my college alma mater (The University of Chicago).  It’s been too hectic lately, so I elected not to go even though this was my 15 year reunion.

I think maybe I’m also a little freaked out that it’s already been 15 years since I graduated from college.  It’s gone by seemingly so fast, and I think about what it means for another 15 years to go by as fast – or faster – than this past 15 years has gone.  In another 15 years, my son will likely be finishing his first year of college.  I shudder to even think about it.  It’s been so fast since the days I was always carrying him around to think about him being in college.

In 15 years my little girl will be nearing the end of high school.  I don’t even want to think of the implications of that.  Where will they go to college?  What will they study?  What will they have learned from us?  Ack!

Of course, since this year is my 15 year college reunion, that means next year is my 20th high school reunion.  I shudder to think about it.  I went to my 10 year.  I don’t know if I’ll make it back for the 20th.  We’ll see….

1. There are apparently resorts in Europe that utilize “natural” sources of radioactivity for people to lounge around in.  This radiation is said to have theraputic or restorative powers.  I imagine it works about as well as you believe it does.
2. Not everyone gets thick skinned, jaded, and cynical about things that are not fully baked or under-delivered.  These eternal optimists sometimes make things work from sheer determinstic will to believe in the dream.  People like this are rare.
3. Cancer can be contagious if you’re immunodeficient.
4. There is only 1 Canadian province that does not require you to ship both English and French text with your product:  Quebec.  They only require you to ship French.
5. It only takes 1 person to introduce an organization’s worth of randomness.

Last week was our son’s 4th birthday. I can’t believe how quickly it’s gone by and how much he’s grown in the last 4 years:

• Andrew at Birth 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

• Andrew at Birthday 1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

• Andrew at Birthday 2

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

• Andrew at Birthday 3

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

• Andrew at Birthday 4

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In other birthday news, I turned the big 37 on the 11th and Emma turned 3* on the 16th, so it’s been a busy week of birthdays here at the household (trust me, you don’t want to see ~60 pictures of us).

I have a “thing” against cards.  You know, the kind you send people for various reasons like birthday cards, Christmas (holiday?) cards, thank you cards, get well soon cards, happy graduation cards, Valentine’s cards, etc.  Most people get a card, glance at it, determine whether or not the pre-printed text was either witty or touching enough, determine whether or not the personalized text was witty or touching enough, then throw the card away.  Some save it for a few days, then throw it away.  Most who don’t throw it away within a few days, throw it away when cleaning out junk.

Cards are a preposterous waste of natural resources, money, and manpower.  It is on the order of driving an SUV, that’s how wasteful it is, in my opinion.  How many tons of trees are cut down, chemically processed, manufactured with all kinds of dyes and other crap, and then sold and immediately thrown away every year?  How many stamps are wasted sending cards most people will FORGET about in less than a week?  How much crap does a mailperson have to schlep around, especially in February, May, June, and December?  When you open a present, do you really care about the card?  The card opening and reading is usually the most perfunctory thing about the entire process.  It’s some obligatory nonsense that we all pay lip service to because it’s somehow “polite”.

Cards must go.  Hallmark must be forced to innovate with more electronically savvy products.  We must save the trees!  Save the backs of our mailpersons!  Save the gas that schleps the useless cards around!  Save millions of children from the unbearable task of reading a card they could give a rat’s ass about because the PRESENT is BEGGING to be opened!

Cards must go!  Cards must go!  Cards must go!

A friend of mine has a food fetish and has channeled some of that passion for food into his food blog. Recently, I’ve had a little debate with him about one of his assertions. The specific post can be found here. If you read the comments, I’m “relativistboy”.

It has me thinking more globally about quality in America, though. It’s not just food where the standards of acceptability are unacceptably low.  It’s practically everywhere from home furnishings, automobiles, consumer electronics, et al.  And I’m not going to even get started on civil services, public officials, public works, etc.
Why is the bar set so low? Why does the average American buy a poofy sofa velour from Levitz while supposedly the typical Dane buys sectionals from places like this?  Is it purely cost?  Or is it convenience?

VW employees are going to have to start giving up some quality of life time.  I’m crying them a river as we speak.  Hopefully no one will drive into it.

The advent of the in-car GPS navigation system has forever changed the way people find places they’ve never been to before (and, if you’re like some people, re-find places you’ve been to on several occasions).  But, as great as they are, you really need to continue to pay attention since, you know, the car still doesn’t drive itself.

Which is why I find this story really very peculiar.  What do you suppose was going through their minds?  “Oh dear, mum, the motocar is telling me to head into the river, but I see that the bridge is, in fact, not in working order. What to do? What to do? Well, it’s a little computer so surely it must be correct.  We’ll see how it goes, guvnah.  Tally ho!”  Ummm, NO!  The car is – IN FACT – not intended to ford the river by itself.  Not even the Range Rover, friend.  Not even the Range Rover.

I’m fascinated by all of this Tom Cruise scrutiny lately.  One of the things that we’ve discovered about him is that he’s something called an “Operating Thetan 7″.  It’s like you have to have 100,000 experience points to attain that level, or something.  You get +10 to score with a Hollywood hottie and you get $20,000,000 gold pieces per film otherwise it’s not worth your time to collect the loot.

Unfortunately, I think with every level up you get -1 on Intelligence even though you gain +2 on charisma.  And such is how it is with Tom Cruise.  It’s all very strange.

Still, the buzz on MI:3 is pretty good.  Even Jeffrey Wells has given it the go-ahead sign.  So has Kevin Smith, though he also liked Star Wars – Episode III so take this with a grain of salt if you’re so inclined.  I count myself as a Kevin Smith fanboy, but his glowing review of SWEIII was just so disappointing.

Not that it matters much to me anyway since it’s unlikely I’ll catch this in the theaters. Since having kids I think I’ve seen all of a half dozen movies in the theaters and most of those have been due to Work Morale Events.  It’s just another in a long line of DVDs to rent from Netflix.