To The Metal

When the heck did power supplies for computers get so expensive?

My video card was acting up while playing WoW, since it is the kind that requires a connection to the PSU, I wagered a guess that the PSU was finally reaching its end of life. I felt around the back, and the fan really wasn’t moving much air – and the air it was moving was pretty hot.

I gave it a quick clean with the canned air, but there wasn’t any improvement. So I headed over to the manufacturer’s website to get the output specs so I could check them with my voltmeter… Turns out they were all outside the specs (not good).

It was late on a Friday, so my only guess for where I could get a new one was Best Buy… I checked and the options that came up were $140 and $160. My jaw dropped. I’ve spent – at most – $50-$60 for my PSU’s in the past (haven’t had to buy one for about 6 years now). I did some more looking on the site and found a good one for about $100 from Thermaltake. I usually prefer ANTEC, but I wasn’t spending $160 on the thing.

Picked it up, dusted and cleaned the entire machine, swapped it in – and the video card is working like a champ again… Still can’t get over the price though.

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For the past 13 years which I have driven local roads, I’ve had the unfortunate experience of striking an animal while driving more than once. I’ll admit it, I’ve hit cats, dogs, deer, and other creatures and it kills me every time it happens. Each time, I stop, I call the Police – I do the right thing.

Driving home from the gym tonight, I was behind a big bad Ford Explorer who was in such a rush… that when they hit the deer in front of me, cartwheeling it across the road into a heap on the side – kept driving. Oh, he knew what he did, he flashed his high beams on for a moment to make sure his precious lights still worked… but kept going.

So I called the police. Turns out that if you strike an animal, it is up to the driver to call them and report it. They don’t have to stop. I don’t understand how in God’s name anyone can do such a thing. It doesn’t make sense to me, it simply does not compute. The best the police could do is send an officer out to put it down if it was suffering. That’s it.

I know that deer can be a nuisance… But for God’s sake have some human decency and make sure it isn’t suffering!

So last night I’m ready for it, I’m going to go buy the latest WoW expansion pack, “Wrath of The Lich King” at midnight at my local 24 hour Walmart. So I throw in disc 1 of Smallville season 1, and figure I’ll head out at around 11:30.

2am I wake up to the theme song from Smallville looping, and go to bed.

I’m getting old.

Now my self-hating Liberal cohorts might say this is a GOOD idea, as now that we have an inbound Democrat majority, peace on Earth has broken out and all of our problems can again be solved by government without question.

Participate In Federally-Funded Road Survey, Make $895

So here’s the deal, the federal highway fund is losing money left and right because you evil Americans finally wised up and realized that maybe a Ford Excursion isn’t the best commuter vehicle. Their solution? A per mile tax. That’s right, you drive a mile, you pay the Fed.

How shall they implement this? GPS vehicle tracking. Think you’re beating the system in that Prius? Think again. Even if they DID pull this off, I doubt it’d affect the tax on fuel, as history has shown that the Fed generally never eliminates a tax, but when it cuts one – the states, counties, and localities usually jack up their taxes to compensate.

I believe the best solution would be to privatize the highway system, eliminate the fuel tax, and stop this onslaught of 1984esque BS. The economy is in the crapper. Americans are watching their money closer now than ever before. Take advantage of the strong dollar, the ever lowering cost of fuel, and cut the shackles off the American highway.

There isn’t a single thing the government does now, short of national defense and law enfarcement, that cannot be done better and more efficiently by private industry.

Sarah Palin Leaker Outs Himself

This post is mainly for the people who still think that Palin said she could see Russia from her house… or didn’t know that Africa was a continent. You know, proud Obama voters like the turds who gave me no end of grief on MySpace and Facebook for speaking my mind and not volunteering to support the President-Select, chosen by the mainstream media.

Honestly, McCain winning was a longshot to begin with, but jerkoffs like Eisenstadt who didn’t recognize that McCain was the drag, and that they shouldn’t depend on the media were contributing reasons that McCain lost the election.

I’d almost expect the mainstream to embrace this guy and make him a celebrity, but all he’s done with this crap is prove he can’t be trusted at all – by anyone.

Teen charged with lewd act

Obama Lied About Firing Anti-Israel Adviser

Now that he’s got the job, I’m certain he will become even more brazen.

Rejoined Gamefly last week, and I’ve already gotten my first turkey. Now this game looked cool, the concept being that in the late 30’s, Winston Churchill, the man who stood alone and took no end of crap for warning us all in advance of the Nazi threat – was hit by a taxi in NYC, and instead of surviving to unite the world against a common enemy – died.

Standing on a skyscraper in construction, you see the waves upon waves of German bombers and battleships assault NYC around you. You steal a weapon from a German paratrooper, escape the skyscraper, and kill a few more on your way towards the guerilla resistance.

Like I said, really neat idea. It falls flat afterwards and becomes a ‘dime a dozen’ FPS. The controls are confusing and do not conform to any typical formats for any FPS I’ve dealt with in recent history. The HUD notifications are very subtle, which left me roaming a single underground room for 45 minutes until it finally activated an elevator. Gunfire is fairly accurate, however it doesn’t help when I need to rely on an empty MP50 with a flashlight to see where I’m going, or that the enemies are only visible by two tiny little glowing eyes.

Seriously, a flashlight? Didn’t anyone hear of Doom 3? BAD IDEA. Also, the checkpoints are far too spaced out. After running through the same mission 8 times, only to reset back to where I was 20 minutes ago, I finally gave up and put it back in the mail to Gamefly.

The graphics and sound effects are fine, and some of the imagery of NYC in ruins is breathtaking, but beyond that – not really worth investing the time.