5:55am [PST; GMT -08:00], 29 Mar. 2002 [Friday]; Post #154:
On Wednesday night, Hanwool and I started an Alpha Centauri game at 10:00pm over at his house (I brought Shirley and two 17" monitors). We played it and CS and Q3 and AVP2 until about 5:30am. Then I went home and tried to stay up the rest of the day, but I fell asleep at 10:00am (I'd been up 23 hours, after all). Well, my sleeping pattern got knocked out of whack, so I stayed up all night again so I can go full-circle (another 23-hour waking period and I'll be on a normal sleeping pattern again). Anyway. I spent some of last night reading this piece of zombie-fiction at homepageofthedead.com (whose main site, BTW, crashes IE6 on my system about 50% of the time). Speaking of zombies, I bought Day of the Dead (DVD; out-of-print today) from a guy in Australia on eBay. Got it for $21.50 plus shipping, which is a really good price (compared to Amazon's listed price of $89). The 1887 PBeM game is in a bit of a lull right now while PCs get ready for the big ritual at the Woodville house, but I'm having fun. Slashdot had a link to this really neat case-mod. I took the picture below about twenty minutes ago. Good morning!

1:08pm [PST; GMT -08:00], 27 Mar. 2002 [Wednesday]; Post #153:
I really like my DVD-R drive, but I've only purchased three DVD-Rs (media) to date. They're very expensive... but they're becoming more cost-efficient than CD-Rs: price per meg for DVD-Rs is about 4.13 cents; CD-Rs are about 4.77 cents per meg (using CD-Recordable.com for prices). I saw this guide on how to copy DVDs on a Geocities site, but I'm going to try Nero's built-in tools first. New PA today.

9:21pm [PST; GMT -08:00], 26 Mar. 2002 [Tuesday]; Post #152:
After countless (well, 2) ignored e-mails to the creators of Penny Arcade (Gabe and Tycho / Krahulik and Holkins) I finally received a reply. Gabe wrote this [1.20 kB TXT] back to me. It's not much, but it is pretty funny and it shows that one of them actually took the time to read something I wrote. I really like Penny Arcade. I'd probably buy anything they sold. Heck, I'm even thinking of donating. There's a place for this kind of disease, you know.

4:44pm [PST; GMT -08:00], 24 Mar. 2002 [Sunday]; Post #151:
Okay, quick summary of the last four days: Thursday: nothing interesting. Friday: Got Hanwool at 11:00am, played some Alpha Centauri, Justin came, then Phil, then CrazyJew. Played Q3. A lot. Ate. Drank soda. Played CS. Alex came. Played Q3. Ppl left. Hanwool, Phil and I played AC. Slept. Saturday: Phil came back. Played Q3. Played Parsec [freeware, here]. Phil left. Slept. Woke up, went to Hanwool's. Phil, Justin, Hanwool, and I played Witch Trial. Went to Blade II (not very good, IMHO). Came back to Hanwool's, played more Witch Trial. Came home. Set up new e-mail acct. (problems). Slept. Sunday: Got up, watched Invader Zim. Messed with new e-mail acct. (still broken). Did website stuff. Go here to see the pictures from the LAN Party.

11:15pm [PST; GMT -08:00], 20 Mar. 2002 [Wednesday]; Post #150:
Well, I installed the 80 mm Cooler Master case fan in Shirley. The plasma cutter worked great! Much better than my last fan-hole-making experience with the jigsaw (on Chesty LaRue). Really dropped the CPU temperature too; it seems to max out at 109 F under load. As always, I've got a picture (below). At 8:00pm, I bought a 'Logitech Marble Mouse Optical Trackball' on eBay. I wanted to learn how to use a trackball... I understand that they're a lot more efficient once you get used to them (give you more control, reduce wrist stress, etc.). Greg (the GM in my 1887 PBeM game) hasn't responded to my post from the 18th -- I sent a message to Emily Smirle (she's a Canadian, you know) asking if the same thing happened to her (since she also has a character in the game). It did; she said it was probably a "temporary upset."

