Well folks my lappy just wasnt cutting it anymore and the monitor went out so i decided to build a new gaming pc

Specs:

Intel Core2 Quad Q6600 (2.4 ghz for now)

EVGA 8800 GTS (G92-512 Mb)

4 Gb G Skill Ram

EVGA nForce 780i A1 Motherboard

150 Gb Western Digital Raptor Hard Drive

500 Gb Western Digital Hard Drive

Lite On 20x DVD Recorder

950 Watt Rosewill Power Supply

Antec 900 Case

Logitech G11 keyboard and G9 mouse

Pics:

All parts getting ready to be installed

The case looks so lonely and empty but not for long

Much better, 780i motherboard, Q6600 with Zalman CNPS9700 Heat Sink and Fan

G Skill Ram

A beast of a graphics card...Runs Crysis on high settings!

Everythings loaded up

The ugly mess of hidden cables

All finished!

The set-up

There it is. I decided to name it The Dark Knight not necissarily because I like Batman but just because it sounds BA

What do you think?

Ok so my sister just graduated from high school and for a graduation gift my grandparents got her a laptop for college...we got it this week while she was off at camp for a week and i was messing around with it before bed getting it loaded with the programs she uses and removing all the crap that comes on a new computer.  Its an hp laptop with vista home premium so it has many of the cool features like the aero theme and all that cool visual stuff, but other than that im not too impressed with vista...heres why...

1)  Its annoying...ok so you know those apple commercials where the guy who is the mac is talking to the nerdy guy who is the pc and the pc has this bodyguard looking guy who asks him to cancel or allow pretty much anything...yeah thats really how it is.  even deleting a shortcut took two confirmations...first to see if i was sure i wanted to delete it and then to another one to "allow" it to be deleted.  and when i was installing itunes so she could put all her ipod music and stuff on her computer it must have asked me 4 or 5 different times if i wanted that program to be allowed to install itself...i know you can probably disable that somehow but its just ridiculous that is that way in the first place.  I know its probably on there for complete computer idiots but i think they've taken it way too far.

2)  Its un-intuitive...one thing i really dont like compared to previous versions of windows (95-xp) is the start menu...instead of things poping out to the side like you're used to, things just  open in the menu and the icons are small...also each folder is clicked on to show the next level kinda like when you explore a folder in xp and it has the folder list on the left side of the window...its kinda hard to explain but the point is its not near as easy as 95-xp start menu.  i didnt get to look a whole lot but from what i saw there was no way to change this without making the start menu look like windows 98 which isnt aestecly pleasing compared to vista stuff.

3)  This is more of a gripe at all computer manufacturers...all that "usefull" software that comes on a new computer is the worst thing ever!  not only are the programs crap, but they are a pain to uninstall and remove all their little pieces that are left behind...this isnt a big deal to my sister because shes no computer wiz or anything, but to anyone with even a mediocre amount of computer skills who wont ever use those programs its an annoyance...oh and whats with computer companies not giving people an operating system cd anymore?  they leave "recovery" stuff on a harddrive partition so if you get into a problem the computer can be restored to factory settings with all the crap software on it again...we pay for the operating system, so why cant we get a cd with just the operating system on it so we can reformat and have a clean operating system install with none of the useless crap...hers had the option of creating restoration disks but they do the same thing as the stuff on the harddrive partition...once vlite (a program that can customize your windows cd) gets a few more things added and worked out im probably going to make her a custom vista cd with all the crap removed...i did it for my computer with nlite (google it if you're interested) and removed over a gig of useless stuff that was on my windows cd and i set it up so that the installation process required no user imput and even was able to add my printer drivers and a couple programs like firefox and 7-zip to the installation.

On the subject of program compatability, i didnt run into any problems but i didnt install too many programs...firefox, itunes, aim were all compatable which are what she mainly uses, and i also put photoshop 7.0 on it and it works fine...i wish i would have had more time to try and put a couple of my games on there to see if they were compatable but i didnt so im not sure about all that stuff.

anyways I will be sticking with xp on my computer for quite a while, as long as they keep putting out games that would normally be pc only on xbox 360 as well ill have no reason to upgrade to vista so i wont...besides i did some modding so my computer looks pretty much like vista minus the cool transparency stuff that the aero theme has but oh well.  do any of you guys have vista and what are your thoughts on it? 

So i had a few minutes before work and i decided that a new banner was needed so i made this one really quick...of course its themed after one of the greatest games of all time: half life 2. do you like?

Well folks i finally got to try out my new skis.  Me and two buddies went up to Denver last weekend and skied two days in Winter Park.  It was like 50 degrees and so it was pretty hot and the snow got pretty slushy in the afternoons but overall it was pretty fun.  Switching from snowblades (99 cm) to my skiis (161 cm) was kinda weird at first and after i got used to them i began to like them more than the snowblades.  Heres some photos...


Catching some air...


Sunburned faces arent fun...


We're on top of the world...

Thats all for now...what did you guys do for spring break?

Well my friends I have just spent some money...and instead of spending it on computer or xbox 360 games i have purchased some skiing gear. I go at least 1 or 2 times a year so im thinking it will save a lot of money over time.

Im buying a friends 2004 Salomon 1080's which look like this...the ones on the right


Those arent the actual ones but you get the idea.

Then I was thinking, "im going to need some boots to go with my new skis." so i looked online for a good deal and found these boots...

So they should be arriving in the mail today... as for poles ill probably just look for some cheap ones at a ski shop when i go home for spring break. So now im all set for my ski trip to winter park over spring break!

Well i saw that a lot of people were making new banners so i though i would too because my last one was way too plain....what do you guys think?