It's been awhile since I last posted here. The new laptop has had it's ups and downs, mainly lots of BSODs with Vista. Haven't had one since the end of January though. School finished up ok last semester, wish I had gotten a little higher grades in a couple of classes. This semester is going pretty well though, it's just loaded with more work even though I'm taking fewer classes. I'm finally in the home stretch too! Almost done with the first half of Senior Project, and I only need one more elective and the second half of Senior Project to finish my CS major, and a 300/400 level Math course to achieve my minor in Math.

I picked up some new hardware though, it's been two and a half years since I got my LG vx8100 cellphone, and I finally decided to retire it for something new. I picked up a Motorola RIZR Z6tv and am pretty happy with it so far. Only problem I get is that I can hear myself through it, not a big gripe but it maybe the tv chip in it from Verizon. Also grabbed a Motorola HT820 stereo headset and a Bluetooth module for the laptop so I can use it as my main set of headphones. Still have yet to try it for a call though. I've also gotten some custom ringtones on the Z6tv that I made even though Verizon only lets you have custom tones by buying them :D. Now that I know how to do it I need to think of more ringtones to make!

I haven't been able to game pretty much lately cause of all the work for my classes, but I did get about 30 hours in on Crisis Core: FFVII since it came out. I have all the summons/characters and most of them I have achieved completion. I'm still playing around with missions and the materia fusion to get some really powerful materia with nice attributes.

-Until next time,

TheTailDragger

So I got my new laptop a few days ago, and OMG it is awesome!!! :D I played Half-Life 2 and it plays so smooth! FPS never drops below 30 and sits around 50-70..with everything on high and 2x AA/AF. I even did the stress test on Lost Coast even though it said my cpu was too slow, and it had an average of 78 fps! Also, my 3DMark06 score with 163.44 drivers was 3371! More then what other people are getting with overclocking and I'm at stock clocks. I also picked up F.E.A.R. today and it is so awesome! I have most of the settings on high and it runs real smooth! I don't know what my fps is but it's very playable. Now I need to save my pennies so I can get stuff like BioShock and Supreme Commander.

-Until next time,

TheTailDragger

So my estimated shipping date for my new laptop was yesterday. I got an email from Dell saying that it's been pushed back a month! :o So I wasn't too happy about that, and had been thinking of canceling it. Before I could go talk to a CSR though, I passed out from exhaustion last night. This morning I woke up and thought, well maybe it will ship earlier then that, and I would be patient for at least a couple of weeks. They updated the order page sometime last night to the new ship date. Then after being up for a couple of hours, I called the automated order status, and my order is in the boxing stage! Hopefully though it doesn't sit in the factory for a month before they ship it though. :roll: So now I should only have to wait 5-8 business days to get it.

Until next time,

-TheTailDragger

So after having this Pentium 4 Dell laptop for three years, I am finally able to replace it. Even though I didn't go with another Dell, I couldn't beat the $325 off for it. It's a Inspiron 1520 w/ a Core 2 Duo T7300 (2.0Ghz, 4MB Cache, 800Mhz FSB), 2GB DDR2 @ 667Mhz, nVidia GeForce 8600 GT w/ 256MB, only an 80GB 5400RPM HD though, I've been working with a 40GB for more than 3 years now and double the space will be nice. A few times I've had to uninstall some of my games to make room for another. But the biggest thing now is, I can get some new games!! All the new stuff can't be run on this machine, and the SpeedStep on this Pentium 4 is all messed up. I've never been able to turn it off, so whenever I play online or anything newer then like Half-Life then the CPU keeps switching between two speeds and @$%@ it all up. Plus the thing runs hot. This will be a nice computer for my dad though. It will give him something to learn on at home, since the only computer he has access to normally is at work otherwise. I've also had to teach him a lot of things, and since the OS on this thing and his at work are pretty much the same (XP Home here, XP Pro at work) he shouldn't have any problems, and if he does have problems, he'll just call me :P. I won't get the new machine until like the second week of September, so I can't wait!