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11:29am [PST; GMT -08:00], 20 Mar. 2002 [Wednesday]; Post #149:
I'm going to take a plasma-cutter to my Codegen case today (80 mm fan hole). I saw this funny post on TweakXP.com (thumb below). Here's the best line: "I was finding the 2 fans in the window to be really annoying every time I removed the side panel. So yesterday I cut the wires and now those fans are just for show." lol -- 'just for show.' That's priceless. A guy starting up an ISP offered me a job today. Let you know what happens. Virtual Keyboard.

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10:30pm [PST; GMT -08:00], 19 Mar. 2002 [Tuesday]; Post #148:
Here's the results of my stock picks: MFNX down 13.04% to $0.08; CCEQ up 22.35% to $1.04; ASTM up 1.22% to $0.749; GME down 3.11% to $18.70. Hm... 1 out of 4; not so good. DGJL, OTOH, which I actually own, is now up 48.1% since I bought it. Anyway, I just got back from Justin's house -- we installed his new NIC and 60 GB hard drive. He has a lot of weird, gory action figures in his room. It's a bit unnerving. And ask him about his sound scheme sometime... feh. Only 3 days to the LAN party now.

10:22pm [PST; GMT -08:00], 18 Mar. 2002 [Monday]; Post #147:
Saw this neat thing on Yahoo that lets you make your Oscar picks and scores you on it when they are made. Mine are right here. Okay, I have a Criminal Law final tomorrow.

9:01pm [PST; GMT -08:00], 18 Mar. 2002 [Monday]; Post #146:
I think I've got a system for picking stocks, but it only works for a short period (e.g. one week). OTOH, the ROI is usually 10% or more. I'm still testing it, of course. Here're my picks for tomorrow (listed with their current price): MFNX ($0.09/sh.), CCEQ ($0.85/sh.), and ASTM ($0.74/sh.). By Tuesday's close, I think they'll all be up at least 8% (tho I'm a bit shaky on Aastrom Biosciences Inc.). I'm also watching Gamestop Corporation (GME); they closed at $19.30. I'll post the results of these picks tomorrow. BTW, DGJL is up 33% now since I bought it.

1:29am [PST; GMT -08:00], 16 Mar. 2002 [Saturday]; Post #145:
Got back from Resident Evil and am watching the very end of Conan. Resident Evil is very scary. Zombies, zombies, monsters, zombies, and computers and guns and zombies. Good movie, but like I told Justin & Phillip, it takes about three years off your life. Conan was really good; they had a segment where he visited China and Andy Richter was on. Oh, we played Tile Chess and Justin actually won. We're having a GURPS game tomorrow (er, today). We'll probably be picking up the Upsidaisium game, but I told Justin to bring all his characters. My 1887 PBeM game is going well... Jignesh (my character) is investigating mysterious magic circles found in the cellar of the Woodville house. Elsewhere, I've been doing stuff with my Ameritrade portfolio. I used the $700 we sent them to buy 15 shares of Pfizer. I had $137 left over, so I bought 100 shares of a penny stock (DGJL) trading at 54 cents/share. Ironically, it's the most profitable stock I have right now in terms of ROI% (20.4%!). There's a snapshot of my portfolio below.

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6:10pm [PST; GMT -08:00], 15 Mar. 2002 [Friday]; Post #144:
I got my 16-port switch from Directron and my 200' CAT5 cable from King Lee in Honolulu. Both work well. Justin, me, and maybe Phillip, are going to go see the 9:55pm showing of Resident Evil tonight (I invited CrazyJew, but he's going bowling with a friend who's in town). Justin wants to play Tile Chess before we go, so we're meeting here at 8:00pm. Directron hasn't sent me the fan stuff I ordered at the same time as the switch. Odd. It's an 80 mm fan, screws, power converter, and grill which I'm going to install in Shirley. She runs too hot right now (~53 C under load). Took some pictures for my parent's friend, Corey. She's doing a report for school on veterinary stuff. Downloaded a bunch of music videos... A-Ha's Take On Me, TLC's No Scrubs, Basement Jaxx's Where's Your Head At, and more. Today's MP3: Rockapella - Pachelbel Cannon. Very good a-cappella piece. Hey, I just purchased my ticket for Resident Evil at Fandango.com.