Posted by Kevin Carruth on 2006-12-28 @ 19:50:23 , edited on 2009-08-06 @ 16:44:02
w00000t. My new monitor came today. Dell 30" Widescreen LCD. It is PIMP. Native resolution of 2560x1600. I've never seen so much space before.
Here's something for comparison. See how the width of this website compares to the size of the window if you maximize it? Well here's what it looks like to me now:
I love it. Tried playing some games on it today, all ran pretty well. I may have to do some tweaking in games like 2142, 'cause I've practically doubled my resolution.
It's pretty crazy jumping to such a big resolution. I'm still getting used to it. I almost have to turn my head to look from one end to the other.
Hope everyone had a merry Christmas. I know I did!
Now I'm going to find some more stuff to look at on this gloriously huge monitor.
Posted by Kevin Carruth on 2006-12-12 @ 00:42:58
First off, got my new computer built. First computer I've built that worked right off the bat, without a hitch. What a joy that was. Of course there were some initial problems, but for once those were all thanks to Windows and not to defective hardware. The build of Windows XP I got had a ton of annoying shit pre-configured that I had to undo to get it working on the network and stuff. But now it's working and all is well. For those who care, here are the specs of my newest machine, "Osiris":
:: Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 (2.4 GHz)
:: ASUS P5N32-SLI Deluxe Mobo
:: 2 GB DDR2-800 RAM
:: nVidia 7950GT 512MB Video Card
:: 250 GB SATA Hard Disk
Got some more furniture on the way. Mom insisted on buying me a couch for the upstairs living room (I'd have preferred money to put towards my 30" monitor). She ended up getting a couch and matching chair, and they're getting delivered on Friday. It'll be good to have some seating up there, I guess. I rarely spend time up there, so I'm perhaps a little under-enthused.
Tonight I got an invite to the Lord of the Rings Online Beta, so hopefully that'll be fun. Wade and Dustin both got their invites tonight as well, and Forrest has been in the beta for a while but hasn't played much. So we'll all be playing that soon! Which is good, 'cause NWN2 was kind of a disappointment. It's really not designed for multiplayer, sadly. It has a multiplayer mode, but it feels unfinished, as it's very clunky. Dialogue with NPC's freezes all players, everyone has to be in the same place, etc.
And the holidays are almost upon us! Making the usual attempt at a little holiday get-together of my high school band friends, we'll see how many come. Things are looking good so far. Other than that, and Christmas, I have no real holiday plans. One of Forrest's friends may or may not be throwing some sort of New Year's thing, but I'll probably forego that even if I'm invited, as I don't do well in large gatherings of people I mostly don't know. Mostly I'm looking forward to Wade's return; got some new shows and movies to watch with him, and it'll be nice to just hang out.
Well that's about all I can think of right now. Till next time, I suppose.
Posted by Kevin Carruth on 2006-11-28 @ 14:41:48
The last two weekends have been exhausting. First, it was down to GA for my cousin's wedding, which to be honest pretty much sucked till the very end. I had to stay at my grandmother's house and it was just me, my parents, and her. Talk about boredom. No internet, no computers, a small TV that's as old as the house (at least 15 years). She had cable, but the TV was so old/small that it was hard to see anything. Then there was the wedding itself, which had me in a suit that's just a hair too small and thus rather uncomfortable. Finally after the wedding I got to see some of my cousins with whom I actually get along, and that was fun. Unfortunately that was short lived as my dad's back was hurting him, so we had to go back to granny's house.
Then last weekend we drove up to Massachussetts to see Wade. Why did we drive up there instead of him driving down here, you ask? Well he thought he'd have too much homework to spend two of his 4 days off driving, then try to spend time with the family. So instead we drove up there, planning for him to do his homework while we were on the road. Well, turns out he got a break on the homework front, and all he had to do was a lesson plan that would take him, by his own estimation, 10 minutes. Such is life. Anyway the drive sucked, but otherwise it was fun. Played the Camelot board game a lot, played Playstation a lot, and watched Arrested Development a lot. And the big news:
I saw Casino Royale.
It was awesome. Honestly I think it may be the best Bond movie ever made. Anyone who's talked to me about James Bond knows I think Dalton was the best Bond, and GoldenEye (with Brosnan) was the best movie. Well this movie has erased both those opinions. Daniel Craig is fucking awesome, and once the intro is out of the way, it was literally like watching the book but on screen. They changed the game from baccarat to Texas hold-em, made the bad guy a Terrorist financier instead of a KGB agent, and slightly tweaked the ending, but all are acceptable changes. They even kept the torture scene in, albeit with a rope as the instrument of pain instead of a wooden fan. Really the ending changes were the ones that most bugged me, but I'll say no more to avoid spoiling anything.
So yeah, definitely go see this one. Finally they went with a serious spy thriller instead of a gadget filled one-liner fest, and it works wonderfully. I just hope whatever comes next sticks with it. I believe this is the highest grossing Bond film ever, so hopefully they'll see it worked.
Now I'm back and glad to be home. Got some furniture delivered today, so now I finally have my coffee table downstairs, and a bedframe so I can get my matresses off the floor. Ordered the parts for a new computer last night, which hopefully will be here Thursday or Friday. Gonna try to get a legal copy of Windows for it, and probably put Linux on the others.
The next thing I want to buy is a new monitor; specifically, the 30" Dell Widescreen. Man that thing looks sweet. The $1500 price tag is a bit daunting though. I think I'll wait till Christmas so hopefully I'll get a small influx of cash to offset it. Who knows, maybe it'll go on sale too!
Anyhow, I'd better get back to work. I want finish this one task by Wednesday's meeting, and I haven't gotten much done with it today.