Until next time,

-TheTailDragger

The holidays are over at last! As much as I like spending time with my family, I hate shopping for them. I have no clue what to get them. But at least they are over for now.

Made it through my first semester at the four year university. Passed all my courses but gotta retake one. The spring semester will start in about a week. I really need a job but my class scedule really won't allow for one.

Until next time,
-TheTailDragger

So on April 16th, I became an uncle. My brother and his wife had a cute baby boy. I spent most of the night at the hospital with them, and only left to crash at his place for a couple of hours.

School has also been hard. I'm behind in Physics, which I really don't care for anyway. Everything else is going OK, still have another program to code, and another small project for Stats. Finals are coming up in a couple of weeks, and I cannot wait for them. This summer I will be taking Linear Algebra and Chemistry to help me with my transfer to a different college in the fall.

As for games, not too much new. Updated my PSP from 2.6 to 2.7 and snagged the Loco Roco demo. Love it, almost had a perfect but the spiky thing at the end got me :x. Oh well, will have to try again later. I also won Capcom Classics Collection Remixed from answering trivia from On The Spot, woohoo GameSpot you rock!

Until next time,
-TheTailDragger

Well I've been real busy for the last two months. Have to get a bunch of stuff done so I can transfer from one college to the other. Also I will turn 21 soon so there is a lot I have to do to make sure I have things like health insurance and whatnot.

Everything at school has been going fine except Physics is kicking  my ass. Gald I am not going to be a physicist! Have to figure out if I can take a second semester of Chemistry for my transfer or not, will have to see when I get to that point.

Only new addition to my gaming arsenal has been Red Orchestra, Lumines and Prophecy of Ro. Still waiting on Walmart to process my order for Me and My Katamari, might have to send them an email or something. For my birthday though my girlfriend is going to either get Exit or Daxter, or maybe even both if she feels like splurging.

Haven't been able to play too much either, just raid every night on EverQuest and maybe play Lumines for 30 minutes or so every once in awhile. My guild in EverQuest made it to Txevu, but we haven't done much since lately not as many have shown up to raid. Not much has been happening otherwise.

Until next time,
-TheTailDragger

Well we finally got some other guys to work for the hours that opened at the lab, and since they don't have the key to the cabinet I have been opening it for them.

Caclulus has been pretty easy, and so is Statistics, but damn, the stats class is boooooooooooring. Physics has been OK so far. It sometimes is hard to understand what the author wants to get across though. Computer Science is cool though, learning how to use new things like pointers and recursion is pretty fun.

Also planned my visit with my girlfriend this summer, so I can't wait for that.

-Until next time.

TheTailDragger

Well school has started and the lab is officially open, so my schedule during the day is quite full. At the moment Calculus III seems easy enough and Statistics too. Physics has been in the middle though, with some weird wording that confuses me at times. Computer Science II, well haven't had that enough to say if it's hard or easy at the moment but I'll see soon enough.

One of the lab workers was unable to work this semester so the superviser had to scramble to get another. Well he got another, but the head of the department came to him today and said that he was ineligible to work, so there goes that :roll:. So i picked up an extra hour because of that and am up to 15 a week.

EverQuest had a big fiasco last Wednesday when they put up Beta merchants on all the live servers. sony tracked all the players that interacted with them and all the players that interacted with the players that used the merchants. all those players got rolled back (luckily not me but a few of my friends did :(). Since the rollbacks, Sony did make this weekend double experience all the time which was nice. Was able to get my Iksar Monk from 67 to 69(almost 70, might be able to get that done soon).

Until next time,
-TheTailDragger

Woot! Finally got my grades.

• Dreamweaver - A
• Computer Science I - A
• Microeconomics - B
• History of Religion - B
• Calculus II - C

So now I just get to chill for a month. Next semester starts Jan. 17th.

Will get to see my uncle and a bunch of cousins a few days after Christmas and I can't wait.

Until next time,

-TheTailDragger